'Melissa Harris-Perry Revisits Everything She Hates About The Help In Oscar Preview'

[MADem]

23. The woman who played her was amazing. A-maz-ing.

The performance was powerful, and when you see her interviewed in person (or if you watched the Oscars and saw the little blurbs she did as part of the 'transition pieces' in the show) it's like watching two different people. She is the sweetest, sunniest, happiest and most positive person on the face of this earth (or at least that's how she presents herself to her public), and smart as two tacks--you get the feeling she wasn't daydreaming in school.

And you know who else was compelling? Mo'nique. You will feel the hairs on your neck going straight out once she comes on screen and starts in. Mo'nique--funny, cute, smart-ass Mo'nique. Mo'nique who is always good for a laugh, who can make us scream with some of her observations. She's no where to be found in that movie. What Mo'nique brings to that screen is something serious and vicious and despairing and -- oh, I just can't tell you. She did deserve the Oscar, more than most in the past decade, because that was a journey that probably wrung it all out of her and I don't think anyone expected.

It's not a movie to watch if you're feeling a little blue, though. Or if you even think it might make you feel blue. It makes you think, certainly, but some of the things it makes you think are "Why are there so many damn assholes in this world? Why are people so mean and cruel, and why do they have to shit on people that way? Why do some people have so little, and have to fight so damn hard for what little they have?"

I think anyone who doesn't cry a little watching that film doesn't have a heart. But I don't blame anyone for not being ready to take it on--I sure wasn't when I watched it, but once you're in it, you just can't look away--you have to see it through to the end.