Halle Berry DID NOT PLAY A Prostitute!!
Halle Berry DID NOT PLAY A WHORE in Monster's Ball!! She has sex with Billy Bob Thornton. Just because a black woman sleeps with a white man doesn't make her a prostitute. That is so insulting. And her performance goes far beyond racial barriers and the infamous tryst they had. She has lost her husband and child, and is suffering. Thornton loses his son to a suicide and has to deal with his racist father. So many viewers and critics alike are displaying the same stereotypes they complain about. Did they actually WATCH Monster's Ball? Or did they just YouTube the scene where they make love on her couch??
Had this been a white couple both dealing with loss and suffering, the sex on the couch would have been OK, and in fact- celebrated for them "releasing their inner demons". But I guess because Thornton is a white southern racist who is finally learning to look past that, and that he takes her in to his home WHEN SHE GETS EVICTED- that makes her a whore. Wow.
Also her Oscar was no upset. Prior to winning the Academy Award, she had won the Screen Actors Guild award and National Board of Review (the first major critic award of the year). Sissy Spacek had been pegged the earlier frontrunner for In the Bedroom, but her previous win in 1980's Coal Miner's Daughter might have swayed voters to Berry's epic subtle brilliance.
Roger Ebert hailed Monster's Ball the best film of 2001. It's a shame more people don't appreciate that, and just see a white dude banging a black woman and thing "oh she's just a ho trying to get that money from the white bro with money."
There is so much more to the film then the 2 minute romp.