HOLLYWOOD, WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

Enticed by the lure of Hollywood’s sign that is nestled neatly in a hill, lording over a town of tinsel that on a dime can turn to gold. Illuminating a block of streets embedded with star’s that bare the name of the human ones that currently or once walked among us. Their name’s sparking our imagination and our ingenuity, their footprints, handprints and autographs allowing us to see if our shoe size or hand size measures up, as if to measure up means to succeed. Hollywood: A land where the unimaginable is not only conceived but created! A land where a talking mouse, a war among stars, and the concept of reality makes the common person rich! We come from all over the world seeking our fortune in the fame that dances like sugar plums in the head of a child at Christmas. We, the creative souls, come as if pulled by a magnet to metal. "In Hollywood we trust!!!" We naively buy into the dream of making the impossible possible. We pack our hopes in boxes that guarantee success. We come in search of a promised land that recognizes true talent and ambition, only to run into a glass wall or glass ceiling, that separate US from THEY. Us, the outsiders whose skin color, hair texture, gender, weight, religion, or age doesn’t conform to what THEY, the Wizard’s in Hollywood’s own version of the Wizard of Oz, believe is ideal. Like Dorothy, we are mystified by the ugliness of a place that places a value on cruelty, Hollywood with her mask off, looks more like an old dame who has spent one too many times under the knife. Her grotesque features appearing beautiful from afar are unable to hide the ugliness of actions that mimic that of a bygone era up close. Thousands answer her call with the heart that the Tin-Man lacked, the courage that the Lion craved, and the fearlessness the Scarecrow needed, ready to navigate Hollywood’s yellow brick road not knowing that those qualities alone aren’t enough to tame the lion that roars, capture the horse with wings, or climb the mountains summit. For most, the Hollywood sign is a symbol of creativity, artistic expression, an embrace of differences the assumption of equality, Martin Luther King’s dream of the content of a person’s character or in the land of make-believe, the content of someone’s imagination, as fake and phony as the old dames enhanced façade. No longer mandated to make affirmative choices to correct non-inclusive actions, the Hollywood sign is no different than Jim Crow’s line. The bygone era of two Hollywood’s existing within one state are now two Hollywood’s that exist in two separate states. Now a city whose peach trees once bore strange fruit and red clay dirt tinged with the blood of folks with skin the color of molasses, beckon those whose dreams have been trampled by Hollywood’s ideal. What Irony? Atlanta: The town that would not allow Hattie McDaniel to attend the premiere for Gone with the Wind or even be listed in the program, is now the land of opportunity for those who bear the mark of a drop or more of blood that changes fair skin to French vanilla, caramel, café au lait, cinnamon, olive, mahogany, and ebony. Plessey vs. Ferguson, Separate but equal! A slap in the face of Martin Luther King’s dream, Hattie McDaniel’s first Oscar for an African American, Bette Davis’ performance as the only white actor in an all black ensemble for African American troops, The first African American Film Director Oscar Micheaux who dared to create and distribute his film’s independently both domestically and internationally in 1919, and Clark Gable’s refusal to attend the premiere of Gone with the Wind because Hattie couldn’t. In a scene from the movie Pretty Woman a man walking in Hollywood asks “What’s your dream?” My dream is to see Hollywood embrace differences, give opportunity to the talented no matter the hue, and truly become the beacon of creativity it was meant to be because at the end of the day, fear of the unknown keeps us apart building separate worlds will not bring us together. So I ask, Hollywood: What are you afraid of? ~d-the-VIP

~d-the-VIP