I enjoyed the Beast TV roundtable, thanks for those angry and somewhat resentful comments by readers. However, some don’t know as much as they seem to think they do.

Viola Davis has never had a multi-million-dollar role. Even with her role in The Help, I’m guessing she’s far from rich. She’s been a NY-based stage actress; she comes from a poor home; she didn’t make a lot of money young. Her husband is an actor, and not a particularly successful one. They’re raising three children. She has become famous, but I’m guessing her finances are still squarely middle class. Probably upper-middle-class now, after the last couple of movie gigs, but still middle class. Her chance to become financially secure comes if she gets a succession of major parts in well-funded movies, but those roles are scarce for 40-something African-American women. Honestly, if she really wants the nice house and expensive car and other material trappings of success, her best chance is probably to get a long running TV series, not look for movie roles.

Which brings us back to the topic of the roundtable. Viola Davis is beautiful, likable, and incredibly talented. (Disclosure: I’ve interviewed her and we know each other well enough to say hi when we see each other every couple of years. And yes, as Charlize Theron said, Viola is "hot as shit.") Yet the American commercial movie industry, a.k.a. "Hollywood," doesn’t have much use for her, because Hollywood is not in the "good movie" business.