Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 2020

The Contenders:

Viola Davis: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Frances McDormand: Nomadland (winner)
Vanessa Kirby: Pieces of a Woman
Carey Mulligan: Promising Young Woman
Andra Day: The United States vs. Billie Holiday

Strange Fruit

Films: The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on Fire!

I believe that in the past, probably on my review of Breathless, that I have mentioned my parents’ past history with Jean Seberg. I bring this up because Jean Seberg was targeted by name by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI because of her support for the Black Panthers and other causes that were deemed radical by society at the time. How does this connect to The United States vs. Billie Holiday? Because that is the essential point of this movie. While perhaps not all of Lady Day’s problems stemmed from the persecution she suffered at the hands of Johnny Law, a hell of a lot of them did, and plenty of them were trumped up and designed to make her comply.

So what was the issue? Billie’s rampant heroin use was what the Feds focused on because it was a tangible issue that could be brought to bear against her. The truth is that the government wanted her silenced because of the song “Strange Fruit,” about lynchings in the American South. The song, we are told, is a rabble rousing song, one that gets people ready to protest and fight, and the government didn’t want that. And so, Billie Holiday became the scapegoat for anything the government could think of. They also planted drugs and paraphernalia or her more than once.