Bubblecar said:

Divine Angel said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

of Hattie McDaniel, the first black woman to be awarded an Oscar (for performance in Gone With the Wind), and how she could not attend the award ceremony, because she was black:

“It’s worth mentioning that the movie features a performance by the first ever black woman to win an Oscar, Hattie McDaniel. Watching it, it was easy to see why. She plays a three dimensional character with lots of screen time, and was given latitude to display more complexity and internality than was typically afforded to black women in Hollywood films of that era. At the time she won the award, the Oscars were segregated, and she was shamefully forbidden from attending the premiere. That speaks to the fact that the film, albeit racist, was somewhat ahead of its time.

I can’t remember if it was her or James Baskett (the first Black male to be awarded an Oscar, and the last adult to win an honorary Oscar) who also had to stay in a separate hotel because of their race. Might have been both.

Janes Baskett was awarded the Oscar for his portrayal of Uncle Remus in Disney’s Song of the South. He got to award in 1948, but the ceremony hasn’t changed much since Hattie won.

And his performance was in a film now regarded as so racist that Disney keeps it in the vault.

The filmed version is less racist than the original, according to Who’s Afraid of the Song of the South? And other forbidden Disney stories by Jim Korkis.