Tiffany Haddish, Hollywood, and Fetishized Black Bodies
In a very controversial interview with V-103 in Atlanta, Katt Williams made some interesting comments about Tiffany Haddish and her recent success in Hollywood. Whether or not he was “hating on her” I can’t speak to, but a certain aspect of his statements stuck out and deserves to be examined.
“They like her because she wants to sleep with a white man.”
Some of our most notable Black actresses have done a scene in a movie or tv show in which they were “smutted out” by a white actor. For example, Halle Berry in Monster’s Ball, yelling “make me feel good” to the white man who executed her Black husband. Then there was Pam Grier in Coffy, being spat on and called a “nigger-bitch” while in lingerie. Or, for a more extreme example, Shanola Hampton having a threesome with her mother and a white male on Shameless. These are reoccurring examples of what Hollywood sees as normal, but its rare you’ll see someone like Scarlett Johansson do a kinky, porn-esque sex scene with a Black man, let alone win an award for it(Halle Berry didn’t win an Academy Award until her role in Monster’s Ball, and hasn’t won one since).
In a skit for the 2018 MTV Movie Awards, one of Tiffany Haddish’s jokes when referring to her love interest was “Look at that delicious, blinding, white skin”. In 2014 she appeared in a sketch for the Arsenio Hall show titled “I Married a Black Woman”, in which she berates her fictional white husband for having other Black women’s phone numbers. She’s even taken her antics to social media, recording herself as she hits on random white men in the street, requesting oral sex from them.
Whether or not you consider Haddish’s actions to be harmless, what you cannot deny is that there is an expectation for Black actresses to fawn over and be servile to white men when entering Hollywood. And there is, indeed, an audience for this. The mere fact that the show Scandal is so lauded and celebrated speaks to this reality (Kerry Washington wasn’t nominated for a Golden Globe until starring in Scandal). Because of this, some Black actresses end up almost solely starring in movies alongside white men, never seeing a problem with it(Google search results for “Zoe Saldana kiss scene” attest to this point).
Creators of the movie Hitch, starring Will Smith, thought the depiction of a Black man-white woman couple would offend audiences in America, while a Black man-Black woman couple wouldn’t sell overseas. They came to this conclusion, despite the fact that Monster’s Ball brought in $45 million at the box office, and was nominated for an Academy Award barely three years earlier. This has been the reality for Black men since they were forced upon these shores. They witnessed white men rape Black women, and were lynched if they simply walked on the same sidewalk as a white women. Now, Black actors watch white men have their way with A-list Black actresses on screen, and are told it would be offensive to viewers if depicted the other way around.
But the focus shouldn’t be put on getting Black actors to do romantic scenes with white actresses, but rather bring awareness to the plight of Black actresses. At the end of the day, this is about white consumption of Black bodies. In the entertainment world, this dates as far back to the days of Josephine Baker, who was celebrated for dancing nude in front of French audiences. A more recent example of this consumption is the relationship between Jean-Paul Goude and Grace Jones. Goude, a photographer, created a piece in which he placed Jones in a cage with a “Do Not Feed The Animal” sign. But the question is, do Black actresses see a problem with these roles? Black men like Katt Williams can only offer opinions, but the fate of the Black actress lies in the hands of Black women. It is up to them to decide whether or not there is a problem, and how it should be dealt with.
