Recently news broke that Netflix offered Mo'Nique $500,000 for a standup comedy special. Mo'Nique thought that was chump change and took it to the internet. She felt it was a disgrace that she would be offered so little when Amy Schumer received $13 million, Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle both got $20 million. It's unknown what Cedric The Entertainer was paid because he doesn't put his business in the street like that. The internet blew up. Some people insisting Mo'Nique was crazy and not worth that much. Others supporting her, but nobody boycotting Netflix like she asked.
Here's the thing, pay inequality in America is messed up. It's not just gender lines either. It's racial lines as well. As a black man, I will make more than a black woman for the same job. That's really sad when you consider, I'm not even getting the same as the white guy who also does the same job. I'm getting pennies on the dollar, so black women are getting what's left of that dollar, which isn't much at all. Pay inequality isn't just a women's issue. It's an American issue that more of us need to speak out against.
Mo'Nique is right, she should receive way more than what she was offered. In fact, DeRay Davis, another comedian with a recent Netflix special weighed in on it. If you've seen DeRay out promoting his special, How to be Black, on shows like Ebro in the Morning, it's pretty obvious he was not happy with what he was paid, but he accepted it anyway as a way to launch into writing television. DeRay actually commented under Mo'Nique's post, "I guess I should shutup complaining about my $5 million." Now he could have been joking, but all evidence points to the fact that he wasn't. The rapper J. Cole once said "all jokes contain true shit."
I saw people claiming Mo'Nique wasn't funny nor has she ever been. I think those people need to do some research and check her track record. Mo'Nique has been doing standup since 1999. During that time she's headlined across the world, not country, but world. Mo'Nique would also star in The Parkers, a TV sitcom that ran for 110 episodes over five season. When that was done she hosted Showtime At The Apollo. She took that and turned it into a deal for Mo'Nique Show which ran for 251 episodes. In addition to many other hosting roles for BET, VH1 and She's starred in twenty movies racking up dozens of awards including an Oscar for her role in Precious. In between all that she's continued to tour stand up most notably leading The Queens of Comedy. The independent documentary I Could Have Been Your Cellmate which follows her preparing for a comedy show at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. In it she interviews women incarcerated there and looks at common factors such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, drug addiction and the realization she had suffered through many of the same things.
I mean, that's just the highlights. That doesn't include award shows and beauty pageants. But, we live in a society that asks "what have you done for me lately." Despite what Wikipedia says she's still been busy staring in films and over one hundred episodes of a weekly podcast that regularly breaks one million listeners. She's not just sitting on her hands. She's got a dedicated fan base and beyond that enough people around the world that know her name and work. $500,000 would be a ridiculous number to offer her.
There are two things Mo'Nique needs to do better. First, she needs to fire her husband. She loves him, he loves her. They've been friends since they were 14. But, sometimes when you love people you lie to them to avoid hurting their feelings. When someone loves you, you don't always give your best work because they'll love you anyway. I don't know Sidney, he seems like a nice man. I don't know anyone else he manages. It's time to step aside and let her find a manager that will work for her and play hard ball instead of instantly consoling her and taking a loss. Which leads me to the next thing she needs to do. Mo'Nique's negotiation always leak into the public domain. That needs to stop. She needs to play hard ball and negotiate. She needs to give them a number of twenty million and tell them she's not doing anything for $500,000 and they'll meet her somewhere closer to her number.
You think I'm joking? Wanda Sykes recently released a new stand up special on Amazon and Hulu, which is hilarious by the way. She backs Mo'Nique because Netflix tried to undercut her in pay as well. In fact, she reveals in a tweet Netflix offered her less than half of what they offered Mo'Nique. She told them she could go somewhere else and they did not believe her. Wanda Sykes is another black woman with an extensive track record, which brings up another question of why is Hollywood not paying black women? Ask Michelle Williams about $80 dollars a day to reshoot. Anyway, they thought Wanda was playing and she "secured the bag," as Joe Budden would say. Then she spoke out. Mo'Nique always does it the other way around. Get your money first, then tell us why it was wrong that you had to fight so hard for it.
Additionally there's one other thing, actually a lot of other things that may or may not be true. I personally believe it to be 100% true. These aren't little things either. In my opinion, they're the biggest factors at play here. This is the rumors that have been going around nonstop since 2009. The idea that Lee Daniels, Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, who were all involved in Precious, conspired to have Mo'Nique blackballed in Hollywood. Typically when someone wins an Oscar, they get a lot more work and they get paid a whole lot more money for that work. That's just how Hollywood works. Mo'Nique's career however, seems to have gone the opposite way. She's received much more praise for her work, yet she's gotten much less work as well, for less money than she was getting before. There's really no explanation for it other than someone in Hollywood has to be trying to stop her.
This may seem like conspiracy but follow this. In the past Mo'Nique revealed that she had been sexually abused by her older brother on the Oprah Winfrey show. After the release of Precious Oprah invited Mo'Nique's now drug addicted brother to tell his side of the story. She also invited her parents, never mentioning this to Mo'Nique. After Mo'Nique made the claims she stated Lee Daniels called and told her she had been blackballed because "you did not play the game." When asked if this was true during a 2015 CNN interview he said she was brilliant and he felt personally hurt by unreasonable demands during promotion of the film which stemmed from her missing the Cannes Film Festival in order to spend time at home with her twins who were four at the time. When he complained she brought up the fact that she accepted the role for $50,000 as a favor to them, which they didn't like. In the CNN Interview he goes on to state:
We were out on the campaign and she was making unreasonable demands...and this is where reverse racism, I think happens. I told her you have to thank the producers of the film (Winfrey and Perry) you have to thank the studio (Oprah's Harpo, Lee Daniles Productions and Perry's 34th St Studios) and I think she didn't understand that and I told her people aren't going to respond well if she doesn'tWhen Mo'Nique made the comments during a comedy show in front of an Apollo crowd, known to love controversial material it may have seemed like a joke. She joked that she wasn't blackballed but whiteballed because it was black people blocking her forward momentum in Hollywood. Maybe for a few years after, it seemed like a joke. But at this point, it has to be taken seriously. Daniels' interview almost seemed like an "I told you so," and Oprah inviting her abuser to speak on her show is just ridiculous. Tyler Perry hasn't done anything as blatant as Oprah o Daniels who all but confirmed it, but who knows? We're at the point where The Los Angeles Times reports on it as fact not speculation. During a 2015 appearance on Good Morning America she said for fans not to pity her because it would be a waste of time. I know everyone doesn't want to believe it because Oprah is Oprah, Daniels does a lot to bring LGBT issues to the the table in the Black community and Tyler Perry has given a lot of actors work. But we need to acknowledge that there's more evidence to show it's true than there is to call it fake news.
At the end of the day I'm pulling for Mo'Nique. I'm pulling for her to get this money. I intended this to be something I wrote in twenty minutes. I would make a point to mention why Mo'Nique deserves way more than $500,000 and I would finish it by explaining why I wouldn't boycott Netflix. Just so I could make the joke "I can't boycott Netflix because I'm using somebody else's login," and then hit publish on it, but I couldn't. The more I thought about it, the more I was annoyed with it. Especially when radio show hosts like Tom Joyner, Ricky Smiley and DL Hughley have all spent the last week or so laughing at her. I've written this no less than three different times. But the whole situation bothered me entirely too much. Not just the pay inequality, but her whole story and how she's been treated since 2009. Why would Oprah bring her abuser on to justify his actions? On top of that, she actually brought out Mo'Nique's parents on that show to say they forgave their son. Excuse my language but I don't know any other way to ask, actually I do but it wouldn't get the point across. What kind of ass backwards shit is that? Why would Lee Daniels essentially gloat because she hasn't gotten as much work since? Claiming studios and producers would not like it, but they were the studios and producers. It's ridiculous.
This whole thing is about way more than the chump change Netflix offered her. If they didn't "Whiteball" her like she claims, they need to say it. Because it's reaching the point where more people believe than people who don't. I'm glad Wanda Sykes offered Mo'Nique an alternative to getting paid what she deserves, but she shouldn't have to. Yeah Mo'Nique should negotiate better, but she also shouldn't be getting comical offers for her comedy. Somebody needs to pay her what she's worth and we need to stop looking at Winfrey, Daniels and Perry as if they're infallible because they do some good stuff. Beyond just the Mo'Nique issues, all of them have done some other things that aren't exactly smiled upon. Netflix is just the latest chapter in the saga of Mo'Nique being whiteballed.
You should buy Darrell's Book, watch him on the Blerds Online YouTube Channel or The CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts.
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