Yesterday, thanks to the following clip from Mo’nique’s new talk show on BET, Roommate Joe and I had an online chat about Mo’nique’s apparent antipathy toward campaigning for an Oscar for Precious.

This led to a spirited conversation that touched on everything from my iPod to Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds perfume.

Please enjoy (and join) our conversation!

Mark: Fascinating about Mo’Nique. It makes me want her to win even more.

Joe: She’s just riding the edge of off-putting, for me.

Mark: I don’t know. I didn’t see the video. I just read the transcript. Did you actually watch it?

Joe: I did

Mark: Because in reading it, I feel like she kinds of comes across as someone who doesn’t understand why she should have to campaign for an Oscar if she doesn’t want to. Which is true. There’s no obligation.

Joe: That is true. But they also have no obligation to just hand you a trophy either. It feels like she’s campaigning by not campaigning. Which: more power to her.

Mark: Has she indicated that she thinks they ARE obliged to do so?

Joe: In my opinion, she kind of has.

Mark: Interesting. You get that from this video?

Joe: A little bit. Which isn’t even my problem.

It feels a bit disingenuous. If she doesn’t want to campaign… fine. But to assemble Taraji and Terrence so they can essentially tell her why she should lower herself to campaign? Is off-putting. To me. Care or don’t care.

Mark: Ah… I see.
I thought they were guests for some other reason.

Joe: They were… but not really

Mark: Yeah, okay. I see your point. Like… if you really don’t care about Oscar campaigns, that’s fine. But then don’t sit around with your Oscar nommed buddies and talk about how much you don’t care.

Joe: Right. Sean Penn never campaigned for his movies (until 2003…when he won.) She’s still great, but three months of this will be a bit much.

Mark: Truché.

(Note: “Truché” is a portmanteau that Joe and I coined. It is a combination of “true” and “touché.”)

Mark: And now I’m thinking this… An artist only gets to become an anti-Oscar iconoclast when other people make it so. We have to decide that’s what you are. You can’t tell us. Because if you tell us, it isn’t real.

Joe: If you care enough to make a big show about not caring, then you care a LOT.

Mark: It’s all a conscious effort to make us connect you to the Oscars. Whereas when Paul Newman got nominated for The Road to Perdition, he just didn’t give a fuck. He had salsa to make. But yes… back to Mo’nique.

Joe: Weirdly, I LOVE that Mo’nique secretly cares so much.

Mark: I kind of love her entire public persona of “I don’t know what the fuck the rules are, but I’m in the game anyway. And I got here without learning the rules, so fuck you. I’m not learning them now. Yes, I will be late to the interview. Yes, I will say I can’t eat an Oscar. But also… please give Joe an Oscar.” It’s like she gets to be this crass, lovable rebel while also being part of the machine.

Joe: Right

Mark: This conversation is clarifying some things for me. Because truly, I do want her to win more than ever now. But now I better understand why.

Joe: Heh.

Mark: Because really, Mo’nique winning, despite acting like this, would make up for all the Hilary Swank good-girling of the last ten years. Or at least, a lot of it. It’s like how I desperately want Bob Mackie to dress someone again. The Oscar storyline is just much more interesting if people don’t play by the rules.

Joe: See, whereas I don’t care about good-girling or bad-girling, so long as it’s genuine.

Mark: Fair enough. Mo’nique still seems genuine enough to me. Not fully, but enough.

Joe: Sure

Mark: But shit, even if it’s all fake, it’s still entertaining.

Ooh! Important point!

As you know, I am a long-time follower of Mo’nique’s.

Joe: Yes

Mark: And here’s the thing: She never, ever comes across as someone who isn’t entertaining her audience. Even at her most endearing, you can tell she’s on stage. So maybe this Oscar thing, where there is a pressure to be genuine (or at least seem it), is totally shorting her circuits.

Joe: That’s a smart point

Mark: Thanks! I’m wondering now if her rebel pose is the way she’s entertaining us. As in, “My fans don’t need me to cry on the podium. They need me to be funny.” Maybe not, but it’s a theory I enjoy.

Joe: Watch the video at some point. You’ll fall in love with Taraji anew.

Mark: Even more? Is that possible?

Joe: I didn’t think so either. And yet.

Mark: Sidebar: At the gym on Sunday, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” shuffled up on my iPod.

Joe: Timely!

Mark: I know!

Joe: OMG
Mark…

Mark: Yes?

Joe: They are STILL airing the White Diamonds ad on TV.

Mark: These have always brought ME luck!

Joe: That ad is twenty years old if it’s a day

Mark: Somewhere, there’s some recently-retired SAG actor who’s going to get a residual check for this ad.

Joe: Yes!

Mark: I guarantee you that the guy who played the shady poker dealer has bought himself a casino with the residuals off of that commercial.

Note: After watching this video, I realized Joe was right. I do love Taraji P. Henson even more than I did before. Oh my god. Can she be my best friend? She found Malaysian hair!