Los Angeles: Despite missing out on the Oscar for best supporting actress at last weekend’s Oscars, “The Color Purple” star Danielle Brooks and her castmates secured a significant win at the 55th NAACP Image Awards on Saturday, clinching the award for outstanding motion picture.
Speaking on the red carpet, Brooks expressed her gratitude to the NAACP awards for recognizing the “The Color Purple” team with multiple nominations, emphasizing the importance of representation. “If nobody gonna see us, I’m glad that our people see us,” she remarked, addressing the film’s previous lack of recognition throughout the 2024 awards season.
While strides have been made in Hollywood to diversify talent and narratives since the #OscarsSoWhite uproar in 2015, progress in leveling the playing field remains uneven. Most notably, indigenous actor Lily Gladstone, despite being a frontrunner, lost out to Emma Stone for the best actress Oscar, despite clinching the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for her role in “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
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The NAACP Image Awards, organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, stand as premier entertainment honors spotlighting Black actors. Alongside Brooks, fellow cast members Fantasia Barrino and Taraji P. Henson also celebrated wins, with Barrino earning outstanding actress and Henson securing outstanding supporting actress for their roles in the musical adaptation of the 1985 classic.
These landmark victories mark a shift from the initial controversy surrounding the 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel, which was criticized by various Black-led organizations, including the NAACP, for its portrayal of Black men. Despite the original film’s eleven Oscar nominations, it failed to secure a win. Similarly, the 2023 musical adaptation helmed by Ghanaian filmmaker Blitz Bazawule also missed out on major accolades at Hollywood’s most prestigious event.
Additional Image Award recipients included poet and activist Amanda Gorman, honored with the chairman award, R&B sensation Usher, named entertainer of the year, and “Rustin” actor Colman Domingo, who claimed the outstanding actor award.
For many Black actors, this year’s nominations served as a beacon of inspiration for the future. As Danielle Pinnock, actor from “Ghosts”, reflected, “We would not be able to play all these roles without all the people that paved the way for us, you know?”
