Can Hollywood Give Viola Davis A Little Help?

The time has come for Hollywood to embrace a black female doctor or lawyer, and not a maid.

The views expressed in this Op-Ed do not reflect that of Loop 21.

Viola Davis, you are kind, smart, important, and by the grace of God you will be in better movies than The Help.

I'm sure it stings a bit losing the Best Actress award, but if you had to lose to someone, there's no shame in coming in behind Meryl Streep. I am just as happy that Octavia Spencer won an Academy Award for a performance in a movie that I will never watch as I was for Monique winning an Academy Award for a performance in a movie that I will never watch.

Once upon a time, Halle Berry was supposedly looking at playing Elaine Brown, the Black Panther who wrote "A Taste of Power." Anyone want to guess why that flick never got green lit and Halle is doing crap going straight to DVD now?

[ALSO READ: 5 Roles We'd Love To See Viola Davis Star In Next]

I want to see black women being able to play leaders of entire countries like Streep, instead of their hired help. Why settle for sistas always having to play subservient roles like this? You think Denzel or Samuel L. would play a sassy butler in 2012? I've been asked, "How can you criticize a book you didn't read and a movie you didn't watch?" The answer, is I can't, but then I'm not criticizing the work, I'm criticizing the part Davis and Spencer played. Not the performance. The role itself.