Stacey Dash, 49, is the actress whose career in that field reached its peak in the 1995 film Clueless.
Since then, she’s turned her hand to being a conservative Fox News pundit whose pronouncements on racial issues have garnered a lot of criticism (e.g., she’s said that Black History Month is racist. Yep, she’s that guy).
That’s why we saw her on-stage at the Oscars on Sunday — because of her criticism of Hollywood types such as Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, and director Spike Lee, who boycotted the ceremony in protest of an Oscars that was #SoWhite.
As she preened like a 1950s beauty queen, host Chris Rock introduced Dash as the “new director” of the Academy’s “minority outreach program”.
“I cannot wait to help my people out,” she said. “Happy Black History Month!”
Watch her Oscars appearance here… Post continues after video.
This was a piece of satire based on Dash previously calling for the abolition of Black History Month, something that may have been lost on Australian audiences — and American ones too, if the reaction at the Oscars live show was any indication.
A significant number of people did have a strong reaction to Dash’s presence at the Oscars (apart from Chrissy Teigen though). As soon as she came off-stage, Dash checked her Twitter account for the response and read it aloud for posterity.
“I just walked off the stage of the Oscars where I got no applause, no boos, nothing. People were, I think, awestruck,” she said before reading the tweets “so that you can see what I face”.
“I do what I do because I want to do it and because I believe in it, and it has nothing to do with race. And I wish you would stop saying that. Everything that I do is because I believe in it, and I believe we are all equal, OK? I don’t feel inferior nor do I feel superior you should stop feeling that way too. I’m very happy about what I did, and I’m proud of it,” she concluded.
That’s all well and good, but I really preferred her when she was Dionne.