When Viola Davis Played a Serial Killer

Blog Post #3

Last weekend I finally saw Viola Davis play a serial killer on an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent (pictured below).

I never even knew she was on the show until I read the below on the website Shadow & Act.

The below was posted by one of the writers, Sergio

With all this discussion we’ve had lately regarding Viola Davis and her role in the upcoming film The Help, and whether it’s a degrading stereotyped role beneath her considerable talents, it reminded me of a role she played some ten years ago which might be even more controversial.

I’m referring to her performance as a vicious killer on one of the better and strongest episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, during the show’s first season.

In that CI episode entitled Badge, Davis played an ex-NYC cop, Terry Randolph, drawing a pension, but who was also working as a security guard for the city’s public school system. That means that Randolph was “double dipping” getting paid twice by the city which is a violation of city’s rules. If caught, she would be subject to heavy fines, the loss of her pension, her job, or both.

And just to prove she was a really rotten, despicable person, she’s also shaking down or accepting bribes from drug dealers to let them sell drugs on school property. But when a NYC comptroller comes snooping around, investigating Randolph’s and other cops’ illegal activities, she breaks into his home and kills him, his wife and their two young children.

Using her previous experience in forensics as a cop, she arranges the evidence to make it look as if the comptroller killed himself and his family in a murder/suicide, in an act of rage. However clues and mistakes by Randolph lead the police to target her as the murder suspect and eventually she’s arrested after she reveals herself as the murderer in a trap set by the police.

Needless to say Davis is terrific in the role, and convincingly chilling as a sociopathic serial killer, without any trace of remorse or guilt, only revealing desperation and fear when she’s finally arrested for her crimes.

But even when I saw the show for the first time, and I’ve seen it few times since then, I was always struck by the fact that here was a black woman playing the part of a depraved serial killer of a white family. And considering how sensitive we are to black actors playing, what could be called “negative” roles (Hell Halle [Berry] is still getting grief for Monster’s Ball) I wondered how Davis felt about playing that part.

Fortunately I had an opportunity to ask her a few years ago when I interviewed her while she was on a media tour hyping the film Doubt. I asked her if she had any second thoughts or trepidations doing that role on L&O:CI, especially as a black woman, and she told me that she didn’t have any at all.

In fact, she told me, the fact that she is a black actress was the reason why she wanted to do it. As she explained, first of all, when was the last time had anyone seen a black woman play a serial killer? She felt it was an unique part, and that any actor or actress, especially a black one, should be free to take risks and challenge themselves, even if it meant playing a horrible person. How else who could one get better at their craft? Being an actor that means one should always take risks and challenge themselves.

I first really noticed Viola Davis on the short lived series Traveler. Traveler was a short-lived television series that ran from May 10, 2007 until July 18, 2007 on ABC where she played one of the two FBI agents on the trail of the main characters on the show.

When I saw all the media attention she was getting from the film Doubt (2008), I thought I recognized her from something as I remember all the good black actors I see. As a fan of hers from Traveler and seeing her excellent performance in Doubt, I wanted to see her performance on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. I finally did (Thank You Netflix) and I agree with everything Sergio wrote above. I also agree with Ms. Davis herself that “it was an unique part, and that any actor or actress, especially a black one, should be free to take risks and challenge themselves, even if it meant playing a horrible person.”.

I get tired of seeing black actors playing the same ole roles over and over again. They are always the token black friend, the criminal, the sage or the Magic Negro. (See what I mean by that term here ) so to see a black actor play a different part was appealing. Getting to see an actor, whose work I respect is doubly appealing hence the reason I sought out this episode.

Because there were apparently no clips or pics from the episode on the Internet, I took some of the episode with my cell phone camera which you can see in the slideshow below.




Read more about Viola Davis at Wikipedia here

More information about the episode.

Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Badge (#1.20)

Original Air Date: April 28, 2002

An apparent murder-suicide by an auditor at the city's comptroller office takes a turn when an audit of the school district's security system is found.

More links about the episode at:

Wikipedia

IMDb-The Internet Movie Database

See the original post from Shadow & Act “Viola Davis’ Controversial Serial Killer Role (Worse Than “The Help”?)” and read comments here

My Five Year Rule

Blog Post #2

Originally published: July 7, 2006 6:52 PM




I totally, totally, totally agree with this paragraph:

Lost producer Damon Lindelof states "We'd love to end the show after four years, five years tops and do a movie." Obviously, they're trying to avoid the The X Files fiasco in which a cool concept went downhill after its big screen debut and overstayed its welcome by three years or so."

Personally I don't think ANY show should be on more than five years...six tops. Every show, no matter how great it is, just runs out of steam around that time and becomes irrelevant. I truly hope they stick by this and don't succumb to network pressure to do another year and then another year and so forth. Case in point Friends which ran nine seasons, was to end after about season seven, but NBC wanted more years and even gave each of the six stars one million dollars an episode to continue. The Cool Black Calculator--1 Million dollars X 24 episodes X 6 actors= $ 144 Million dollars for the actors alone. Not to mention the other production costs.

Think about it. Can you think of ANY show that was really good after five years? And I'm talking about once a show hits its stride which some shows don't do until their second or third season.

I understand that the networks are a business and they are in it for the money, but when they demand more seasons on a show for purely financial reasons, the creative process suffers and ultimately it's the audience that loses.

How Much Does It Cost To Make A Hit Song?

Blog Post #1

Below I embedded a report NPR did to breakdown how a hit song is made and pretty much explains how supergroup TLC (pictured below) wound up bankrupt.

TLC

TLC's album CrazySexyCool eventually sold over 11 million copies in the US, and became one of the first albums to ever receive a diamond certification from the RIAA, and won a 1996 Grammy Award for Best R&B Album and a 1996 Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group for "Creep". However, in the midst of their apparent success, the members of TLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 3, 1995.

They declared debts totaling 3.5 million dollars, much of it because of insurance payments, medical bills, but the primary reason being that each member of the group was taking home less than $35,000 a year after paying managers, producers, expenses, and taxes. (Info from Wikipedia)

In the graphic below NPR put together the costs involved to put together a mainstream album.


graphical breakdown of expenses


The below podcast details how Rihanna's album was put together and her the cost to the record label with her single 'Man Down' (pictured below) used as an example.


Rihanna's single artwork