84 years after Hattie McDaniel, the Oscars still put Black women in a box

As the countdown to the 96th Academy Awards winds to an end, little suspense hovers over who will win the Oscar for supporting actress. First, the good news: Barring a huge upset, Da’Vine Joy Randolph — nominated for her poignant performance in “The Holdovers” as Mary Lamb, the head cook at an elite New England boarding school — is headed for the winners circle, continuing a streak that so far has included a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award and an Indie Spirit award. To date, only 10 Black actresses have won an Oscar, and Halle Berry remains the only one to have triumphed in the lead category, for her role in 2001’s “Monster’s Ball.” And it was through McDaniel, who made history in 1940 as the first Black performer to win an Oscar for her portrayal as Mammy, the house slave in “Gone With the Wind,” that the academy established its pattern: awarding Black female performers almost exclusively in supporting roles, many of them in literal or figurative service to the white characters around them. Ethel Waters in 1949 became the second Black performer to score an Oscar nomination as an illiterate Southern laundress in “Pinky.” Juanita Moore played a maid catering to actress Lora Meredith in 1959’s “Imitation of Life.” Alfre Woodard played a maid to columnist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in 1983’s “Cross Creek.” There have been exceptions, of course, such as Jennifer Hudson, who won for playing cast-off singer Effie White in 2006’s “Dreamgirls,” or Viola Davis, who won for her turn as the matriarch of a Black family in midcentury Pittsburgh in the 2016 adaptation of August Wilson’s “Fences.” And, thankfully, the tempo with which Black women are nominated for and win Oscars, whatever the role, is increasing. It also needs to recognize a broader, more empowered array of work from Black women — films like “The Woman King” and “Till,” two of the awards’ most controversial recent snubs.