The 2002 Oscars: all that glitters isn't gold

Halle Berry, the first Black woman to be awarded an Oscar for best actress, epitomised the occasion with a tearful, emotional speech. In it she paid tribute to her white English mother who encouraged her daughter to be Black and proud.

She also paid tribute to other Black actresses such as Diahann Carroll, and Dorothy Dandridge who blazed the trail for her and others to follow. Clutching her award she proclaimed; 'This is for every nameless, faceless woman of colour who can now begin to fulfil their dreams in the cinema'.

Women have always been treated pretty shabbily by the Hollywood moguls, but the history of Black people and particularly Black women in tinsel town has been one of acute racism, and a reminder of how white America views Black Americans.

If you read some papers last week you may have believed that Halle Berry was the first Black woman to win an Oscar. She wasn't. She was however the first Black woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress. That honour for wining the first Oscar was bestowed to Hattie McDaniel in 1940 for her role in 'Gone with the Wind'.

As best supporting actress, Hattie McDaniel, like most Black people at that time, played a Black character that, not only knew her place in society, but accepted it with good grace. Her Oscar winning role was of a 'tragic servant slave', who loved her mistress more than she loved herself.

Actors such as McDaniel had little option to what they played. If you were Black and you wanted to work in films you had a choice of three roles: the likeable fool; the savage, or, the noble savage. Actually these three Hollywood stereotypes prevails one way or another right up to the present day.

For the first 50 years of Hollywood the presence of the Black face was to entertain white America: Characters such as 'Sambo', 'Rastus', and 'Stepin fetchit', would roll their eyes and buffoon around in a ridiculous manner for the amusement of others. Later in the very popular Tarzan films, Black people made up the backdrop as savages whilst the 'king of jungle', white Tarzan, supposedly brought order and goodness to Black Africa.

But it was as the noble savage that the Black man or woman could redeem themselves in a white world. The noble savage, accepted his/her inferiority, with a show of goodness and a wisdom that at times had a Christ like essence.

Think of Sparticus: the supreme slave leader played by Kirk Douglas who took on the might of the Roman Empire. Before Sparticus can lead he has to defeat the Black slave, played by the ex-pro football player Woody Strode, in a gladiatorial fight to the death. Strode's character is one of supreme strength, solemn, and thoughtful. Sparticus is no match for the Black slave, and after a brutal fight he's ready to die by his spear.

Strode's Black slave shows compassion and humility by refusing to kill Sparticus, it is also an acknowledgement that although he is stronger, wiser and more compassionate he must sacrifice himself to allow the white slave to rule. Hollywood's messages to Black America could not be clearer: 'Be good, be smart, but know your place'.

Forty years later, Ridly Scott's Oscar winning Gladiator picks up on a similar theme with the noble Black slave caring for his white friend, who will inevitably go on to lead the group. We glimpse the Black slave's intriguing past: he is knowledgeable, spiritual, and as strong as an ox, but he too knows that even as slaves the white man must rule.

So has anything really changed in Hollywood since Hatti McDaniel's day? Black actors such as double Oscar winning Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman can now choose the roles they play. And Halle Berry Oscar wining role does not, we are told, fall into the old Black stereotype. But apart from tinsel town's few exceptions, the movie moguls still refuse to challenge racist America.

The fear, therefore, is that after giving the 2002 ceremony to Black America, Hollywood will now declare its now 'business as usual'.