Spoke Too Soon… 2009's First Awards Smear Campaign
Leave it to the film critics… you know, the ones who don’t really care about celebrity or the ego around it… to be the ones to launch the first serous smear campaign of the season.
Or maybe we should just put this one at the feet of Oscar-ass-hologist, Tom O’Neill and whatever member of NYFCC started taking swipes, under a cowardly veil of anonymity, at Mo’Nique for not choosing to attend the NYFCC dinner next month.
Why did NYFCC decide to do a dinner in NY, four days before BFCA, LAFCA, and HFPA in consecutive nights in LA? I don’t know. Why did they move the dinner from Sunday nights to work week Monday nights last year? I don’t know.
And I don’t know whether Mo’Nique’s (boy, am I about done indulging that spelling flourish!) excuses are true or lies. What do I know about why she makes the decision she makes? But the answer to this question is utterly irrelevant.
You don’t give a present with the expectation of getting something back… not if you are a sincere gift giver.
Truth is, if Monique skipped out on The Golden Globes, it would cause real talk amongst the Oscar voters, who would then be considering their final vote. But NYFCC is a private event and the only way it could hurt Monique’s Oscar chances would be if some smug jerk made a big deal of it and it got picked up by others as a serious issue.
One more thing. NYFCC and NBR give their awards on consecutive nights. Amazingly, this year, there is just one crossover winner between the two… George Clooney… who is the co-winner at NBR with Morgan Freeman. So the trips to NY will be less a matter of efficiency than they often are.
The 30 or so people being awarded by one of the two groups will all have to be on the west coast three days after these two awards dinner in order to get more awards. So they are either being highly inconvenienced by Monday and Tuesday events preceding and Friday event… or they are simply clearing their calendars for more than a full week to run the awards gamut. (This is why BFCA is always close to The Golden Globes and LAFCA somewhere close to those events.)
If Monique is actually taping her show that week, I don’t find it in any way offensive that she isn’t going out of her way to change her shooting dates… especially if she is on a short week, having to leave Atlanta by noon or so in order to get to LA for BFCA.
She is not “one of us.” She is Black. She lives in Atlanta. She is a comic. What kind of arrogance demands that she acts like “us” and makes coming to graciously bow at the feet of NYFCC (or any group awarding her performance) her top priority?
Heck, she could skip BFCA and LAFCA too and not really have a problem. But skipping The Globea would have impact. And skipping more than one “major” event would become a trend story (what O’Neill is trying to do, prematurely… trend of one) and only then would it become a real problem for her Oscar chances.
Er, David: Before you start tossing around words like “arrogance,” I think you should consider this: You have just decided that you don’t like the way an African-American woman chooses to spell her name, and you’ve chosen to spell it the way you want. Unless you can point to a case where you made a similar decision involving a white person, I’d say you’ve just revealed something rather unpleasant about yourself.
I am all for Saoirse Ronan changing the spelling of her name to “Sirsha Ronin
I for one don’t like to refer to Brook Busey by her stripper-gimmick name “Diablo Cody.”
Of all the stupid things you have tried to beat me over the head with, Joe – and of course, not adding a single real idea other than “Bad David” to the discussion – this is probably the most stupid.
It’s a stage name… not “the way an African-American woman chooses to spell her name.”
I call Phillip Seymour Hoffman “Phil” all the time. I suggested that it become a trend so he no longer has to be credited all the time by a stage name that was likely used only in response to AEA or AFTRA or SAG having another Phil or Phillip Hoffman on the rosters.
Demi Moore decided she was Dem-ee yesrs after she was already famous.
Seriously, man… weak. Exceedingly weak.
And all the more offensive as an ass-headed attempt to paint me as racially insensitive. You really as a nasty piece of work sometime… very Finke-ian. (Not Wells-ian. His rage is never held so cheaply.) You must be beaming because you think getting slapped makes you important. Pathetic.
I stand by my accusation.
PS. I guess that makes yours the second smear campaign.
Again, I stand by my accusation.
Joe,
I am sure Dave neither needs nor wants my defense…but you can’t possibly be this PC.
Really?
LOLOLOLO joe stfu please. J’o;E variety is a joke and gets mentioned only on entourage which is a shell of its former self much like your employer.
The spelling of the name is just annoying, nothing racial about it.
I hate the name McG, too – does that mean I’m being insensitive to the Irish?
As a person of African descent, cant say that I saw any racism here Joe. (Not that I’ve been elected the official black spokesman or something.) Lets not reach the point where everything is scrutinized and sanitized to offend no one. And another thing, if Mo (apostrophe) Nique cant take a little joke about her grammatical appendage, then she’s in the wrong business.
“Again, I stand by my accusation.”
Then, since you’re there, could you tap it on the shoulder and ask it “What the fuck…?” for me?
LMAO @ Joe. Hey Joey, get on over to Wells’ site so you can have a heart attack at his Monique attacks. Christ, life really is too short. Team DP on this one 100%
All of this reminds of that Denis Leary bit about the singer Sade. Classic idiocy.
OK, folks: Let’s settle this the easy way. David, you’re a member of BFCA, right? And you’re attending their awards ceremony, right? Fine. While you’re there, go up to Mo’Nique and ask her what she thinks: Does a white guy who makes a snarky remark about the way she spells her name, and then deliberately misspells it, qualify, in her view, as a racist. Seriously, David: Go ahead and ask her. If she says no, I’ll STFU. If she says yes, you’ll SFTU. (Of course, I’ll expect you to tape this dialog — sorry, I won’t accept your report.) And if she punches your lights out, well, that’s your problem.
Joe, with the angle that such an action as a punch in the face over a name is entirely within the realm of possibility, I’d say you’ve just revealed something rather unpleasant about yourself.
Tofu: And what precisely might that be? I mean, other than my awareness — based, for better or worse, on first-hand observation — that some people respond harshly to what they might view as an insult?
If I may be pedantic for a second:
David didn’t deliberately misspell her name. He mispunctuated it.
Also, since her birth name is in fact Monique Imes, it’s not even really mispunctuation.
i’m with Dave. The name spelling thing, if you feel like inserting additional punctuation, fantastic. if not, who cares.
t reminds me of when prince was using a symbol for a name. you can be as ridiculous as you want but expect a few people to roll their eyes.
And Joe, i love you man. But the whole insertion of ‘african american’ into the argument is rather ridiculous. You can call something ridiculous within a certain community and not be a racist because you don’t identify a cross cultural equivilent.
It reminds me of a joke i was told by a black comedian about black women naming their kids after cars, perfumes, or mispelled adjectives.
If you go to Atlanta these days, you meet a lot of girls named “Eunique”. Is it wrong that i giggle when i hear that? If it wrong because i don’t point out that i met a white girl named “Rubee”?
Fuck this p.c. nonsense. There’s nothing wrong with Mo’nique spelling her name like that. There’s nothing wrong with Dave pointing out the silliness of it.
Now, can’t we debate something more meaningful, like the awfulness of the writing on Avatar?
This is one of those times I agree with DP. If you think your goal in life is to hover over David Poland looking for reasons to call him names, then congratulations, you’re truly making the most of your life (golf clap).
I’ve had my share of exasperation when I think DP’s being unclear or sloppy, but at least that’s substantive. Stuff like this is pretty childish.
Joe is just jealous of DP Yes, her birth name is Monique and that’s how I spell it. Oh, did I forget to mention that my name is Fran**k99000liN?
Just to make sure that I have right: we aren’t going to talk about the smear campaign, the events or even the award process. Rather, we will just go back and forth about how to spell the name of one potential candidate.
AH – Welcome to the wonderful world of blogs. 😉
Joe will buy David a bottle of Cutty and we’ll all go back to work.
Jimmy: It’ll have to wait until Monday. If I were back in New Orleans, I could buy a bottle of Cutty today in a drug store. Hell, I could buy it in a frickin’ grocery store. But on Sunday in Houston…
Who fuckin’ cares about her name when the performance is as good as it is? These NYFCC people should be ashamed of themselves if they truly think she’s being greedy or whatever. Reward the performance, not your own greedy need to be known by someone famous.