Thank you for this history. I knew Ms. McDaniel won the award, in a time of rigid segregation. I was astonished when I learned that. How weird to be honored with the award, yet not be allowed to sit in the white audience. The South tries to hold onto its racist history even now, almost a hundred years after this ceremony. And despite Civil Rights laws and de-segregation. What a truly sad and ignorant disgrace, that we still have to fight for all people's belonging to humanity.
So true, Rain. I detected a lot of respect in that room. But that we ever had anywhere people excluded because of their color. And as you said, the attitude still exists. You might like this. When I was growing up, there was a bar in town that had a sign that said “Women allowed but not wanted.” Can you imagine!?
Another of Ms McDaniels roles is in the 1944 weepie "Since You Went Away." It's one of my favorites, and one that I watch every year at Christmas, because the last scenes are on Christmas Eve and I need an excuse to bawl my eyes out. 😂 McDaniel plays Fidelia, the stalwart housekeeper of the Hilton family, whose paterfamilias has enlisted and gone off to war. Claudette Colbert plays Mrs Hilton, and the two daughters of the family are played by Jennifer Jones and a teenage Shirley Temple in one of the few roles she had past her childhood. Joseph Cotten, Monty Woolley, and Agnes Moorehead round out the cast.
It is easy to pick apart the motivations of the screenwriter for this film. The Hiltons can't afford to keep a maid with Mr Hilton gone into the military, so Fidelia takes a job with friends of the Hiltons (whom she describes as 'lofty people uptown') but does not want to live in their house because she doesn't like the other servants. So she asks Mrs Hilton to rent her her former room in the Hilton household. Mrs Hilton, of course, will hear nothing of accepting money from Fidelia, so Fidelia tells her that she will work nights and weekends for the Hiltons in recompense for the room. Mrs Hilton, of course, will hear nothing of this, since it will be wonderful just having Fidelia in the house.
In the next scene, Fidelia is working her ass off as usual. The other scenes in the remainder of the film make It obvious that she is in the Hilton's home as a servant. The Hiltons love her, particularly the daughters who were raised by her, but her primary worth is as a maid.
Despite all this, I still love the movie, and I felt great empathy for Ms McDaniel's position when I read an interview in which she stated that she'd rather play a maid for $700 a week then be a maid for $7 a week. More power to her.
However, you must remember that I'm the girl who came home from seeing "Mary Poppins" as a child and informing my mother that the only reason Mrs Banks and her friends had time to picket and chain themselves to the prime minister's fence and so on as part of their votes for women activism, is that they had nannies and maids back home doing the shit work. 😂 I like to hope that's part of what became my ardent feminism.
I had read about that movie when I was looking up some information. I have not seen it. What a great cast! Thanks for the description. I’m going to find it.👍 Thanks again, Elaine, for taking time to comment.
Thank you for this history. I knew Ms. McDaniel won the award, in a time of rigid segregation. I was astonished when I learned that. How weird to be honored with the award, yet not be allowed to sit in the white audience. The South tries to hold onto its racist history even now, almost a hundred years after this ceremony. And despite Civil Rights laws and de-segregation. What a truly sad and ignorant disgrace, that we still have to fight for all people's belonging to humanity.
So true, Rain. I detected a lot of respect in that room. But that we ever had anywhere people excluded because of their color. And as you said, the attitude still exists. You might like this. When I was growing up, there was a bar in town that had a sign that said “Women allowed but not wanted.” Can you imagine!?
I can imagine it. Misogyny, like racism, still runs deep in these waters of ours.
Another of Ms McDaniels roles is in the 1944 weepie "Since You Went Away." It's one of my favorites, and one that I watch every year at Christmas, because the last scenes are on Christmas Eve and I need an excuse to bawl my eyes out. 😂 McDaniel plays Fidelia, the stalwart housekeeper of the Hilton family, whose paterfamilias has enlisted and gone off to war. Claudette Colbert plays Mrs Hilton, and the two daughters of the family are played by Jennifer Jones and a teenage Shirley Temple in one of the few roles she had past her childhood. Joseph Cotten, Monty Woolley, and Agnes Moorehead round out the cast.
It is easy to pick apart the motivations of the screenwriter for this film. The Hiltons can't afford to keep a maid with Mr Hilton gone into the military, so Fidelia takes a job with friends of the Hiltons (whom she describes as 'lofty people uptown') but does not want to live in their house because she doesn't like the other servants. So she asks Mrs Hilton to rent her her former room in the Hilton household. Mrs Hilton, of course, will hear nothing of accepting money from Fidelia, so Fidelia tells her that she will work nights and weekends for the Hiltons in recompense for the room. Mrs Hilton, of course, will hear nothing of this, since it will be wonderful just having Fidelia in the house.
In the next scene, Fidelia is working her ass off as usual. The other scenes in the remainder of the film make It obvious that she is in the Hilton's home as a servant. The Hiltons love her, particularly the daughters who were raised by her, but her primary worth is as a maid.
Despite all this, I still love the movie, and I felt great empathy for Ms McDaniel's position when I read an interview in which she stated that she'd rather play a maid for $700 a week then be a maid for $7 a week. More power to her.
However, you must remember that I'm the girl who came home from seeing "Mary Poppins" as a child and informing my mother that the only reason Mrs Banks and her friends had time to picket and chain themselves to the prime minister's fence and so on as part of their votes for women activism, is that they had nannies and maids back home doing the shit work. 😂 I like to hope that's part of what became my ardent feminism.
I had read about that movie when I was looking up some information. I have not seen it. What a great cast! Thanks for the description. I’m going to find it.👍 Thanks again, Elaine, for taking time to comment.