Halle Berry, the first and only African American actress to win an Oscar for Best Actress, has finally went on the record about her feelings concerning the Academy Awards and the lack of any person of color being among the nominees. The scandal has ballooned to one of the worst in Academy history. Boycotts have been threatened. Spike Lee, Will Smith and wife Jada Pinkett Smith have publicly stated they won't be attending. Diversity has been promised for the future . So how does the woman who won a history making Best Actress Award award for Monster's Ball in 2001 feel about the whole issue? Well, she just calls it 'heartbreaking'.
According to ABCNews, Halle Berry had these comments about winning, "Honestly, that win almost 15 years ago was iconic. It was important to me, but I had the knowing in the moment that it was bigger than me. I believed that in that moment, that when I said 'The door tonight has been opened',I believed that with every bone in my body that this was going to incite change because this door,this barrier, had been broken. To sit here almost 15 years later, and knowing that another women of color has not walked through that door is heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking, because I thought that moment was bigger than me. It's heartbreaking to start to think maybe it wasn't bigger than me. Maybe it wasn't. And I so desperately felt like it was".
Further commenting about Hollywood and the general state of film and filmmaking as a craft Halle Berry had these observations to make according to Deadline "It's about truth telling. And as filmmakers and as actors, we have a responsibility to tell the truth. And the films, I think, that are coming out of Hollywood aren't truthful. These days they're not really depicting the importance and the involvement and the paticipation of people of color in our American culture".
In her famous acceptance speech at the Oscars Halle Berry cited past and present actresses to try to put the whole win in perspective. She wanted to make clear that she was a part of the film community as were all actors of any color. That is what this whole thing has been about because color shouldn't make a difference.
