I think Monique is 1000% right and this is an issue that is indicative of Black feminism vs White feminism (the MeToo Movement) and how race and racial valuation and devaluation clouds the issue of gender inequality for women of color....and at the same time I think Lenard....Charlemagne The God is right too in his assertions about data, numbers, etc.. (I’m referring to the breakfast Club Interview as well as her View appearance.)
The problem is they're both right. Monique and her husband are in an uphill battle that has few victors on the mountain (Tyler Perry Oprah, Russell Simmons, Jay Z) who have both the money, fame, audience and distribution networks to move an entertainment entity. What is happening now is as we edge our chairs closer and closer to the tables of power, the table gets nervous and the bias is more striking.
Before the argument was: "You're not at the table, Moms Mabley/Whoopi Goldberg, so you get a check---now go home."
I watched the View interview as well and again Monique was 1000% right.....and so was Whoopi. We think there's a singular, stark, black or white truth. But in an abstract like business, people bring in their own truths, including the company, like Netflix. The assumption of Netflix, like CTG keeps pointing out, is hard data. They're looking at this all through a spreadsheet. I'm sure many of the Netflix executives aren't rabid fans of the deals/artists they sign but they are numbers crunchers.
( I say this from having been in negotiations with a service known as http://Vessel.com, created by a former Hulu executive, that was scooping up content creators with the promise of post there first then onto your YouTube channel and they would give you a cut of the subscription fee, $3.99/4.99 a subscriber per month and hits/clicks fee. I ran into the same Monique issue---I've got book sales, blog/Quora hits, a TV show with hundreds of thousands of views a week for 8 years now BUT the Vessel negotiation hinged on---your YouTube views are how we measure this, not by the literally, MILLIONS of other "hits/views" you have elsewhere. Eventually we put the negotiations on hold and within that time Vessel fizzled out as a service and was bought up by Verizon.)
Offering Monique 1/26 of a White woman? Insulting. And it was a bad move to offer it to someone who is active in both social media and a form of personal activism to be able to speak out, well, articulately and concisely about the games, brinksmanship and false positive measurements of words, titles, numbers, money, etc.. She's got an Oscar, and would be giving up $2 million for 2 years to get the $500,000?
I could see if Gabourey Sidibe was getting the offer directly after not winning the Oscar, then you say Look, Gabby, this is your shot to start a slow burn on a NEW career.
But Monique not only won but had a big career beforehand---stand up specials, a five year sitcom, a talk show of a couple hundred episodes, touring. You start the negotiations out with can you show us what your deals would be equivalent to that we'd need you to end/cut? Ok, $2 million. Ok, how about $4 million, $5, $6 million.
That would've been a respectable space for her resume, her fame, her awards, her money loss potential and to fit her along the lines of Amy Schumer’s $13 million, and Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock at $20 million a piece, in saying hey, you're like them in the same field but you're a hybrid. If they had turned that down then it could be more ego related. It has not helped Netflix that Wanda Sykes revealed she was offered $250,000 for a special. I mean what does a Black woman have to do to get a reasonable offer, have a hit movie the day of the negotiation meeting? I understand being responsible with corporate funds and pay scales but come on this stinks of gender AND racial bias.
Monique and her husband are right; people never side with the first ones who call systemic bs out especially in large systems where people's money and livelihoods are invested. Never forget 93% of Black Churches would NOT host Martin Luther King Jr . until AFTER the Civil Rights Act was passed because they felt it was too pie in the sky, would upset White people, would upset Black people, etc.. The vanguard is never the liked one....initially.
Because she and her husband possess both poise, articulation, a level of class and they know their numbers backwards and forwards , people then latch onto their little playful nicknames for each other, their cultural and personal style.....I thought Monique nailed it hard when she talked about being a big Black woman (in a skinny mini industry) and how she's suppose to act and not act. I also thought her calling CTG out for referring to her as a donkey, suggests that perhaps the whole context of referring to people, especially animalizing Black people is problematic especially when they're speaking up for themselves in unfair situations.
I think the Breakfast Club, part of and sustained by the Entertainment System, like many employees plays one face to the bosses (public's face) and another in private conversations that might be not intentionally duplicitous but go along to get along, do today to get pay tomorrow and people are rarely called out, so publicly, in their own space, so classily as Monique did about not just the issue, but how they refer to people as donkeys (even yes, I understand, it's in kidding) and how a System of inequality doesn't change and isn't supported by just the "evil doers".
Lots of people helped the Weinstein's and Cosby's (where'd he get all the pills from? How do you even get a prescription for Qualudes past 1970 without an ethical doctor having questions?)
Lots of the people that help these inequality and corrupt and biased systems stand are paid by them. So if I'm paying you a million dollars you might shut up when I pay someone half that because you know the chairs could switch at someone else’s whim.
What’s happening now is people of color, minorities, and women are now occupying and demanding positions of power and able to negotiate, whereas before we just had to accept and go along. Yet the double standard of how we should act---I'm sure many of the people whom I think are fabulous and act and sing and perform and do things wonderfully have contracts and riders and demands and snit fits and have had several folk fired and aren't nice in the early AM and on and on---because people of color are HUMAN.
Which is what this is really, human equality, getting down to as an overall issue.
ADDENDUM: And then it got juicier at the end of the interview!
Beautiful! We can't preach solidarity on one hand and for the sake of ratings and fame and money and drama be pejorative to people, especially a self possessed, accomplished Black woman. I would say this is also indicative of how young men his age backhand treat women =, particularly Black women of his mother's age. Her points and delivery were classy and on point and even if she was insane as a bedbug, I was still raised that I don't donkey on my elders. I might disagree with them, I might even recognize that we're both right or both wrong at the same time but I don't cut my people for some more pie in the Fame Bakery.
However what will happen, because she and her husband are carrying themselves well---another issue---when people of color are intelligent, articulate, versed in a domain of business---different levels of Black people don't know how to react to that because we don't see that often enough. We don't have enough access to see how it's different, a different kind of racism and bias in corporate boardrooms because so much of our culture is shown on TV in reality drama and foolery and not Shark Tank and The Profit and other business based specials---so we think it's simplistically "I want more!" when in fact it's about asserting one's value in a business domain and qualifying that I know I'm not at that specific level but I'm not less than this level either. This is what Whitney Young was fighting for BEHIND the Civil Rights Movement protests when he went into rooms with leading White businessmen before the Act was passed and was asserting that we needed not simply rights but education to be at the Table, to understand there's a Table and the ability to valuate ourselves by what those at the Table valuated themselves at. There is a reason why it's called OWN and Oprah OWNS her work and therefore has greater sway and freedom, not much, but somewhat. It's slightly lesser so for Tyler Perry but he's comparable to Jay Z, as they own and control portions of their work but lack full control over distribution systems. The sale of BET to Viacom (which Oprah owns a part of) removed a potential home for real Black business in the entertainment industry because it had to cater to a broad demographic of Black people. But what Mo'Nique is talking about in her last swipe at Leonard is we sacrifice each other, particularly women of color to unspeakable indignities and then want to be friendly and hug up on them AFTER the assault. She's challenging him, that if he's going to be a loudmouth, you have to be one of not only intelligence about how the business works but also of integrity and conviction because more Black women have taken the assault for Black men than vice versa.
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