Why viola davis gets it right

White actors, she says, are afforded a vast range of roles in comparison. I still find that we only exist within certain genres. Her father was a horse trainer; her mother a maid and factory worker, as well as a civil rights campaigner fighting for welfare reform.

Aged two, Davis was with her mother at a protest outside Brown University, when she was arrested; they spent hours in a holding cell. At times Davis relied on school lunches as her only meal of the day. Looking back, she thinks she learned a lot from those gruelling early years.

I know what it means to even have half of my refrigerator full, or not to have electricity and hot water, to have a job and a pay cheque. It was ripe ground to study human behaviour.

Someone who knows how to get a job, so you can make at least minimum wage, so you can afford bus fare. Davis struggled with her confidence in the early days. When I first started acting, I would get bad stage fright and when I say bad, I mean heart palpitations. I would stop cold in rehearsal. They talk about success. Some say they want more black people telling black stories, which would be reasonable, if it were true.

I have been black a long time, and I can tell you that black folks are a persnickety lot. To get consensus, things have to be done The Right Way -- but there's no consensus on what that looks like. However, we seem to know what it is not. Story highlights Viola Davis is nominated for an Oscar; jimi izrael says she must win He says black women would like to see better roles that show them as rounded, complex He says Davis' role might be stereotypical, but she breathes life into it, makes it extraordinary izrael: Some may complain, but Davis may be opening the door wider for blacks in movies.

Viola Davis got a nod for best actress from the Academy this year for her role as Aibileen Clark in "The Help," and she must win, despite the controversy about the movie and the role she plays in it.

If you believe what you read on blogs, black women long to be represented on screens large and small as rounded, complex characters, rather than wise, downtrodden burden-bearers and hot-blooded angry sex machines. Some say they want more black people telling black stories, which would be reasonable, if it were true.

I have been black a long time, and I can tell you that black folks are a persnickety lot. To get consensus, things have to be done The Right Way -- but there's no consensus on what that looks like. However, we seem to know what it is not. Lee Daniels' "Monster's Ball" and "Precious" contained the wrong message white people saving black people and "For Colored Girls" was tainted by Tyler Perry, a gifted director and storyteller given to more commercial fare, whom some saw as the wrong messenger.

The Popes of Blackness rarely agree on anything. As a pre-teen living in abject poverty in Central Falls, R. She understands the obstacles that were placed in front of me, and she knows that I was able to achieve what I achieved only through hard work.

A lot of times people have to give you permission to enjoy your life. Andy Dick arrested in L. Adult Swim Fest thrives by blurring the line between virtual and reality. All Sections. About Us.