Last night Mo’nique won best actress at the Golden Globes for her performance in the controversial movie Precious. In her role as what I have only heard described as monsterous, evil, heartless and downright repugnant, Mo’nique plays “mother” to young Precious, a poor, overweight, undereducated, loved starved and forgotten young girl who becomes pregnant by her father. I can’t comment on her performance or if it was truly worthy of praise lauded from a dramatic standpoint, I won’t see the movie, but I am familiar with characters from the book the movie is based on that has left me with this question.

Is Mo’nique’s win a dream come true, where women and men of color are being recognized for the content in the characters they play or a continuing nightmare where we are only celebrated for the stereotypical images that hollywood wants to see us in? Poor, Pathetic, Sadistic, Stupid, Lazy, Ignorant…lower than an animal as even they protect their young.

Personally, I am happy for Mo’nique and the win she took home. I am sure last night was a dream she never thought would come true at times, and I want to take nothing from that, but I am wondering on this MLK holiday if her win last night is a signal of true progress or just that we have reached the top of the wrong mountaintop?

Ok…so the show was already in production when THE most visible and well known member of their family died suddenly…meaning I won’t go directly to an accusation of using their brothers death as tool to feed the most attention starved, left behind, siblings ever to live on the face of the earth…but it didn’t hurt did it? Did anyone else have Leftovers this week?

The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty premiered this past weekend with re-runs being shown regularly, in case you missed it and have a thing for train wrecks. You know the old guys that go to clubs and bars and hit on young girls, you feel a mix of anger and pity all at the same time for them? Well…four of them just showed up.

I know reality shows are the place where “has beens” and “never beens” go to…live die, but this show is more tragic than Tito in that signature hat glove. It was like watching a group of wounded animals fight over the last piece of rancid meat. Hasn’t their mother suffered enough? Haven’t we?

I’m sure life had to be hard for these brothers, they possibly all have some sort of entertainment talent in them, don’t we all? And to live in the shadow of not one… but two.. of the most extraordinary artists in history, well that had to be quite a challenge. Being ordinary isn’t so easy either. However, it is beyond rare that any family can produce two mega stars…other than the Osmonds, who else has there been in music? Listen up Solange Knowles!

It’s not unfair and it’s not a failure, some members get the proverbial “short straw”. Most accept it, see a shrink, find something else gratifying to do with their life, while being happy and proud for their star siblings. Many even move on to happy lives, appreciating what they can have that their star sibling can’t, like privacy. Dare I say they even become the refuge and touchstone that grounds the star, that anchors them in some instances. Well it didn’t happen for Baby Jane and it it certainly didn’t happen for Michael Jackson.

It appears the Jackson Brothers feel entitled to be famous. Wonder where they got that idea? Papa Joe is that you again? These four are so thirsty to be validated as part of something important that they would exploit their famous sibling(s) for just a little bit of attention from anyone. A Family Dynasty, eh? The family only has/had two dynamic members and they are the only reason any of them are relevant. Sorry Rebbie, I still love you for the Centipede though.

Jermaine, the apparent band leader and everyones favorite claymation correspondent from Neverland Ranch during Michael’s memorial, said in an interview, “that the show doesn’t seek to capitalize on Michael’s death. They started working on it long before he passed away. But now, with Michael gone, it serves as a way for fans to see what life is like without him”. Fans…whose fans? His? Are you guys what Michael’s “fans” are left with? I thought it wasn’t about “capitalizing” on him?

Sorry Gumby, I’m not buying it…You were seeking to exploit him, period. Life or death. His state only provides for varied content. At least now you don’t have to worry about his tour or him outshining you… yet AGAIN. You can use him until everyone loses interest…and they will, no matter how many times you sing ABC. Your brother and sister are the biggest cash cows in the entertainment industry, are we to believe you think A&E gave you a show because of the music video you did with Iman in the 80’s? If you think it’s not about using Michael, then maybe all that hair cement you use has sunk into your brain.

Michael truly has gone to the only place where he can have some peace, it’s tough when you’re not safe anywhere. When your family will pimp you dead or alive. I found myself horrified to think that perhaps in some sick way…Michael’s death was the best marketing his brothers could hope for. What a PR blitz for a show that was likely to end up like next to the Hogan’s on a dusty shelf in TV Never Ever Should’ve Been Land!

It’s only been a year…so is it really time to do a documentary about the election of Barack Obama when we have yet to see the CHANGE that’s coming?! As well all know, real change takes time and didn’t it take Captain Ahab much longer than a mere 12mo to capture the big white wale?

Well HBO thinks it’s time and in a very “wag the dogesque” fashion they are releasing BY THE PEOPLE: THE ELECTION OF BARACK OBAMA which is a moving document of the Obama campaign’s road to the White House. Along with “campaign drama” there is never-before-seen footage of Obama behind the scenes, including interviews and candid moments with wife Michelle Obama, the couple’s young daughters, Malia and Sasha, and senior campaign staff, volunteers, reporters, supporters and opponents….how precious.

Enough already!! What’s with the Vanity Fair layouts, David Letterman, Town and Country write ups and the whole Camelot thing. Now HBO wants to do a documentary about…his “history making odyssey”? Turning Obama into a rock-star with these behind the music type shows isn’t helping turn this country around, in fact history has proven we could be walking a delicate line…Does the phrase bigger they are harder they fall sound familiar or under promise and over deliver?

I’m sick of bad news. This morning I decided to take a break and to try and find something light and funny to share. There isn’t anything! Even comedy is morose and humiliating or just plain stupid.

I found a woman who let a duck attack her baby for food on a comedy station…that constitutes funny? I get circulated emails from time to time of people who want to send me jpegs titled “Ghetto Wedding” or “Trailer Park Prom” and I assume it’s meant as a joke and not some cultural commentary on the state of the US brain trust. Either way… not funny.

There are the easy jokes to take at politicians who cheat on their wives, but perhaps because I know what it feels like I don’t find that funny either. So a weeping Mark Sanford gets a pass on funny.

Where can a girl get a good laugh?

Maybe Bruno? Sasha Cohen’s new movie took top box office slot and I must admit that there were a few moments in Borat where I cracked a smile…but laugh out loud until I cried funny? No luck there. Has real comedy died or just buried under piles of youtube video?

I would love for someone to send me something that is actually funny. The criteria being as follows:

1. Doesn’t make fun of someone’s recent pain
2. Doesn’t involve bodily injury to self, children, or animals
3. Should be somewhat intelligent ( by intelligent I mean no bathroom noises)

If any of you know where I can get a dose of that I would appreciate it, otherwise it’s back to talking about Michael Jackson’s alleged murder and that’s not a laughing matter!

Well this week is off to a roar…

There is a lottery to attend Michael Jackson’s funeral at the Staples Center tomorrow, and for those of you that are not one of the 1.6 million in the running for a ticket, you can watch it televised live on CNN starting at 6am. I hope this is the last of it. I want my news back…Honduran President, Iran, the serial killer in South Carolina…Is anyone else tired of hearing/seeing Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson blasting the media for talking about the less favorable sides of Mike?

Why is it when someone dies, we walk on eggshells? When my uncle died everyone struggled at his funeral to step around his “questionable” aspects? It was a somewhat silent ceremony and it was irritating? He was a liar and lacked character and being dead didn’t change that. What’s so wrong in saying so? Which brings me to my next topic…

Former Tennessee Titan Steve McNair was fatally shot this weekend in a Nashville Condo. The 36yr old married, father of four and his 20yr old “girl-friend” were found Saturday, him with multiple gunshot wounds and her with one shot in her head, gun by her side…details are still coming in so I will wait to speculate. HOWEVER…If we find that he was he was lying, cheating etc… what will we say about him then I wonder? He was a great football player, skilled at his craft and we can/should revere that but that doesn’t speak to the man he was. Often we are quick to make great talent and great character the same…and that is so far from reality it’s untrue. I wonder how we will respond as this story unfolds before us over the next few days…

Finally, in other news…former DC Mayor Marion “the B***h set me up” Barry was arrested on Saturday night and charged with “stalking” a woman. Basehead Barry says the charges are “baseless”. This is going to be a long week!

So with all the talk this past week of Fathers Day, what it means to be a dad, and the importance of men’s role in young women’s lives, it would seem that Morgan Freeman has taken to his “Granddaddy Promise” like a duck to water… like Woody Allen to Soon Yi… like…ok you get it right?  What would Ed Gordon and his group of daddy deliverers say about this? Morgan is about to get his purity ball card revoked! Morgan, Morgan, Morgan… sit on Granddaddy’s lap doesn’t typically include a “lap dance”!

It is alleged, by way of Morgan’s soon to be ex-wife Myrna, that he has gone the way of Woody Allen and been having an affair with his much younger “step-granddaughter”. Noted… step-granddaughter, not blood and so now I ask does that make a difference? Currently, embroiled in a bitter divorce, is Myrna Freeman just being spiteful or is this a case of  “it” all coming out in the wash?  Although not wholly proven, I feel the saying “where there is smoke… there is fire “ being all to appropriate. 

Even if true, does it really matter? Today E’dena Hines is 27, and it seems that their relationship could simply be viewed as no more than a case of a younger woman and an older man, a tale as old as time. Does the fact that he was once her grandfather (by marriage) and had a supposed hand in raising her change everything?  Will you look at him differently? 

In terms of Hollyweird actors, Morgan is one of my favorites and this one is personally very tough for me to figure out how I feel about it.  Read the story below, one of many from various news sites, all telling the same story, and tell us what you think….Morgan…Morgan…Morgan

To read latimes story please click here…

In a rather shocking revelation, it has emerged that Morgan Freeman allegedly had a decade-long affair with his step-granddaughter E’Dena Hines.

The 72-year-old actor has been embroiled in a bitter divorce battle with wife of 25 years, Myrna Colley-Lee. And it was Myrna and Morgan who raised E’Dena Hines—the granddaughter of Morgan’s first wife, Jeanette Adair Bradshaw.

“Myrna said E’dena told her that when she was a teenager, she and Morgan went to dinner at a friend’s house one evening. Both had been drinking and when they returned home Morgan attempted to have sex with her. They stopped just short of having intercourse,” The Los Angeles Times quoted a close family insider as telling The Enquirer.

Although Myrna confronted Morgan about the incident, but the clandestine romance continued and escalated. In fact, E’Dena has been Morgan’s escort to several Hollywood events, including the premiere of The Dark Knight.

First purity balls and now…”Daddy’s Promise”? I won’t let the fact that I continue to find this kind of father daughter intimacy building a bit Freudian, sway me from considering what seems to be a popular trend building with men looking to really connect. I think it’s just the huge swing from one extreme to the next that seems odd to me but hey what do I know? Maybe this is a good thing…maybe?

Award-winning journalist, former BET Anchor and single dad Ed Gordon is devoted to fostering and strengthening relationships between daughters and their fathers, and that is what inspired him to launch Daddy’s Promise, his nonprofit organization that’s focused on teaching girls and men how to build and nurture relationships with each other.

Last Sunday, in New York City, the group held its his first annual Father/Daughter Dance. More than 500 fathers and their daughters filled New York Hilton hotel for a “special day” of bonding. Also on hand to celebrate their fathers were actress Vivica A. Fox and “The View” co-host Sherri Shepherd, who both brought their father’s along.

“It was far more than we could have ever hoped for to watch all those men promising a lifetime of love to their daughters,” says Gordon, whose daughter, Taylor, was on hand to help out and spend some time with her dad. “I’m not a sentimental guy, but it was truly a mushy moment to watch men become emotional with tears of joy. This goes beyond a father and daughter relationship, but about what that relationship teaches our daughters about how they should be treated by boys and as they get older, the men they will interact with. Again, it was a wonderful evening.”

Still not sure I get the “Promise”…Promise to be there if you have a bad relationship?? What is Daddy’s promise? Never to leave his “little girl”…”young woman” forever until death does he part? In sickness and in health, forsaking all others…oh sorry. That’s another promise. Does he need to keep one before he can be capable of keeping another or how does this work exactly? I get going to the prom with dad and I get him gazing affectionately at his little girl, and “bonding” to her but what’s his real promise? To show her how a real man should treat her? Promises. Promises. The construction worker on my block said he’d do the same thing for me last week, instead of giving him the finger from now on I will just no thanks ” My daddy covered that already”…

Last week we went round and round over Spike vs. Madea and the images portrayed in their work. Is Tyler Perry harmful? What are the “true” images of Black American’s? Is there a general cultural yardstick or are the dimensions so unique that a bevy of voices (which aren’t there) need to be around so that we all feel included?

Well just in time for Father’s Day there is “another brother” who is hitting the screen with a different, albeit “mainstream” image that I wonder if we, as in the collective we, will go see? Eddie Murphy stars in “Imagine That”, a film about a busy dad who can’t seem to make time for his daughter until…he discovers she has magic powers that can actually help him. Sound familiar? Sounds like my dating life.

Listen up little girls…this is a glimpse of what marriage will be like so take copious notes now. Oh sorry, had a moment…

Anyway, in terms of cultural biases, I would say this flick is pretty intentionally neutral. You’re not suppose to see a “black man” your supposed to see a father…any father of any race. Isn’t that the real goal? Racial Neutrality? With all this black and forth over Spike and Madea, I ask if were all missing the point. Is it about the good/bad racial images or is it about the fact there shouldn’t be exaggerated identification at all?

I pose the question to you and I ask if you’re at all interested in seeing Mr. Murphy’s new movie or does it not feel “black enough”? p.s. I actually cringed when I wrote that last line….

Well… I will refrain from my personal opinion on this matter, because why fan the flames, but Spike Lee calling out Tyler Perry films and comparing his characters to those in “minstrel shows”…all I have to say is if the soft shoe fits!!

If you missed the, “no holds barred”, interview Spike Lee gave Ed Gordon on this past weekend’s “Our World with Black Enterprise,” below are some of the highlights! (How often do any of you catch this show?)

Is Madea’s smash success a thorn in Spike’s side or does the popular image of us shucking and jiving need to be put to rest once ad for all?

Highlights Courtesy of Eurweb

We’ve had this discussion back and forth. When John Singleton [made Boyz in the Hood], people came out to see it. But when he did Rosewood, nobody showed up. So a lot of this is on us! You vote with your pocketbook, your wallet. You vote with your time sitting in front of the idiot box, and [Tyler Perry] has a huge audience. We shouldn’t think that Tyler Perry is going to make the same film that I am going to make, or that John Singleton or my cousin Malcolm Lee [would make]. As African Americans, we’re not one monolithic group so there is room for all of that. But at the same time, for me, the imaging is troubling and it harkens back to Amos n’ Andy.

Why is this Madonna adoption turning into such a big ordeal? I can see it being big news in the Malawi Daily News, but yesterday I found myself engaged in a debate with a relative stranger over African adoptions. Huh? Who could ever be against such a thing? It appears plenty of people. Baffling I know. However, I say if Madonna, Brangelina or Mia Farrow want to adopt a child from Africa…bless them! 

There is always complaining,  complaining when no one pays attention AND complaining when someone actually does and takes action. Madonna, and anyone else who wants to pull children out of orphanages and hospitals and give them a life most of us can only dream about, please be my guest. Heck, adopt me, I won’t put up a fuss. 

Who are these evil anti-adoptionists? Well they are the same people, I suspect, who say things like, “why would you go over there when there are children here?” Does it really matter where one saves a child? What kind of sicko differentiates when a babies life is at stake?  

When I hear ludicrous claims that children like little Mercy in this instance, or Madonna’s son David, who is also from Malawi, are being robbed of their culture and heritage, their lives reduced to being mere accessories for rich over-indulged celebrities, I say…and the point is what exactly?? These children are orphans in Malawi…seriously, Malawi. Look at the AIDS statistics, mortality rate and poverty and then tell me how any child’s life is better by staying put vs living a life where every opportunity, luxury and advantage is there for them? It’s like debating if this little girl should live or die. 

What is there to debate? Give the woman the baby and let’s keep it moving…end of story.