With the 88th Academy Awards to be
presented tonight, I wanted to bring up a topic that, for better or worse, has
dominated cinema-related news ever since nominations were announced in January,
and will likely be a main point of emphasis throughout the broadcast, which is
the fact that, for the second year in a row, no black actor was nominated for
the the Academy's top honor. In fact, no black actor or actress was
nominated for any of the awards for either a leading or supporting role. It
seems shocking for an organization with as many members of color as Hollywood
to have as wide-stemmed
a problem with race as is being claimed, but the facts certainly seem to lead that
way. And, with many of their most
prominent faces badmouthing them on Twitter and boycotting their premier event
this year, the Academy must figure out a way to make the Awards more
representative of their population.
When the nominations were announced,
they were immediately greeted with howls of protest. #OscarsSoWhite shot to the
top of trending topics on Twitter, with celebrities such as Spike Lee, Will and
Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Whoopi Goldberg all announcing they would not be
attending the ceremony. Among all of the
commotion, the central question arose: what can be done to ensure this doesn’t
happen again? In some small attempt at fairness
to the Academy, and not commenting on movies I haven’t seen, I would have made
only two changes to their dock of nominees, inserting Idris Elba in the best
actor ranks for his performance in Beasts
of No Nation and Jason Mitchell for best supporting actor in Straight Outta Compton. However, the
fact that not only neither of these men but any of the other black actors and
actresses with worthy performances last year were nominated points to a deeper
problem within the ranks of the Academy.
I believe the problem starts with the
fact that the Academy is 94% white and 77% male, with a median age of 62. Regardless of who more populates Hollywood,
the face of an ever-evolving Academy should not be an old white man. The inclusion of a more diverse
decision-making group at the top will not only appease those who protest their
award shows, but will result in more opportunities more minorities, women, and
all other types of people who may not have those opportunities now. The ability
to be fairly represented is key to the solution of Hollywood’s race
problem.
But the phrase that is used in situations like these,
especially in the politically-correct society that we have become, is “diversity
for diversity’s sake.” We obviously want
to give blacks, Hispanics, women, LGBT, or any other person the same
opportunity, but also want to reward those who legitimately do the best
job. If white actors represent the five
best performances of the year, social norms shouldn’t dictate that one of them
is replaced by a minority actor with a lesser résumé. Surely more of the
high-level cinema jobs belong in the hands of minorities, but simply awarding
those jobs to people because of the color of their skin is not the way to go
about fixing this problem. It may be
happening now in the opposite direction, but simply flipping the script and
declaring the problem solved seems hypocritical at best and disingenuous at
worst. But how, then, can blacks gain
the experience needed to gain such positions if they’re never awarded the
opportunity in the first place? It’s a
tricky situation the Academy finds itself in, but one which it must soon
resolve, else it risk losing an already alienated portion of its community.
While I think all of the point Jack makes are relevant, I feel there is another point that needs to be addressed. The Academy, I agree, makes poor decisions when it comes to nominations and not representing their Hollywood actor/actress/director/etc. population, but what is at the core of all of this is that the big studios that are producing these movies are hugely at fault. Many of these studios choose to write and film movies with solely white protagonists living in their white bubbles. They often "sprinkle in" and African-America, Asian, or Hispanic to "diversify" the whiteness of a movie but that is not enough. Studios are the stakeholders and funders of large motion pictures and need to be sensible in the idea that the white population is not the only population watching movies. To add onto that, just because there are more than two African-American protagonists in the movie, that does not make it a "black movie." There has to be a balance among the movies studios choose to fund and film because the more movies they choose that have people of color as protagonists, the more the Oscars will be an equal playing field where the only nominate-worthy films about people of color aren't historical movies like "12 Years a Slave" and "Selma."
ReplyDeleteNot only is there a lack of representation by people of color in the Oscar nominees, there are simply not enough opportunities for people of color to have these roles. A trend in Hollywood that has been getting a lot of criticism is the casting of white actors/actresses for characters that are based on real people of color, also known as "whitewashing". An example of is the upcoming movie "Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon" (2016), where the white actor Joseph Fiennes will be portraying pop star Michael Jackson. It is sad to see that this trend continues, since it's pretty much a modern day version of blackface. After the Emmys in the fall where Viola Davis became the first black women to receive the award for Best Actress in a Drama Series, I would have expected to see the Academy Awards step up their game by including more nominees for the major awards that feature people of color. This goes to show that as a society, we still have a lot more work to do in order to have equal opportunities for everyone.
ReplyDeleteIn the US, African Americans make up 13% of the population. In a perfect world, 13% of the nominations would have been African Americans but instead at this year's Oscar's, 0% of the nominations are African American. I see this as a huge problem. I believe one part of the problem is opportunities for African Americans in Hollywood is much smaller that opportunities for whites. Viola Davis was the first black woman to win an Emmy for outstanding actress in a drama in September 2015. In her acceptance speech she said, "The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there." By creating more opportunity in Hollywood, more award shows can accurately nominate people of color. I do not think by creating opportunity, we are "simply awarding those jobs to people because of the color of their skin" (Dayton above). Before, casting roles stopped at skin color, not talent. I believe by having more opportunity we are finally going to be able to see the massive talent that people of color have, and they will win those roles based on merit. But first, casting directors and Hollywood has to be open to looking past skin color.
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