The Emmys made the historic, unprecedented move of awarding the well deserving Viola Davis the first black actress to win in lead in their history. The audience didn’t seem to notice. Only Louis CK stood up as Davis left the stage. Viola Davis once again gave a memorable speech which said the opportunities aren’t there for black women to get into the awards conversation in the first place. That has never more true than it will be for Oscars 2016. Not one of the frontrunners for Best Actress right now are black, let alone any other non-white ethnic group.
There is a reason Halle Berry is still the only black woman to win Best Actress in what will be 88 years of Oscar history. It’s hard enough to get someone like Sandra Bullock in a gender swap for Our Brand is Crisis. Swapping ethnicities is equally difficult. Bullock in that role meant she drags with her “female baggage” that men may or may not take to. An actress of color put into a white actresses role without explanation brings in that same baggage. We celebrate these suddenly powerful roles for actresses this year, of which there are many, but we must also acknowledge the start contrast between the Emmys and what will be the Oscars. There will be no black women nominees, at least not in the lead category.
We know that the market drives the inequality. Those who make the deals put their faith in men. The only films that are within even a hair’s breath of the Best Picture race to feature a black star or a black cast would include: Beasts of No Nation, Straight Outta Compton, Creed and Concussion. They’re all black male characters almost entirely.
It comes down to a lack of opportunities and perhaps a lack of interest with the Wall of White that dominates the Oscar race. That includes the mostly white, mostly male critics and bloggers. The mostly male and mostly white industry voters. The mostly male and mostly white Academy voters. You know who isn’t mostly male and mostly white though? The ticket buyers. Only there do you see a broad spectrum of every ethnic group.
In the Best Actress race we don’t even have any alternatives at this point. Those opportunities are flat-out not there. They are on television. Even with versatile talent like Gugu Mbatha Raw, Kiki Palmer, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and yes, Halle Berry — to name a few — it’s almost impossible to get them starring roles in films that plan on the Oscar market. This is not one of those years.
Still, there is no point in condemning the films, the filmakers or the actors for being “too white.” Writers tend to write what interests them, or what they know. Since men get one deal after another, the films that get made tend to be about what interests them. It doesn’t necessarily follow that an Oscar win can guarantee real change either. Selma was a successful, profitable culture quake last year, even with the Team White Guy grumblings about it. That should be enough to get more deals made about black history — lord knows there are enough stories about it. I think I heard someone was making an LBJ movie instead.
The thing is, the times they are a-changing. Social networking has completely upended the game. Movies, and the Oscar race, are all part of an ongoing, general conversation. Young people aren’t going to be as willing to give over their attention to an industry and its awards that focus on a singule group =- a shrinking majority, in fact — that seeks to recall the history of white Americans only. Even the transgender subject matter present in the early stage of this race — with The Danish Girl and Ray are already having problems with LGBTQ groups who say they are more about straight people than trans people. But at least those doors are cracking open even a little.
Teenagers and those coming up fast behind them are going to be hungry for more than what’s being served up which means the people making decisions in Hollywood are going to have to think outside the box, like Mad Max: Fury Road already did, and the upcoming Star Wars movies does. Improvise, adapt, overcome. But you can’t do that if you’re stuck on the same channel.
So far, it’s a good year for women (albeit white women only)
The Best Picture race is so far down to these movies – Spotlight, Steve Jobs, Brooklyn, Carol and Room. Mad Max: Fury Road could be another strong contender, if the pundits like Anne Thompson turn out to be right. Ridley Scott’s The Martian is another big, popular movie that might be one of the strongest early contenders. But already, if these movies are in, that’s four films ABOUT women with strong female leads. Nearly half.
The balloting process will hurt films that star women the most, which is why the best opportunities for women behind the camera and in front of it were the two years when voters had ten nomination slots and not five:
2009
The Hurt Locker – directed by a woman, won Best Picture/Director
An Education – written, directed by and starring women
Precious – starring black women
The Blind Side – starring a woman
2010
Winter’s Bone – written, directed by and starring women
Black Swan – starring a woman
The Kids are All Right – written, directed by and starring women
The following year, the Academy shrunk the nominating ballots down to five. And the results were interesting.
2011
The Help – starring black women
2012 *
Beasts of the Southern Wild – starring a young black girl
2013
Philomena – starring a woman
Gravity – starring a woman
2014
No films starring women at all except The Theory of Everything, but it was really about Stephen Hawking, let’s face it.
*When I say “starring” I don’t mean co-starring. I mean the central story revolves around a woman and a woman only, not a couple.
With five nomination slots, voters may elect, even this year with an unprecedented number of films driven by women, not to include them in their top five, which may instead reflect their own preferences — generally speaking, stories about men specifically, white men usually.
The films that might withstand the 5 choice litmus test starring women could include: Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road. I would be nervous about Carol, Room, Suffragette, etc.
The rest of the films hover in circles outside the main circle but are being considered, films like 45 Years, The Danish Girl, Suffragette, Truth, Trumbo, Black Mass, and Beasts of No Nation. All of these and the aforementioned movies are threatened by what’s coming next — the Big Oscar Movies that are set to be screened next week at the New York Film Festival and then launch into the Oscar race later in the year.
Those movies in anticipation are:
Bridge of Spies
The Walk
Concussion
The Revenant
By the Sea
Joy
The Hateful Eight
Creed
The Whitest Oscars Again?
If there is any possibility for Beasts of No Nation, Creed, Straight Outta Compton or Concussion to get in, no one will be able to accuse the Oscars of being the “whitest ever.” The only category that will be all white most likely will be Best Actress. The Oscars can only reward what is there in the first place, as Viola Davis said. Without imagination and a fair amount of courage those opportunities will never be there.
One thing is clear from last night, however — the film industry and the Oscars that feed off of it are the ones lagging way, way behind. The generations coming up behind this one aren’t as color blind as the previous generations. They aren’t as unwilling to see black women as vital, interesting people who make great subjects for films.
The country is almost ready for the first woman president in its history. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn’t but it’s hard not to feel the seeds of change humming from the foundation. Everyone wants to see Hollywood and the Oscars evolve. Last night’s Emmys showed us that an audience watched the first black woman in history win Best Actress. They voted for her because she deserved it. They barely noticed that they were a part of history. Only a few of them even stood up at all. But the rest of us at home were shouting from the rooftops. Social media was lit up in a frenzy. The audience would later find out what they’d just been a part of. And so it goes with progress. You barely notice it’s happening until it’s blown past you.
“And so it goes with progress. You barely notice it’s happening until it’s blown past you.”
Very well said!
Antoinette, they’ll be covered in blood so they won’t be a total whiteout. BOOM. Just did some digging (Wikipedia, so just typed a few words) and at one point Park Chan-wook was slated to direct and was considering Samuel L. Jackson to star in it. I don’t know about Jackson but Park would be a very interesting choice.
The IMDb tells me that THE REVENANT is super white. In all that snow, how are we even gonna see these people?
ScottD, nail on the head. As much as we need movies like Precious, 12 Years, Selma, ect. we need others like In the Bedroom (a perfect example, bravo) where any performer can play richly drawn roles. Most of the time when a minority is nominated for an Oscar is for a performance that is meant for their ethnicity, like biopics. Then again, biopics are the bees knees at the Oscars.
Hm, what about men and women of the LGBT community? What about films about the LGBT community? What about First Nations, Indian, Chinese, Japanese films, actors and film makers? Yes, the majority of the Academy voters are white and male and over the age of 50. Yes, there have been an egregious lack of support for Black filmmakers and actors. But you seem to always conveniently forget that the Academy has even been less supportive of a host of minority groups that display just as much depth and breadth of talent in storytelling. Please, sing me that tune and maybe I’ll start buying into this line of discussion again because really, it only sounds like you’ll be happy when EVERY winner is Black, a woman, or a black woman. The rest of us other members of minority groups can are what? SOL?
When I see articles like this I think of films like In the Bedroom – a classically brilliant acting piece. There’s no social or historic/geographic reason the family has to be white, they just are as that’s the norm; I don’t recall from Killings, the short story from which it’s adapted, if there was specific mention of color…
I wanna see more movies like that, but with people of color. Movies that have excelled at the Oscars like Precious, 12 Years a Slave etc. are about the black experience – and by all means let’s keep telling those stories, but I really want Hollywood to get over it’s bullshit and produce, simply, quality standard dramas about life that *gasp* happen to have non-white people. Ugh. Someday.
By the way, I do always appreciate your astute level of detail. When I write and realize the dumbfuckery of my own words it’s usually because you point it out 🙂
I do always appreciate your astute level of detail. When I write and realize the dumbfuckery of my own words it’s usually because you point it out
Ditto. Likewise. The feeling is mutual, Steven.
🙂
“and considering it’s NYC, we might expect ONE or TWO faces on the streets of Manhattan that were not white.”
There were at least ONE or TWO non-white faces on the street. MuMs (of Oz fame) is one of them. In fact most of the people on the streets are real people, just a group that were surrounding Keaton were part of the movie.
“I wish I could forget it. “played for laughs”? is that really how we want to describe the dumbest unfunniest stereotyped Asian caricature since Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”
I should have clarified. I didn’t think it was funny but the fact the Asians were interested in him for his Birdman fame was MEANT to be played for laughs.
“Most Americans are white (at least for a couple more years), so by that logic, it makes sense that we should never see anybody in anybody movie who’s not white. Because most people in the USA are white, so we win, we get it all, all the time, is that how it works?”
You know that’s not how I feel it truly works. Wrong wording on my part.
“Clearly not. But with all the talented fish in the sea, would it kill him to fish for something other than 100% whitefish.”
With all the talented fish in the sea would it have killed him to cast at least one non-Mexican in Amores Perros? How many respected filmmakers out there have only cast one ethnicity in a movie? Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Spike Jonze…this is now questioning a lot of different filmmakers. There are a lot of filmmakers who have never worked with people outside their ethnicity. Innaritu worked with people from his home country, then worked with white people, Japanese, Moroccan, and back to Mexicans and white people. Between you, me and Dupree I’d say his resume is quite varied, granted that could call come from Babel by itself.
Look all I was doing was defending a filmmaker. My tone was probably misinterpreted as I’m sure I may have misinterpreted yours as well. Could there have been more minorities in Birdman other than an old Oz cast member and Asians oooing and ahhing at a Birdman poster? Yes. But I was happy to see Michael Keaton brought back from the dead, Zach Galafianakis play against type and Edward Norton finally get material that’s worthy (to me) of his abilities. I’m also happy to see a movie with more than half of the principle actors being women.
The ruthlessness of Lady Macbeth would definitely come from a Viola Davis or, even scarier, CCH Pounder.
Benutty, yes to a black Lady Macbeth!
Antoinette, YES TO ANGELA BASSETT for Lady Macbeth
And to borrow some words from Streep’s speech: My God somebody give Bassett a movie worthy of her brilliance!
Rob Y, does Innaritu HAVE to make a movie with non-white actors? Shall we crucify him for having Sean Penn, Melissa Leo and Naomi Watts in 21 Grams? If I was making movies it wouldn’t matter if I was white, black, Asian, middle eastern…I’d want the chance to work with Michael Keaton, Naomi Watts, Edward Norton and Emma Stone. You may forget there was an entire room full of Asians in the beginning, although it was mostly played for laughs. Since this was based around Riggan’s life we were probably not going to get around his ex-wife and daughter being white. Most critics are white so his “nemesis” was probably going to be white. But let’s face it…most of the entertainment field is white although I agree more could have been done considering it’s Broadway. In short, not every movie Innaritu makes has to contain a Mexican or anybody else who is non-white. At the end, the movie was recognized for Oscars (whether right or wrong) and 5 POCs won that night and (I believe) 4 others were nominated.
yikes, I hate to have to get into this. I don’t like to scuffle with friends.
and considering it’s NYC, we might expect ONE or TWO faces on the streets of Manhattan that were not white.
I wish I could forget it. “played for laughs”? is that really how we want to describe the dumbest unfunniest stereotyped Asian caricature since Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s?
ack! Most Americans are white (at least for a couple more years), so by that logic, it makes sense that we should never see anybody in anybody movie who’s not white. Because most people in the USA are white, so we win, we get it all, all the time, is that how it works? Also, just because Armond White is a dick does not mean we get to forget he exists. Also, if casting a role is based on the “most critics are white” litmus test, then every Broadway critic in every movie needs to be a gay male.
Clearly not. But with all the talented fish in the sea, would it kill him to fish for something other than 100% whitefish.
There are plenty of other reasons to crucify Inarritu for 21 Grams that have nothing to do with Penn, Leo, and Watts. Firstly, how come he got to make me feel crucified while I was watching it?
I don’t think this is a “overdone” conversation at all. I do think, however, it might be time to look at new ways to discuss it.
For example, Viola Davis is a superb actress and she is fine in ‘How To’. I would say however she wasn’t the Best this year. Is it insulting to give someone from a minority in an average performance an award in order to reflect acceptance when your same community refuses to create more available roles??
I’m curious on this. Sasha the best articles you’ve done in the past on this has been pertaining to women voting with their wallets or viewership.
I mean, how can we get more Viola’s in TV? Emmy Awards are fine but really, it’s gotta be the content to get them in there.
Same goes for female-led films. In a fair world Frances Ha should have been a box office smash ala Bridesmaids.
This is the shit we need to continue to explore.
I dunno, that’s just my thoughts.
“2015: Birdman, made largely by Mexicans.”
But laughably does not contain one non-white on the screen except for the stereotypical Asian store owner. It was pretty sad for a director to abandon his drive for multiculturalism for a white film about a white male going through the crisis of the decline of his privilege.
Alex Goes, you just made me look at the lineup of the entire slate of nominees/winners that year. Man was it diverse…
Picture: Japanese war film, globe-spanning multicultural film, one centered on a queen and another with arguably 2 female leads.
# of POCs per category
Director: 1
Actor: 2
Actress: 1
Supporting actor: 2
Supporting actress: 3
Original screenplay: 3 (including a woman)
Adapted Screenplay: 1
Cinematography: 2
Score: 2
Costumes: 2 (with 5 women)
After that there’s not much info on a lot of the nominees beyond their gender but there are plenty of POCs in a lot of the nominees. It was a very diverse year thanks to Dreamgirls, Babel, Pan’s Labyrinth and Children of Men.
IDK, Alex, it’s hard to argue against Jennifer Hudson’s win. In a lot of ways, the supporting category is for performances that completely steal every scene they’re in, or steal entire films with a single scene. JHud did this with Dreamgirls, and the Cinderella story was a great campaign narrative. I liked a lot of the performances that year, but I won’t argue against hers.
I’d love to see her follow it up with something significant though. Or just forget the Oscars and go straight to EGOT instead.
“jennifer hudson, monique, octavia spencer, lupita.”
@Keifer
Unfortunately, Jennifer Hudson’s terrible performance inexplicably beat out two far superior performances by women of color (Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi).
Lord, for a second there I though you were saying SNOWDEN was back in the game, Benutty. But that’ll do. I guess I’ll go ahead and read that book. I was beginning to wonder whatever happened to Ryan Gosling.
The State of the Race: PARAMOUNT JUST ADDED THE BIG SHORT FOR DECEMBER RELEASE AND CLOSING NIGHT OF AFI
jennifer hudson, monique, octavia spencer, lupita.
It appears the Best Supporting Actress category has recognized black actresses. Interesting.
I think the ageism regarding roles is more pronounced. Everytime I listen to actresses being interviewed, they make the same claim. There are no roles for women in Hollywood over 40. That’s such a shame, especially considering our very best actresses ARE over 40, regardless of their color.
I think Angela Bassett would be great as Lady Macbeth.
Bob, I think a black actress as Lady Macbeth would have been a really great decision on Kurzel’s part. Name one and she could have absolutely KILLED that performance. Viola would have been my first choice, obvi.
Isn’t it more the people that run the studios and/or the people that get stuff made are racist/ignorant?
Audiences have shown time and again that they will see movies/tv shows about people that aren’t white men.
Straight Outta Compton was number one for weeks.
Pitch Perfect 2 was a big hit and number one at the box office. Empire is one of the most popular new shows on tv.
The powers that be act like the audience are the ones not ready for diversity when it’s really themselves.
Hire Viola Davis to play Steve Jobs. If Hamilton and Jefferson can be black, they can be black women. Steve, too.
And this is why I cringe when white women talk about all of the “great roles for women”. It’s all roles for white women, never black women, Asian women, Latin women, Arab women, Muslim women, etc. So I’m so happy Viola stood up for the women of colour, and with such an eloquent and powerful speech – and she doesn’t shy away from being in your face about it. Intersectionality SERIOUSLY needs some recognition in Hollywood. Otherwise we’ll just end up with whitewashed movies like Stonewall and Suffragette.
Pitt in BASTERDS > DiCaprio in DJANGO
yet nobody flipped at no nomination.
#PittRemainsWildlyUnderappreciated
There’s no denying at this point that Viola Davis is among the greatest actresses to have walked on this planet. She delivered another phenomenal turn on this show and she gave a speech truly important, inspiring and monumental. I’m genuinely moved by her incredible evolution. She was robbed of The Oscar so many times but at least she got the Emmy. I’m so proud of her for making history and being fearless enough once again to tell the truth about the limited opportunities black people face since the roles really are just not there. God bless her talent and beautiful soul. Calling her a badass is actually an understatement.
Antoinette, yes CK’s father was Mexican and he was raised as a young boy in Mexico before coming back to the states as an adolescent (he was born in Washington DC). Spent most of his life in Boston, but his earliest, formative years were in Mexico.
Hmmm…why am I JUST hearing about this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv33e0TyL6M
SMDH. Y’all on notice.
Cast people of color and hire them to make movies. It is that simple. Audiences do not care.
The Academy and the Industry behaves as if there is nothing they can do, but it’s very simple. Hire people of color. Using merit as a shield is bs.
There is no good reason the Martian is white and there is no good reason Boyhood was all-white. Hell, cast a black actor for Whitey Bulger. Nobody would care.
The suits are chicken-shit racists.
Saying the Emmys have come a long way is a start, but just because they finally rewarded a person of color for lead actress should be cause for inspection. No black woman, or person of color has won a lead actress Emmy before last night done 1980 for the Jeffersons. In fact, the one category for actresses that seems to remotely even care about women of color has been the miniseries category which keeps expanding over and over again.
If you think ANYTHING that happens at the Emmys is “Historic” you’re seriously delusional.
“The audience didn’t seem to notice. Only Louis CK stood up as Davis left the stage.”
Isn’t he Mexican? I mean he doesn’t make a big deal about being part Mexican and winning a bunch of awards but I think he is.
@Benutty
I totally agree. It makes me sad that Hou Hsiao-Hsien has been so completely ignored. Anytime he and Shu Qi collaborate, it’s been more interesting than anything that shows up at the Oscars (or the BAFTAS, or the Globes, or SAG). Tony Leung is probably the greatest living actor, and he has never been nominated for an Oscar. I still can’t believe he and Tang Wei weren’t nominated for “Lust, Caution,” performances that put any of the nominees from that year to shame (I’m including DDL in that, preparing for ‘dislikes’).
“The audience didn’t seem to notice.”
@Sasha Stone
I would argue that a lot of this has to do with perception more than reality. Davis winning was notable and historic, but TV has become much more diverse, and the Emmys are generally more diverse than Oscars. I think this also applies to the Tonys. Audra McDonald became the most winning performer, and that was more notable than the fact that she was also the most winning woman of color. And again, despite the fact that Broadway and the Tonys are often regarded as middle-brow and old-fashioned, there’s far more adventurous casting onstage – there’s been Asian winners, Hispanic winners, and multiple African American winners.
I was rooting for Taraji so that sucked.
No offense, Sasha but I’ve been wondering why STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON isn’t in your contender tracker. If someone like yourself doesn’t put it in the conversation, then who will? Did you think it wasn’t worthy or is it the self-fulfilling prophecy thing again? You know, ‘Whitey won’t like it, so I can’t predict it.’
2014 had Selma, directed by a woman. But if we’re also going for racially diverse all across the board we have…
2010: Up, co-starring a little Asian boy. I could add Avatar since it co-starred Zoe Saldana but we never saw her whereas we “saw” the Asian boy.
2011: True Grit, depending on how you view it Hailee Steinfeld was a lead, if not THE lead of the movie.
2013: Amour, Emmanuelle Riva stole the show. Django Unchained, starring a black man (co-starring if you view Waltz as a lead). Silver Linings Playbook, woman as a co-lead. Life of Pi, starring an Indian boy.
2014: 12 Years a Slave starring, and made by, black people. Nebraska, let’s face it…a movie with old people (like Amour) is almost as foreign (in America) as any other racially diverse movie.
2015: Birdman, made largely by Mexicans.
I know you were looking for movies made by women or starring, not as a co-lead, women but when breaking down the other nominees it really does look more diverse. And it was fun to break it down further 🙂
Like others have said plenty of women of color have won in supporting roles, so I just assumed that it had happened in leading. Not even the Deadline Emmy preview issue made much mention of it. So it was shocking to me that it’s 2015 and that never happened before. I agree that Oscars and film industry is lagging behind. If only the union actually did something more to represent all actors under their banner instead of counting beans.
2012 also had Zero Dark Thirty.
“I tried very specifically to say “people of color” or “women of color.” I’m aware of that. It’s bad across the board for anyone non-white or any non-white narratives of our past.”
That you did, Sasha. I suppose it’s part of MY problem when I see the word “color” and mostly think of “black” instead of “anybody but white”, which Benutty more or less wisely pointed out is a collective issue regarding Americans in general.
Steven, I agree with you that this particular topic is sometimes too small, excluding minorities of races other than black, but that’s indicative of conversations about race in America in general, I think. Because of history, our conversations are often limited to “white & black” rather than being more encompassing.
This year, I’m already lamenting the fact that films like The Assassin, Dheepan, The Second Mother, Son of Saul and The 33 are being left out of most acting conversations.
Of course, the Academy last year ignored Dear White People and underserved Selma, and this year they probably won’t even know Tangerine exists.
Ugh.
Clarification, I should be reading more of Clarence’s articles. He may cover what it is I just mentioned. But in the movie-scape I’d love to see more diverse coverage.
The lack of diverse films in the conversation–in EXISTENCE–this year makes me sick to my stomach. The lack of women in that already small bunch is doubly troubling. I want to vomit.
Not that I disagree but it seems like it’s always about men vs women, black vs white while latinos, asians and middle easterners are always left out of the conversation on this site. Even though it’s TV I would have loved to see this kind of advocating for Constance Wu or any of the latinos from American Crime.
Other than that Viola Davis said it best, “The opportunities are not there.” She is busting down doors in huge ways. She will inevitably win an Oscar and not just because the color of her skin but because of the performance she puts forth. The Emmys screw up plenty but by giving awards to Lisa Cholodenko, Viola Davis, Regina King, Uzo Aduba, Richard Jenkins, Jeffrey Tambor, Jill Soloway, Jane Anderson and Jon Hamm I’d say the did a whole shit ton of good this year.
Not that I disagree but it seems like it’s always about men vs women, black vs white while latinos, asians and middle easterners are always left out of the conversation on this site.
I tried very specifically to say “people of color” or “women of color.” I’m aware of that. It’s bad across the board for anyone non-white or any non-white narratives of our past.
here we go. i dont disagree but at the same time its like every year we need the “ why are there no black people in movies” ritual.
funny thing is, so many black women have won supporting actress oscars in the past decade. sure they been left out of best actress but still, its like jennifer hudson, monique, octavia spencer, lupita. i mean, lets not act like black women aint been winning alot in recent years.
here we go. i dont disagree but at the same time its like every year we need the “ why are there no black people in movies” ritual.
And believe me, I know no one wants to read it since most of my readers are white and male. I get it. I’m saying it before everyone else does and believe me, they will.
Has anyone seen Concussion? I’m rooting for a Will Smith comeback. Does Gugu Mbatha-Raw have a decent role or just ‘supportive wife of’?