Gaborey Sidibe comes to mind. How did she get so popular. Yet Black women that look like Gabrielle Union are ignored? Is it because she fits the stereotype?
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sharePeople have talked about this before I think it is because white Hollywood doesn't want the attractive black women at the top. Hollywood prefers black women to be obese or heavy like Queen Latifah and Gabourey Sidibe. Sidibe I am not sure she will have a career. How many film roles can there be for a 350 black woman?
shareHow many film roles can there be for a 350 black woman?
Not a lot, but you cant ignore that there are.
You just have to be a black male to do it. (Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, Tyler Perry, etc;)
Probably. There's an image to portray to mainstream and Gabby doesn't fit it.
This 'image' goes way back even before black women were allowed to be on TV.
Ex: Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, so on and so on. Ever wonder where they came from?
"I think it is because white Hollywood doesn't want the attractive black women at the top."
pretty much
Yes - a large, powerful segment of white America is still more comfortable with certain stereotypical images of black people. TPTB in the media and entertainment industries severely limit the images of black people who have certain traits that would threaten white people's egos, or inflated sense of superiority. Therefore - if you're black and are counting on widespread recognition or acknowledgement - you learn that there is a such thing as being too beautiful, or too intelligent, or too sophisticated, etc.. There are just certain traits that white people like to think of as more of "their domain" - and if you're black and posses these traits, it is likely that you will be ignored, downgraded, or disparaged in some way.
Of course, there are exceptions - black people who have certain positive/highly-valued images who are successful, and promoted by TPTB. There are exceptions to pretty much every rule. Perhaps these exceptions exist to weaken people's argument that racism still exists - to give people's complaints less merit. The powers-that-be have a certain motive to perpetuate the false notion that racism is no longer an issue - it disarms people, and these days, not many people want to be too obvious with their supremacist agenda.
Sometimes it's ridiculous the extent to which the media will go to ignore or control the images of beautiful black women. There have been times when I've noticed that editors will chose unflattering photos of otherwise beautiful black women, or cameramen will seemingly purposefully shoot from bad angles so that a black woman's true beauty will not come through. They use a variety of "tricks" - look at the intro to VH-1's "Football Wives", for example. They chose to feature Pilar Sanders prominently, so they made her the "exception" in this case - but look at how they limit the screen-time of the other attractive black women. The other attractive black women seem to only get, like, a millisecond of face time in the opening montage compared to the other cast members. That may be a slight exaggeration, but it's only slight - there really is a difference in the quality and quantity of screen time that the other attractive black women get compared to the white women and the more "stereotypical" black woman.
Asian have it worse.
The only A-list AsAm actress would be who...Maggie Q? But give her a few years and she'll suffer the fate of Lucy Liu. Maybe Sandra Oh but even Asians hate on her b/c she's ugly. I don't think she's ugly, she's a beautiful woman and a great actress. Everyone is just used to seeing Asian woman as these "lotus blossoms" when something different come up people can see anything else.
Asian-Am males are even worse. The only lead I can think of would be the dude from the Hangover - Ken Jeong. But still he's portrayed in a negative light and and something for the other white characters to joke about.
I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy.