Monster's Ball
Directed by	Marc Forster
Produced by	Lee Daniels Entertainment, Lions Gate Films
Written by	Milo Addica, Will Rokos
Starring	Billy Bob Thornton Halle Berry Heath Ledger Peter Boyle
Music by	Asche & Spencer, The Jayhawks
Distributed by	Lions Gate Films
Release date	November 11, 2001
Running time	112 min. (Unrated Director's Cut)
Language	English
Budget	US$4,000,000
IMDb profile

Monster's Ball is a 2001 American drama/romance film. It was directed by Marc Forster and written by Milo Addica and Will Rokos. Produced by Lions Gate Films and Lee Daniels Entertainment. +A lifetime of change can happen in a single moment.

Plot summary

Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton), a widower, is employed as a prison guard. Sonny (Heath Ledger), Hank's son, works alongside his father in the family occupation. Both are unable to relate to women. Hank resides with his racist father, Buck (Peter Boyle) who is retired, sick and home-bound (and has driven his own wife to suicide). Together Hank and Sonny must assist in the execution of convicted murderer Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs), an event which has repercussions for both men. Later, Hank meets Leticia Musgrove (Halle Berry), Lawrence's widow, who has been struggling for several years to raise her son Tyrell, and to make ends meet. Eventually, with each longing for human connection in their grief, Hank and Leticia reach out for each other and unexpectedly fall in love.

Main cast

• Billy Bob Thornton … as Hank Grotowski
• Halle Berry … as Leticia Musgrove
• Heath Ledger … as Sonny Grotowski
• Peter Boyle … as Buck Grotowski
• Sean Combs … as Lawrence Musgrove
• Coronji Calhoun … as Tyrell Musgrove

The controversy within the acclaim

The film won Halle Berry the Academy Award for Best Actress despite its graphic depiction of sexual intercourse. This was a rare instance in which the Academy awarded a film with sexually explicit content.

Leticia (Berry) comes to terms with Hank (Thornton) over chocolate ice cream at the close of Monster's Ball [1].

African Americans were deeply split over Berry's winning the Award as well as actor Denzel Washington, who while consistently playing in acceptable and heroic roles, won his Oscar for playing a venal Los Angeles cop in Training Day. Some of these differences are generational, while others are based on African American cultural, political and religious mores.

On websites and blogs such as SeeingBlack.com, BET.com, and EURWEB.com — new centers for discussion on black political and cultural issues — many poured out what they felt about what was really being said in the film. Some did not even view the film, but claimed "to know" enough about what was in it to urge others to boycott it, as with Miles Willis of KPFT's (Pacifica Radio's) 'Milestones' Jazz Program, who was upset with the film's premise. His statement, which was championed by syndicated film columnist Esther Iverem, went around the Black Internet, and included observations like this: "Imagine the seething indignation that a Jewish man might feel while watching a story in which the widow of a Nazi concentration camp victim has an intimate relationship with the SS officer that shoved her husband into one of those ovens at Auschwitz!" Willis was also angered at having to "watch fine black women gettin' down with mangy, white redneck 'billybobs'." Iverem, on Salon.com, chimed later, "You have to wonder if this is what it takes for a black woman to be named best actress […] Who was the last 'best actress' who did a nude sex scene?" (Actually, it was Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love.) Iverem went on to say, "Ultimately, Monster's Ball uses the legacy of racism in an unconvincing manner to belittle its impact, and its historical and present-day consequences." Iverem maintained that scores of black men were boycotting the film, which they believed insulted, and even cuckolded them by coupling Berry with Billy Bob Thornton.

In the same Salon.com March 29, 2002 article, writer Uju Asika found on Seeing Black.com that many viewers did not believe, for example, that Berry was actually performing. Others believed that Berry had actually made love to Thornton, causing them to label her as a "whore" and a "traitor" to African Americans. Some thought that the standard for black love was going to be interracial love.

A few ambiguous stills were linked around the Internet to "prove" that the actors were having sexual intercourse.

Other African Americans, using biological determinism, suggested that a real black woman — that is, someone who was not biracial like Berry — would not authentically represent black people in this manner. Still others felt that Berry's efforts were mercenary, and did not advance the stature or the cause of African American actors in Hollywood. Actress Angela Bassett, who has long been considered a future Oscar pick, reflected black displeasure (and possibly the competitiveness among minority actresses in an already limited field) in a highly publicized Newsweek magazine interview in 2002. However, both the producer and one of the screenwriters, Milo Addica, maintained in interviews that Bassett had not been considered for the role. Still others believed that Berry had been handed the award in a political move by the Academy to deflect previous charges of racism; proponents of this belief cite that Berry won the award the same night as Denzel Washington, during a ceremony hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, and which also contained numerous references and tributes to African American stars of past and present.

However, during a Princeton University conference celebrating the film Imitation of Life in 2000, Berry indicated that she would no longer limit herself in choosing and playing roles, thus breaking a decades-long expectation among African Americans that black actresses refuse to submit to playing nude roles in films. This expectation is rooted from slavery (when black women were sometimes stripped naked and humiliated while being sold, sexually abused or disciplined); and from African American socio-religious mores that severely faulted black women for 'loose' or immodest behavior that reflects negatively on blacks. As a result, it appears that a black woman's body (and its exposure) 'belongs' exclusively to a black man (husband, lover and even a father or a brother, and to the community), but not to herself.

Coronji Calhoun as Tyrell Musgrove

"Perhaps one of the most affecting performances of the year was given by a 10-year-old Louisiana fourth-grader who has never acted before or studied the craft," commented Variety reporter Christopher Grove. Indeed, many people were particularly moved by — and concerned with — the plight of Coronji Calhoun, the youth who played Tyrell Musgrove, the ill-fated son of Lawrence and Leticia. Coronji was chosen from an open casting call, and was paid the minimum union scale for his work. He also suffered demonstrably from obesity, a malady currently affecting increasing numbers of American children regardless of economic circumstances. Tyrell's chocolate addiction was based on his hunger for his absent father. In a feature interview by iofilm.co.uk columnist Paul Fischer, Berry discussed working with Coronji, including the scene where she as Leticia struck him for hiding candy. "Marc (the director) and I were talking to him, saying this is just a movie, and I kept saying, everything I do and say, it's not real. I really think you're wonderful. And he said, 'Well, whatever you do to me, Halle Berry, it isn't going to be worse than what the kids at school do to me.'" On the film's website, which has since been taken down, Coronji was described as being a normal child who enjoyed playing basketball and video games and who liked to dance. Still others hoped that something more could have been done for the boy by giving him a scholarship or a commemorative trust fund for his work. As Tyrell, Coronji poignantly brought his own experience about being fat, sensitive and artistic to the screen.

Recently, Coronji Calhoun was listed as missing on a Web site seeking to find and reunite survivors of Hurricane Katrina. He is now about 14 years old.

External links

• review of Monster's Ball by cosmopolis.ch
• Monster's Ball at The Internet Movie Database
• [3] article by Uju Asika in Salon.com, regarding the response to Monster's Ball and Berry's Oscar.
• [4] Miles Willis' comments about Halle Berry's Oscar nomination that showed up on dozens of black listserves, websites, and in e-mails.
• [5] Metaphilm editor gives a highly unflattering review of Monster's Ball.
• [6] Esther Iverem's SeeingBlack.com column after Berry's Oscar win; however, links to reader responses in text may be dead.
• Article describing the Angela Bassett interview in Newsweek
• Interview with Halle Berry regarding her performance as Leticia Musgrove
• Official webpage of Imitating Life: Women, Race and Film conference sponsored by the Program in African American Studies, Princeton University, September 22-23, 2000
• "Whatever Works Best": article by Christopher Grove, about how actors often go with what they know best
• [7] Katrina List Network showing Calhoun as currently missing.