It probably strikes the typical oscar voter as surprising, frustrating and ironic. They want to believe they belong to an institution that purports to celebrate heroes — an institution that, more often than not, honors movies about good guys over movies about bad guys, and thus represents a righteous, high-minded ideology. Many of them lived through the 1960s. They probably fought in the Civil Rights Movement. They drive a Prius — or, if they’re next level, a Tesla. They do what they can for all the right causes. They fight against injustice whenever they see it. Most are liberals. Staunch Democrats. Many are happy get behind Hillary, and even those who see themselves as Bernie supporters will still vote for Hillary if they have to. They feel in their hearts that they have good intentions. Although the size of their fortunes has ballooned with savvy investment advice, they do not see themselves as part of the Wall Street schemes that support their lifestyles. They choose to see themselves as outside that system — fighting against it — even while living lavishly because of it. Above all, they most certainly do not see themselves in terms of the word being bandied about this week, as racists.
Inside this comfortable self-image, very few are paying attention — really paying attention — to what’s happening in Hollywood and what’s happening to the Oscars as a result. How many Academy members stop to consider what their choices say about what’s happening in our culture’s broader discussion about race and representation in art?
The past year has been replete with articles expressing exasperation and anger over how few films about women have been featured in the Oscar race over the past ten years. No film has won Best Picture with a lead actress nominee since 2004 with Million Dollar Baby. With all of the admirable talk about the Academy making strides to rectify gender inequality in its ranks, they present us with only three Best Picture nominees led by women, two more with strong women anywhere in the casts. A few women of color had prominent speaking roles in this year’s Best Picture nominees, though most of these roles are woefully small.
On the one hand, Oscar voters probably feel they can’t win for losing. They’ve made an effort to include stories about women and this year, at last, they’ve largely succeeded. This achievement might have been the issue we could all celebrate — if only the voters had been able to make their ballots for one single film or actor of color. Some did, no doubt. Why didn’t more of them do so? The same thing happened last year. Selma barely squeaked in but no actors of color were nominated — not even David Oyelowo playing Martin Luther King, Jr.. Why didn’t he? Because room had to be made for the American Sniper instead?
As George Clooney said yesterday, “We’re moving in the wrong direction,” and he pointed out that things haven’t always been this way. Why have things gotten worse and not better, he asked. In spite of the recent Best Picture win of 12 Years a Slave and the nomination of Selma for Best Picture, why is the overall slate of Oscar nominees getting less diverse instead of more? Remember not too long ago when Jamie Foxx and Forrest Whitaker and Denzel Washington and Mo’Nique and Jennifer Hudson and Lupita Nyong’o were accepting their Oscars. Proud moments. But we’ve now had a white-out for two straight years when there have been plenty of worthy options.
The one false point that I cannot abide is the nonsensical argument so many others have been making: that the films or the actors this year just weren’t good enough. That’s nonsense. So if you’re hoping I’m going to concede that the best got in and it was a just a very competitive year then I’ll have to say upfront: don’t make me expose those who really didn’t deserve to get nominations because I can do it. Not just this year, but every year, as far back as you want to go.
The announcement of this year’s nominees has caused this year’s Oscars, like last year’s, to blow up into one story and one story only. Sure, we can talk about diversity in the other categories, like the shorts or the Documentary or Foreign Language choices — but everyone knows that the true seat of power in Hollywood rests with the actors, the directors, and the all-important Best Picture. I respectfully submit that there are four contributing factors to this year’s results.
I see four primary forces behind the result of the Oscars over the past decade: 1) the devolution of the Hollywood business model itself — as described quite brilliantly and horrifically in Lynda Obst’s book Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business., 2) the rigged game of the remnants of a star system that favors and nurtures white gods and goddesses, and the film critics that bolster this unhealthy obsession, 3) the growing resentment of old guard Academy members, many of whom feel obligated or forced to vote for black actors and black films whether they want to or not, and 4) the unreasonable expectations placed on black actors and productions with black actors, women and other minorities, a baggage imposed by strident, politically correct movements that demand these professionals bear the burden of our past and politely chart our future. The list of demands gets longer each year, and further becomes impossibly difficult to fulfill.
1) The business of Hollywood discourages variety in films Oscar voters prefer – and encourages cherry picking and special meal delivery
In Lynda Obst’s book, Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business, she explains how Hollywood has dramatically changed in the past ten years. Part of it is the need to “open big.” If you don’t open big you are screwed. Part of this is because piracy is a serious problem for studios. But mostly it’s the growing dominance of box-office returns driven by “pre-awareness” — relying heavily on tentpoles, sequels, and remakes. It’s so hard to get movies made that half of them end up on television anyway and almost always those are the ones starring women or minorities, unless they’re “niche films” made for a “niche audience,” like Tyler Perry makes – a director who does incredibly well and does so by not giving a single fuck what White Hollywood says he should do.
Interestingly, and not at all surprisingly, films starring racially diverse casts do really well overseas. But to do great business overseas you can’t really make the kinds of films most Oscar voters respond to. As the big business of Hollywood continues to make shitloads of money making movies Oscar voters don’t like, the Oscar race has become far more specialized, or niche, and an entire cottage industry has emerged where Oscar strategists are attached to movies early on, in charge of shepherding the films Oscar voters are presumed to like. And too many pundits play along, as we coral and herd and spoon-feed the Oscar-friendly, sifting out diverse choices into a limited pile for voters.
Think of Oscar voters like that one guest at the dinner table who requires a special meal — nothing too spicy or “ethnic” — and mostly only what they’re accustomed to consuming. God help you if you run out of potatoes or macaroni. Everyone else at the table is open and willing to eat whatever fresh delicacies you serve, but that one guest has to get the same tame meal every time.
The rise of the “Oscar movie” is a recent invention borne out of the the Academy pushing up the date of the Oscars by a full month — thus removing the public reaction out of the process of choosing Best Picture. There were always “Oscar movies,” tailor made for the Academy and released in December. But they were also movies for the public to fall in love with so that awarding them was a cultural event with impact. Now, the public mostly scratches its head and says “da fuq”? when they hear the nominations because this process takes place in a busy world of critics, bloggers, pundits, publicists and voters — often many weeks before the nominees ever open in theaters.
Pundits and strategists together find the “Oscar movies,” the ones “they” will go for, casually discarding any that are pre-judged as “not that great,” or aren’t “Oscar-y” enough — which severely limits our options right out of the gate, as you can imagine. At the same time, we’re proven right every year we try to imagine “fetch” will happen with the Oscars. It isn’t going to happen. It’s never going to happen. Sometimes you just can’t let go and you try and you push and you advocate and you cajole — but to no avail. Too many voters remain stubbornly immovable because they only want to eat that one kind of meal.
This is why, when a film like Beasts of No Nation comes along, or Fruitvale Station two years ago, they’re the first to falter in the system. When a film is too critically acclaimed and ambitious, it’s seen to be too esoteric — but these are the very films that need the Oscar race to make money. They need to be pushed as hard as possible for awards recognition. It is almost impossible to get them made in the first place and twice as hard to get the mainstream critic establishment and the Oscar industry to pay attention to them. Films like this make up a very small list usually, but it’s a list of exquisite gems.
So we’re looking at a narrow opening to begin with — films that get the requisite cred from critics, enough to get in through the tiny hole to make it onto that plate of mostly bland food items that looks just like the same plate served five years ago. The Oscar voters haven’t changed all that much. Yes, the industry and the culture has changed around them, but the Oscar industry keeps Academy voters shielded and protected from the real world.
Why has it gotten worse? Because that tiny hole has gotten smaller. The niche factor of the Oscars has gotten even more niche. There is only room for Brits, let’s face it. And Whites, let’s face that too. It’s harder and harder for even one movie to break through that’s outside the norm.
When there was more time, another month for movies to marinate and voters to contemplate, the Oscar were more plugged in to the general public. When Gladiator won Best Picture, for instance, it was a shared experience between the industry and the public. Remember that year? With Traffic and Crouching Tiger? That was an incredibly diverse year.
2) The Star System favors white celebrities. Look around your Twitter feed and Facebook. What kinds of pictures of celebrities do you see, day in and day out? Beautiful stars from the old days of Hollywood glamour? What color are they? The Oscars, in many ways, still reflect that old, outmoded version of Hollywood glamour — that’s why it’s so hard for older women, heavier women, less gorgeous women, and any woman of color to be Princess for a Day. The awards establishment seems stuck in that glamour-puss past — they want Jennifer Lawrence each and every time. They want Audrey Hepburn redux. They want Grace Kelly. They want a pretty little doll to put atop their pretty frosted layer cake. All the better if she gave a great performance, but that isn’t necessarily as important as her, ahem, “desirability” to a certain type of person. Ahem. We tend to coddle actors because we’ve learned (i.e., been taught) to love them. We naturally want to see someone we love get recognized, like Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts or Rachel McAdams. We wait patiently for them to finally deliver THAT PERFORMANCE that will win them the Oscar FINALLY. Their career narrative becomes something we’re invested in. Once in a blue moon, you’ll find someone interested in investing in the narrative of a person of color or anyone else who doesn’t fit the Audrey or Katharine Hepburn model of the ideal Oscar Queen.
Best performance? Honestly, it’s rarely ever been about that. It’s more about the “moves” in a star’s career that are either applauded, scorned, or ignored by their peers. It’s seldom “how good they are” and more often “how good for them.” Few actors of color have ever been allowed to create such a narrative. I can think of a couple — Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, and Viola Davis. But for the most part, it’s about watching the various ups and downs of the gods and goddesses we’ve anointed as worthy of our worship. To a degree, we are all culpable in this because of our lifelong conditioning and obsession with white celebrities that our culture elevates to the status of gods.
As someone who’s run a site on the Oscar race for 15 years, I can tell you that the hottest traffic generators are rarely people of color. When I devoted almost an entire season to Viola Davis, I had the most hate directed at me I ever have, and had to witness readership flee to pro-Meryl sites (demoralizing, since my own long-standing admiration for La Streep needs no explanation or apology). I know if I post about a white celebrity like Jennifer Lawrence or any one of those endlessly trending #hashtag white celebrities, my site’s traffic will spike. This annoys me so I try not to do it, but if I was only about driving traffic (as many sites are) that is what I would be forced to do. Think this is an Internet problem? Think again. This is why magazines always put white people on the cover for the past half century. It isn’t really about “racism” so much as it is an insidious pervasive racial bias — it’s about how we’ve all been conditioned and have conditioned ourselves through media, Hollywood (let’s face it), and even toys to see the white people as the only appropriate gods and goddesses. This situation is, I think, slowly changing, but it’s very much in place this year and it’s why you see actors automatically placed in frontrunner status — like Johnny Depp over, say, Michael B. Jordan.
Not only has the business of Hollywood changed, it’s changed in response to the way audiences and film criticism has changed — the rise of the fanboy in film culture has left little room for anyone but your typical white male protagonist to emerge. It isn’t only fanboys, though. J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy have almost single-handedly changed the kinds of films fanboy culture supports. Even though Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac are the two most worshiped stars from Star Wars, there is no getting around the fact that John Boyega and Daisy Ridley are the real stars. We can hope that this just the beginning of a promising new way for doors to open. But we’re still talking about tentpoles, sequels, and remakes as the juggernaut economic force in today’s Hollywood — and that’s a genre Oscar really won’t touch, at least not now.
The growing chorus of men who openly oppose feminism, for instance, the “not all men” or Gamergate crowd, the ones who publicly shame, bully and humiliate any celebrity who calls herself a feminist are the same people who are the first to jump up and say “not everything is racist!” Or else they feel pissed off that anyone would bring up the issue at all. This is just your run-of-the mill white privilege rearing its ugly head. White men have been in charge for a long time, and they are not budging any time soon until they are overtaken in numbers, and maybe not even then. Meanwhile, just the mere threat of losing their power on the distant horizon makes many of these men flare up in their last throes of desperation.
Fanboy culture, film criticism is as white-centric as the Oscar race — man, oh man, do these guys get resentful (as Academy members do — but we’ll get to that later) whenever they feel they “have to vote” for something or someone “just because” they’re black. They have no problem with their stunt picks, like James Franco winning for Spring Breakers. But they resist the urge to advocate with their picks, because then you start getting into the area of what defines a good performance, or what it means to “deserve” an award. We’ve all seen people win Oscars for any number of reasons, though. To my mind, “Just because they’re black” is as worthy a reason as “I’d like to see her naked and astride my peen.” Or “She’s given so many great performances over the years,” or “She’s churned up big business for Hollywood,” or “He gained 35 pounds, or lost 35 pounds for the role.” These are all equally dubious reasons to hand someone an award. It is naive to think any of these prizes are purely objective assessments of talent or worth. The Oscars are about power and dominance — they aren’t really about artistic achievement and never have been. It’s an exclusive club. The Academy makes their own rules.
3) The growing resentment of Academy members who don’t want to be called “racists” but also hate feeling obligated to vote for black actors and movies “just because.”
The Academy just can’t seem to wrestle free from this stigma of race in their awards choices. Each time they award a film like 12 Years a Slave (the one time a film with an all black cast, directed by a black director has won Best Picture – in 88 years) or nominate a film like Selma, there are these creepy confessionals that pop up from resentful anonymous members who start dissing the film in question, or revealing their secret resentments for “having to vote for it” out of guilt, as if that’s the only reason. The subtext of what they’re saying is that they wouldn’t have voted for it if they didn’t feel like they had to.
Given the option, these voters would prefer to opt out and hope they’ve paid their penance enough to be let off the hook. What they like most of all: movies about white movie stars being the good guys. They simply can’t see themselves reflected in films about black characters or black culture, especially if that culture hasn’t been whitened to be more “universal.” What I loved so much about Ryan Coogler’s Creed was the freed-up dialect with no need to make it “sound more white.” The same went for Straight Outta Compton. What we saw with these two movies — and believe me, there is a thriving market for films aimed at black audiences that are even more ignored — was the kind of crossover appeal that should be embraced by people like Academy voters.
The growing resentment really started as far back as Do the Right Thing, when that cinematic milestone was shut out of the 1989 Best Picture race, causing a wave of accusations aimed at the Academy by prominent film critics and audiences alike. These older men didn’t see themselves as racists and hated being characterized as such. Why couldn’t it just be “the movie wasn’t good enough?” That question — that excuse — would continue for the next several decades and remains the first sulky rationale today. These voters don’t seem able to admit that what defines “good” is a matter of personal perspective. It’s a big world with a lot of different viewpoints, and yet – with a few notable exceptions, then and now — we always end up talking about what white people define as good or great. To make diverse movies that appeals to the Academy will require an identity overhaul. Make movies white people like and then on top of that, make movies film critics will respect and Oscar voters will respond to.
The best answer to Do the Right Thing’s shutout in the Best Picture race would have been to mentor more black directors. Hollywood had never seen anyone like Spike Lee. You’d have thought they would have welcomed him with open arms and mentored the shit out of him. They didn’t. They did the exact opposite. They marginalized him to the point where any black director from then on who was let in the club better not be an outspoken one. To Lee’s enduring credit, he continues not to give a fuck. This year, the critics who supported the late-breaking Chi-Raq were not enough to launch it into the Oscar race. It needed more time to seep into the general consciousness.
The number of ostensible liberals dealing with “this black thing” every year is growing, and with it grows the resentment of white men who like to see themselves as cool civil rights dudes, not racist. It just gets worse, not better, so much so that actors and directors are almost punished for even trying to get anywhere near the Oscar race. They’re simply dismissed. The Academy elders seem to think: “We gave 12 Years a Slave Best Picture, so that gets us off the hook.”
There is no easy solution to this ongoing dynamic — there is only hoping that it one day goes away as a more diverse membership evolves; I can’t even convince men on my Facebook feed or on Twitter to feel less resentment even for having the discussion — you can imagine what one man alone with his anonymous ballot is feeling.
4) The Long List
Much has been made of the kinds of films Oscar voters respond to, as opposed to those made by black filmmakers and starring black actors. So much has been made, in fact, that criticism for the disconnect gets flung in all directions. One problem with this (valid) criticism is that it has become a crippling factor for black actors who get offered a variety of roles, the few who get as many opportunities as white actors to play complex characters.
The Help is a great example of this. A popular movie that made a shitload of money and was headed for the Oscar race. But here it was again, that same complaint about black actors playing maids. Hattie McDaniel, in fact, was shunned by the black community for playing a maid in Gone with the Wind (okay, worse than a maid: a slave) and for winning the Oscar — a hard fought battle for power for sure. McDaniel said at the time “I’d rather make $700 a week playing a maid than earn $7 a day being a maid.” McDaniel’s legacy — her achievement and subsequent chastening — is still being worked through by the black community today, half of whom can’t cut her a break and the other half who celebrate her history and her talent.
That dynamic continued on to warp perceptions for 70 years, all the way to The Help. The quite credible frustration that, yet again, a black woman was about to win an Oscar for playing a maid. “Poor people, drug addicts, slaves and maids — can’t we get some positive roles for black actors?” The problem is that whenever that happens, film critics and the Academy shun those projects, like The Great Debaters, for instance, or Akeelah and the Bee. As if to say, “Don’t even try to step out of the roles where we’ve decided you belong.” The problem with this is that actors of color are the ones who must pay the price. They just get less work, less power, because they’re not allowed to do films that make money. Must they carry the burden of their entire community? Always and until the end of the time?
What we saw happen with The Help was the beginning of the diverging roads between the much more diverse Screen Actors Guild and the staunchly less diverse Academy. The Help not only won Best Ensemble that year, but both Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer won coveted SAG Awards. The Academy, of course, famously opted out of honoring Davis as the second black actress to win the Best Actress Oscar in 84 years. Mark Harris advocated tirelessly for her. Dozens of pundits were writing op-eds about how she should win, but the Academy balked and gave Meryl Streep her third Oscar. And as we now know, Streep has and will have many more chances to win Oscars. Davis, not so much.
If you reach even further back, you’ll remember when Steven Spielberg got a load of shit dumped on him for being a white guy who dared to make a film about black women. The Color Purple was attacked from every angle — for “whitewashing” the style, for “straightwashing” the lesbianism, but mostly because a white man had the audacity to make a movie about black characters. The Color Purple was the last film with an all black cast to be nominated for Best Picture until Precious in 2009 and The Help in 2011. Because of the backlash against The Color Purple and the way Spielberg was treated for even trying to go there, it just got harder and harder for movies featuring black narratives to get made. Who wants to step in a big pile of horse manure like that? Black directors were not being mentored and no white directors were brave enough to do what Spielberg did. The result? Less work, less power, less career- and legacy-building for black actors who had to take whatever was deemed acceptable. It was all so terribly unfair.
Politically correct strangulation of art is worse now than it ever has been. The pressure for films and performers to right the wrongs of society is just too much. All it accomplishes is to give free reign to movies about white characters, preferably white men who can do whatever they want be whatever they want, explore any dark theme, play good guys and bad guys. No one cares because no one is going to object except to say, “Why are there only movies about white guys?” I’m not blaming the victim here. I’m only saying, can we all lighten up a little bit when it comes to the growing list of can’t and shouldn’t and should and must and don’t?
Even when the list of demands is somehow met, that doesn’t mean anyone will go see the movie. It still has to pass muster with critics as we saw happen with The Butler. The restrictions are too high and unfairly placed on minorities, and here’s the rub: none of these same standards seem to apply to the apex of Hollywood power: white males. Think about that.
The Way Out
Since Oscar expanded Best Picture, every year except 2010 a film with a black cast or a black actor has been represented – 2009: Precious, 2011: The Help, 2012: Beasts of the Southern Wild, 2013: 12 Years a Slave, 2014: Selma. What has changed so dramatically this year to cause both a shut out in Best Picture and in the acting categories?
The thing about Oscar voters that most people don’t know or don’t think about is pretty simple, actually, and it isn’t as sinister as it seems. Academy members get just a few short days to fill out their nominations ballot between Christmas and New Year’s. They have an enormous pile of screeners and most of them do not watch the screeners unless they feel obligated or otherwise forced. If forced, most of the time they will do the right thing, but many of them have to be pressured into doing it.
Weeks ago, I saw Scott Feinberg at The Hollywood Reporter putting Straight Outta Compton on his Best Picture predictions when no one else was willing to go there. That small thing he did created a shift in thinking among people who make the significant lists. We started considering Compton in a different way, and for a while there it seemed like voters might be paying attention. With ten nomination slots, and not five, Compton might have been nominated.
Whether Oscar advocates can help or not or whether critics can help or not is really beside the point. All advocacy is good — especially if the film is good enough and successful enough to deserve awards attention. There are bigger and more important things than the Oscars. The Spirit Awards are growing in prominence. When a movie like Creed earns $100 million, it will inspire other black directors to start making films. The films, the filmmakers, and the industry as a whole are making progress. The controversy this year will ensure people pay closer attention next year, in regards to the kinds of films being considered, the films that are pushed through, the films that manage to make it in, and of course, as always, to the films that don’t.
Either way, in a year when Hollywood has so much to be proud of, the Academy gets to enjoy #OscarsSoWhite as the biggest story of Oscars 2016. Not the number of movies about women that got recognized, not the history-making Best Picture and Best Director nominations in consecutive years of Alejandro G. Iñarritu, not the astonishing level of achievement on display from dozens of exciting filmmakers. No, the Oscars instead must live with the mistake they can’t seem to stop making — another shutout of black actors that haunts them now and will always be a stain on their legacy until things finally change.
”What if there truly was a year where all white performances were considered the best?”
That pretty much describes the first several decades of Oscar history: years and years of all-white nominated performances, because there were very few opportunities for actors of color. Heck, it took until 2002 (the 74th Academy Awards) before a black woman could win Best Actress, and no other black woman has won that since.
Obama is our 44th U.S. president. There were 43 white presidents prior. Do you really that the election of ONE black president (after 2 centuries) or the first black Academy president means race is no longer an issue?
No one is asking for minority quotas on the Oscar ballots. That’s idiotic. But if you’re ”all for diversity,” how can you defend an Academy that’s 94% white and 76% male? Blacks make up only 2%, and Latinos less than that.
”What if the other categories were well-represented with minorities …?” Name the category. Doesn’t exist.
The issue is larger than the Academy. We need to see more directors, actors, writers of color get their movies greenlit. As for the Oscars, we’ll never see more diverse nominations until the membership itself is more diverse.
Not sure where I stand on all of this. I don’t think AMPAS needs to be told how much these awards mean to anyone. They have never been about the best or most deserving. It’s a popularity contest.
Great article, truly insightful, Sasha Stone! Thank you for mentioning The Color Purple. The best Spielberg ever directed, the best Oprah ever was on film, the best and most diverse film by race and sex in its year and its decade. If Bridge of Spies could make the list this year, The Color Purple would have made the grade but for sexism (black woman also wrote the underlying prize-winning novel) and racism. Never will I forget the sense that it was the best directed, best acted and most inspirational of films after seeing The Color Purple. It deserves a look even today!
Going by posts on my Facebook page, the #OscarsSoWhite thing might be better termed #OscarsSoWhiteIsSoWhite. Meaning my black friends and acquaintances don’t seem all that enthused with #OscarsSoWhite and the persons amping it up. In fact they are pretty harsh in opinions on the matter, particularly calling out Jada Pinkett Smith. Kind of ironic how even #OscarsSoWhite becomes a white thing.
The Academy shouldn’t fix anything. The problem is the industry, and I hate how people be bitching about this on Oscar time. Jada Pinkett and Will Smith both have a lot of money they should start producing great stuff for black people. If they want to change the system that’s how they start doing it, not acting like victims by boycotting the Oscars. What they are doing is forcing the Academy to vote for black films to prove a point. And I don’t get why there’s comparison between the Emmys and the Oscars. This year we saw the Emmys acknowledge black people because television is more broad and there is more quality work for black people there. Again this argument proves that the problem is the industry not the Oscars. So even if the Oscars expand their membership and include more black people, the problem is going to persist.
Sasha man…you have officially usurped Jeff Wells as the premier awards and culture specialist in my eyes for your insight and straight shooter attitude. I will be visiting the site more often just on the basis of this very post and I don’t know if you were already considering it, but a book on your thoughts and observance of this rigged game would be much welcome. I would certainly pre order it on Amazon. Keep fighting the good fight.
Great article, Sasha! Do you think Ruffallo’s threat to boycott could impact “Spotlight’s” chance of winning BP? Could he have been pressured by the film’s backers and that’s why he decided to go the Oscars? The Academy members look the type to hold grudges and I think it could cost “Spotlight” BP.
I wanna give props to one Best Picture nominee that really has put the spotlight on an often ignored minority: Native Americans. That’s ”The Revenant,” which has been getting a lot of press for its American Indian actors, like Forrest Goodluck (Hawk) and Arthur Redcloud (Hikuc). They’ve been bright and eloquent spokesmen for the movie’s filmmaking and its more humanistic depiction of indigenous peoples. Goodluck and Redcloud also helped represent ”The Revenant” at the Broadcast Film Critics Awards. I wish the movie had gotten a SAG Ensemble nomination to help recognize their fine performances but also the scarcity of Native American roles. When the topic of diversity comes up, they’re never even in the conversation. Even OscarSoWhite could include more color.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/revenant-actor-arthur-redcloud-hopes-857281
This.
Continuing my train of thought, I’m starting to think that now David Hill and Reginald Hudlin will have difficulty finding individuals that will present at the Oscars. I just heard that Mark Ruffalo is second guessing about showing up at the ceremony. There has not been so much turmoil threatened at the ceremony since the writer’s strike that nearly derailed the 2008 Oscars.
Here’s also how a view certain cowardly and lazy Oscar voters. Think of AMPAS as one big, prestigious university or a small class that depends on hard work and student integrity. Now while many (or most) of the students completing their homework, research, assignment (i.e. hard work and doing his or her job), there are a few lazy students who won’t do the aforementioned tasks I mentioned. That’s how I feel about cowardly and lazy Oscar voters: People who a essentially not doing their job, becoming a liability, and giving the Oscar brand a bad reputation. For every David Oyelowo, Tom Hanks, Laura Linney, Ken Howard, Richard Jenkins, Janet McTeer, Mark Ruffalo, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Ava DuVernay, Lupita N’yongo, Liam Neeson, James McAvoy, Kathryn Bigelow, Paul Bettany, Kevin Spacey, Hugh Jackman, and Tom Wilkinson (people who are trying to uphold the duty of the Oscar brand) there’s sadly an Adam Sandler, Rupert Murdoch, Bob Saget, and Hope Holliday ruining it for everyone else.
I learned that being accepted into a university (or any other prestigious institution), you must uphold those duties you promised or swore to uphold and execute. Oscar voters must, MUST do the same.
Rupert Murdoch is in AMPAs ??? Why ??
He is the head of 21st Century Fox (which used to be News Corp) which owns 20th Century Fox.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/feb/24/oscars-investigation-power-behind-academy
Academy,
This is it:
1. BACK TO 10
2. SCREW PREFERENTIAL BALLOTING
Don’t give that much weight for the 1st and 2nd choices. That’s How you get Bridges of Spies and not Carols.
Again, the lack of acting nominations for people of color is clearly an issue with the Academy’s Acting Branch, first and foremost, as other bodies with similar constituencies (BAFTA, SAG, Spirit Awards) nominate more people of color.
Because of this, it becomes quite untenable to argue that these performances don’t exist, don’t get properly promoted, or that the industry’s overall racism is to blame. It only makes sense in examining this gap to start to wonder about the demographics and biases of Academy voters. These biases are less pronounced in other groups, after all.
Ruffalo said he is thinking of not attending… Kkkkkkkkk
He should say in clear words: Idris Elba deserved this much more than my shouting out loud scene.
He’s a nominee. It’s not his fault. I wouldn’t expect any nominee to stay home. And I actually don’t think anyone should stay home. It’s better to show up, in my opinion. The only way I think a protest like that would work is if everyone showed up and then walked out. Now that would be something.
I would keep Ruffalo. Add Elba. And drop Hardy.
Hardy deserves for his recent body of work.
Ruffalo already got a nomination last year. And for me a questionable one too. Sincerely think Channing Tatum was better than him.
I thought all three Foxcatcher actors were tremendous. I would’ve nominated Tatum over Cumberbatch and Redmayne.
Tatum was a lead whereas Ruffalo (who gave a truly restrained and thoughtful performance) was campaigned in supporting. It’s Carell who’s category was always shaky. Hardy was great in Revenant but nobody should be given a nomination for a body of work. Just a single, specific performance.
I agree. I actually thought Ruffalo was terrible. I’m from Boston and I’ve never in my life heard an accent like that. Furthermore, I didn’t think the shouting scene was properly motivated. Was he molested? When the Rachel McAdams character asks him, he doesn’t have a clear answer. We get that what’s happening is very wrong, but why is he so emotional about it while everyone else is just doing their job. It seemed like just an excuse to add some drama. It’s a failure of the writer and director as well.
And yes, Elba was astounding in Beasts of No Nation.
I find it disgraceful that out of 20 acting nominations, ONLY 9 of them are Americans! The academy is moving backwards by choosing people of other countries as nominees and not focusing more on actors from the United States
By the way, that was sarcasm, the following is not.
Although I do agree that Hollywood itself needs to do more to showcase the talents of minorities in prominent films, and perhaps the Academy should maybe even create a new category for best first film so aspiring filmmakers who are minorities could have a chance to be recognized (I’m sure Ryan Coogler would have won for Fruitivale Station if there was a category like this). Let’s take a look at the films nominated:
– A fantastic drama about two women in love during the 50’s (Carol)
– A film about a young Irish woman immigrating to America (Brooklyn)
– The best action film of the year, which was also a powerful feminist statement (Mad Max Fury Road)
– A team of journalists that break the one of the biggest stories of the new century regarding the Catholic church (Spotlight)
– A man trapped on Mars forcing the United States and China to work together (The Martian)
– Another wonderful drama about a man who discovers himself and undergoes sex reassignment surgery (The Danish Girl)
– Another action movie where a strong female FBI agent is recruited to help bring down a drug cartel (Sicario)
– How the perspective of marriage changes for an older couple celebrating their 45th anniversary (45 Years)
I think this year was a pretty diverse year that selected films that brought forth a variety of important subjects (and I didn’t even include Straight Outta Compton) especially in comparison to the last few years. Normally they would only nominated one of these type of films.
Except these are again, all white stories (and The Danish Girl once again a cis man playing a trans woman while Mya Taylor, a real-life trans woman gets no attention).
– Carol, great story. But again, white! Queer people of colour exist too!
– People only care about immigrants when they’re white I guess.
– Loved Mad Max, so I don’t want to say anything, but again, white women lead this.
– Another white story.
– A man trapped on Mars who could have easily been played by a black man or an Asian man or a Latin man.
– Cis man playing a trans woman.
– Sicario was barely recognised.
– Old and white.
My point is, even stories like these don’t need to be presented with a pretty white face. Race can intersect with SO MANY stories and add a more layered, “current”, substance to it but filmmakers choose to avoid to be more accessible to white audiences.
Love what you’re saying, even while I loved Carol, Mad Max and 45 Years. But why is it a bad thing that 45 Years is about old people? I get it, the Academy is full of silly old people, but films about people even older than 50 rarely even get made, never mind seen, never mind nominated for Oscars, never mind nominated for more than one, which 45 Years failed to do despite being one of the year’s best films.
I loved 45 Years, and I’m sad that Tom Courtenay has been mostly ignored.
I’m simply pointing out the importance of these stories in general as compared to the Oscar nominations of previous years. My point had nothing to do with skin pigment or race. Should the importance be less because they only included actors/actresses that are white?
On a side note, if we look at the past of Oscar nominated films with minorities who have played important roles and subjects (12 Years a Slave, Lincoln), could there be criticism made as well for lack of recognition?
” Carol, great story. But again, white! Queer people of colour exist too!”
do you know what an adaptation from a book is? Do you understand the setting in the upper class in New York in the 50s? #Carol-so-White
As much as I hoped for Straight Outta Compton to break awards records, when I read that abusive male rapper violence against black women had been whitewashed out of the film’s narrative — highly relevant to the life imitating art aspects of controversial rap lyrics about violence — I appreciated it not getting an Oscar nod. There is no similar reason for Creed to have been ignored in the (black) supporting actress (for the adoptive mom) and (black) best actor categories, or best picture. And unless the NFL holds sway over Oscar voters (or maybe it is about network profits), there were black best actor and black supporting actress performances that fairly could have gotten nods for Concussion, along with best picture. No fair reason for the blinding whiteness (with The Revenant’s exception) in the Oscar nominations this year.
I, for one, am rally glad that #OscarSoWhite…
No, I’m not a racist, and if you think I am, you don’t know me.
The problem is way more structural than #OscarSoWhite, #OscarSoMale, #OscarSoStraight. If there was one (or two, or whatever) nominations, the issue would not be raised. We would not have this discussion at all, and we should.
It bother me that there is so little diversity in filmmaking voices (even if, honestly, my personal taste does veer into the traditional Hollywood territory more often than not). I want more films about, starring and directed by blacks, by women, by the LGBTQ community.
I understand that a nomination could help matters in that regard. I don’t know if the solution is bottom-up or top-down. Hell, I don’t know which is which.
But I think this outcry is more healthy for this issue, long term, than nominations for Idris Elba, Michael B Jordan and SOC would be.
I get where you’re coming from. The Academy and the American Film Industry desperately NEEDED this to create a discussion. Last year NPH made one joke for all the white ppl to laugh at it and laugh it off and continue to go on the status quo. I’m glad that many celebrities have spoken out and really put the film industry and the Academy in it’s place. It’s a shameful time for the Academy too and hopefully the stain doesn’t rub off for there to be a long-term impact.
I understand that an ACADEMY AWARD can help build a career of one artist. An Oscar is a brand.
But are we still clinging to the idea that it is the highest honor or the gauge of great cinematic achievements?
It is disappointing when my favorite or the films I deemed the best for each categories got snubbed but as what have been written almost every year here at awardsdaily and any other film sites every after Oscar nomintions, time will judge the greatness of these films. Time will say if Elba, Jordan, Straight Outta Compton, Beasts of No Nation, Tangerines, Creed, etc are better than the nominated ones.
As I’ve written before, diversity is not just about skin color, but gender, age, race, and sexual preference as well.
It’s as if these actors who were snubbed accepted their roles to be nominated for an Oscar? It’s as if the filmmakers of the films snubbed for Best Picture made their films to win an Oscar? Because I don’t think it should be that way.
Second, I just hope there would be more roles for Asians in Hollywood as well. I celebrated Kikuchi and Watanabe’s nominations because they represented my race well and made us proud. At the same time I know they deserved to win as well. Kikuchi was in the acting race for Kumiko: The Treasure Hunter this year and I can confidently say that she deserved to make it among the nominees for lead or supporting actress. But the thing is there where few roles for Asians in the industry.
I wonder if this diversity talk is just about and for African-Americans only? If an Asian like Kikuchi or any performance by an Asian actor made it among the acting nominees this year or last year, will they be labeled as white (because of skin same as Hispanics are considered white)? Or will they consider them as part of the diversity selections? Or will there be this talk about diversity at all? Because there has never been an Asian acting nominee since 2007 (correct me if i’m wrong) and an Asian acting winner since forever.
Asians, Latinxs, etc. ARE included in this conversation. But we, as non-black-PoC need to STOP trying to silence black people for speaking out. It’s ugly and takes the attention away from black voices in the industry.
Aren’t we also included in the POC? I fully support the voices supporting diversity among the nominees and also rooted for Elba and thought he deserves to be there more than two of the nominees. But diversity is more than just skin color. I am not hearing as loud voices for Haynes and Carol being snubbed for another year (after Far From Heaven) for Directing and BP. Both categories he and his film deserve. Why aren’t enough voices to raise this issue? Or voices as big as the call for skin color diversity?
Is gender and other aspects of diversity less relevant than skin color? I ask these questions because I believe these aspects of diversity also deserve to be included in this conversation.
No gender and sexuality, etc. are not less relevant than race BUT the focus is on race, especially when the climate of racism is growing tension there are so many important stories. This isn’t difficult to understand. If you wanna discuss Carol’s snubs or female roles, then go ahead and create your own discussions. Don’t hijack an already important one.
I am not “hijacking” this issue on race. As I’ve mentioned earlier I would like to include the Asian race in the conversation and not just limit it to a certain skin color.
And diversity discussion should not just be limited to race. It should be AS A WHOLE. You just said gender, sensuality etc. are not less important than race then why not stand for a holistic intent of diversity? And that is why I cited questions regarding the lack of Asian among the nominees for a very long time.
How is Sato silencing black people for speaking out. And what’s so ugly about it? Sato is simply trying to add to the conversation, and re-frame the dialogue to be more inclusive of all POC.
It’s silencing because non-black PoC have only ever been vocal about issues that affect us when black people are vocal on theirs. Not only does it silence black voices but it puts the hands of white supremacy on black responsibility.
“It’s silencing because non-black PoC have only ever been vocal about issues that affect us when black people are vocal on theirs.”
Not sure if this is what you meant, but it reads like you are saying, non-black POC are only vocal about issues that effect them AND black people are vocal on their OWN issues?
OR, are you saying that black people are vocal on issues that effect all POC.
Either way, it’s a broad generality.
And why shouldn’t minority groups speak up for themselves? You’re ultimately talking about two separate issues. POC can and should speak up for themselves, about issues that effect their community. It is possible to speak up for yourself AND speak up for all POC.
You have to think though, what does Oscar really do for the career of the actor? What did it do for Halle Berry? What has it done for Octavia Spencer? Where is the venerable Cuba Gooding, Jr these days?
Oscar might help a film sell tickets, but what does it really mean for anyone?
Or Adrien Brody who was the youngest best actor winner and has done nothing except some appearances in Wes Anderson films.
The choices of film makers we revere are very often racist. For example, Boyhood’s Mason seems to have grown up in a nearly race free world. His white mother changes the life of an immigrant with a few words (ew). Why is she white, anyway?
If the word “racism” can only apply to acts with malicious intent, the bar is set too high to account for Hollywood’s failure. “Institutional racism” fails to account for the myriad racist acts of omission committed by individual filmmakers every day.
It’s also time to stop treating racist suits as faceless. They have names and they should be held individually accountable for their decisions by journalists and the blogs.
OT but PGA is at what time day after tomorrow? Is it like a proper ceremony ?
Out of touch Academy just reminds me of when they awarded The King’s Speech over The Social Network and now I’m mad all over again…
Oscars like a certain kind of movie. For some reason in the last five years or so they’ve almost regressed a bit though, starting with the King’s Speech winning. It seemed like they were starting to get braver with their choices (Hurt Locker over Avatar) but the last several years have been disappointing (choosing brazen Oscars plays like Eddie Redmayne in Theory of Everything and Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables). But, some films aren’t Oscar movies. I don’t think Straight Outta Compton or Creed were necessarily designed for Oscars. They made money – which is more important. It means that those filmmakers will be able to make more movies. Some films can win a bunch of critics awards and make no money, and those filmmakers will struggle to make their next movie. It would be great to see more representation across the board (all races, sexual orientations, etc) but the best defense is to simply say the Oscars are outdated and move on. If the Oscars want to catch up with the times that’s their problem.
I sort of agree with you. I would love to see more diversity in the nominees. I’m honestly not sure what effect it would have on the eventual winners. However, even diversifying the slate of nominees would be a big step. But you have a good example – the year of Hurt Locker, you had a diverse set of nominees, and they awarded a critically acclaimed film by a female director. The next year, there was a relatively diverse set of nominees (artistically speaking). However, they still ended up rewarding the typical middle-brow costume drama.
A lot of this comes down to the preferential ballot – passion can help get a film nominated. And if the slate were opened up to 10 nominees, instead of 5-10, more passion choices could get in, perhaps reflecting more diversity in their choices. However, passion does not necessarily help with the win, since the eventual winner needs to rack up #1s, 2s, 3s, etc…
In regards to no nomination for I. Elba – don’t you think this is more an anti-Netflix vote than a personal snub? I kind’ve think perhaps voters were offended by Netflix making inroads into their industry – basically saying ‘stick to Emmy nominations.’
No love for S.O.C. – if the typical Academy voter is viewed as a ‘racist, older White male,’ – wouldn’t you perceive them to be more of a Beach Boys fan than of Public Enemy? Thus – why didn’t all of these voters not nominate Beach Boy Paul Dano if that’s their type of music?
If there’s any bigotry in voting, I’d view it more as bigotry toward any movie released between January – October. MM:Fury Road & Inside Out are the only exceptions, but when a ballot is needed before it’s deadline, voters have short-time memories and just open an newspaper/magazine to remember what to vote for. If 45 Years or Joy opened the same day as Grandma/I’ll See you in my Dreams – would those performances have been remembered over the months?
That would make sense if the whole voting body nominated actors. I’m sure Netflix makes studio executives nervous! But why would actors, of all people, be anti-Netflix?
It makes no sense. We never heard any groundswell about an anti-Netflix movement BEFORE the nominations came out. It’s only AFTER they were announced, that some folks are trying to rationalize away any racial implications. Elba was nominated by BAFTA, the Globes and Spirits, so most all of the pundits were predicting him for an Oscar nod. And most notably, ”Beasts of No Nation” got TWO SAG nominations, including Elba, from the actors – the Academy’s largest branch.
Also considering the strong showing of Beasts in SAG awards.
They did nominate two Netflix productions for Best Documentary.
Lots of folks in Hollywood are liberal for image sake only (never forget Pascal and Rudin’s comments about President Obama), but in business/industry practices they are ultra conservative. Clooney talks a good game, but he has power and yet his movies are not diverse in the least.
Netflix is on a Sundance buying spree. As industry heavyweights (like Pitt, Redford, Fonda, and Dicaprio) start to embrace Netflix as a viable studio option, I do wonder how long Oscar voters can ignore it. All it takes is for the movies to get a qualifying run. Any indie on tv or streaming will have a bigger audience than it would have had as only a theatrical release. Not nominating Beasts shows once again they are way behind the times.
OscarsStillSoWhite is the biggest story in the media about the ceremony. Beyond calls for boycotts and everything else, that alone is extremely embarrassing. All the people/movies nominated this year are living under a black cloud because this story is bigger than any of their accomplishments. I know many (including myself) will not be watching the show at all. In a year where poc and lgbtq issues dominated headlines and the national discussion, the Oscars chose not to nominate even 1 movie with these themes. I see poc/lgbtq all over tv and magazines (even covers) too. Irrelevance and being shunned from the social conversation (other than humor fodder) seem to be AMPAS punishment.
I do agree with everyone who says it has to start in all parts Hollywood. Tentpoles and superhero movies are making strides towards diversity. The celebrated “auteurs” and Oscar bait directors are sticking with the old formula.
Apparently, AMPAS are considering going back to a set field of 10 BP nominees AND expanding the acting categories too.
I favour 10 (or 5 – whatever it is, just stick to it!) but I’m not keen on expanding the acting categories. There’s no guarantee that it will do anything to improve diversity. It’s also not an acting-specific problem, even though that’s all most people are talking about.
Why are you against expanding acting categories?
It smacks of a knee jerk PR bandaid and it doesn’t address the roots of the problem. It also sends a message that acting is both the main problem and the most important consideration. Are they going to expand writing and directing to six too – if not, why not? Other branches have even worse records when it comes to diversity.
Not to mention it’s a slap-in-the-face to actors of colour. It just shows that we a PoC are inferior and need extra spots to compete against white people. Not to mention it’s a lazy solution to bring diversity but won’t encourage members to step outside of the status quo.
That’s exactly how I feel about extra acting spots. But strangely I’m okay with the expansion, once again, because it helped usher in different genres and indie films that are far worthier than the traditional Oscar bait.
Good short term move but there has to be reforms for long term change.
And it’s not even just about race. It’s about discrimination on all fronts, because those same voters who won’t watch films with black casts are the same ones who won’t watch films with female directors or LGBT+ characters. I agree with your point, Sasha, that there’s an insidious pervasive racial bias, though I’d certainly categorise that as straight-up racism. And it exists within individual voters’ mentalities too: they don’t realise they’re doing something racist in continually shutting out POC from their nominations, but that doesn’t let them off the hook – in being ignorant toward the issue, they’re plainly being racist. Ignorance is not an excuse.
“There is only room for Brits, let’s face it.”
Unless you’re Maggie Smith, who will this year be parked outside the Dolby Theatre in her van, dressed like a bag lady, angrily lobbing groceries at anyone who accuses her of being “out of touch” with modern audiences.
I have to say that for me Beasts>>>>SOC and the biggest snubs were from this movie and not SOC. Director and Supporting actor especially. Maybe a category for young actors or a revelation actor or first feature or something like that would open room for more diversity, like including Abraham Attah or Mya Taylor.
Wow, as a black person, I could care less about any of this. Let them vote for who they want. Jeez. Politician correctness gone mad.
Alright then. Good to be reminded that insulated white people are not the only ones who couldn’t care less about diversity.
Thanks for weighing in, Dr Carson.
Another challenge to the Academy, if they insist on publishing a list of all their invitees every year, then why not just publish the ENTIRE ROSTER of AMPAS members for the public to see. They don’t have to post every person’s ballot to see, just list the names of the members. They did publish it back in 1948 as seen here: (http://nevertooearlymoviepredictions.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-piece-of-history-full-academy.html). I mean if they are not chicken about themselves, then why not publish the WHOLE list. They did it before, they could partially restore their transparency and credibility by doing so now. Otherwise, I’ll say it again. They are bunch of fucking cowards.
I’d rather know how many people actually vote; at both the nomination stage and the final stage, both overall and per branch. AMPAS constantly avoids this issue. That Alone Yet Not Alone composer got himself a nomination by emailing 70 people! And I’d also like to know what the demographics are for voting, not overall membership. It’s all very well bringing in younger, more diverse voters but that won’t help if most of them are too busy working and don’t vote.
We know that there are 6,291 AMPAS voting members in AMPAS (out 7,152 total AMPAS members both voting and non-voting). Each branch votes for their nominees in their respective categories (acting branch picks nominations for actor, sound branch for sound, etc.). All AMPAS voting members decide on the Best Picture nominations. Then the entire membership as a whole determines the winners for each category regardless of what branch you are from. Here is a breakdown of the membership by branch (via TheWrap):
Actors Branch: 1138 Members.
Casting Directors Branch: 86 Members
Cinematographers Branch: 227 Members.
Costume Designers Branch: 115 Members.
Designers Branch: 278 Members. Includes art directors, production designers and set decorators.
Directors Branch: 394 Members.
Documentary Branch: 237 Members.
Executives Branch: 458 Members.
Film Editors Branch: 254 Members.
Makeup Artists And Hairstylists Branch: 141 Members.
Music Branch: 257 Members.
Producers Branch: 483 Members.
Public Relations Branch: 388 Members.
Short Films And Feature Animation Branch: 401 Members.
Sound Branch: 437 Members.
Visual Effects Branch: 359 Members.
Writers Branch: 392 Members.
At Large Members: 216 Members. Includes stunt coordinators and production managers.
Associate Members: 175 Members. Includes talent agents and those who have contributed to the movie industry or the Academy in ways that don’t fit into the branches above. (Note that these members do not vote on the Oscars)
Retired Members: 716 Members. (Note that these members do not vote on the Oscars)
Read more about it in detail: http://nevertooearlymoviepredictions.blogspot.com/2012/06/academy-members-project-branch.html
I know the stats and the process, I mean how many members actually cast ballots. That’s important but AMPAS won’t say.
I said 6,291 members cast ballots. Unless you meant, out of that number who actually did vote assuming that some people failed to cast their ballot or just did not want to participate altogether. I have no idea.
By the way, an educated study found that 94 percent of members were white. If we had the actual names we would know better. Otherwise, they are too chicken to tell the truth.
Yes, I don’t mean how many people *can*, we know this, I mean how many actually *do*. There’s no reason to hide this, unless some of the numbers are embarrassing.
The Academy voted for 12 Years a Slave and that clearly changed hollywood, producers and studios started to make 20 good films down the same path every year.
Gravity on the other hand made its statement with a one woman show scoring 7 Oscar wins and in the name of diversity Hollywood made a good male driven remake called The Martian.
I will boycott the world now, diversity is on Mars.
What 20 good film have you seen in the same vein as 12 YAS ?
………..The Martian is not a remake of Gravity. Unless that was sarcasm.
Two quick things the Academy can do immediately (well for next year) without reconstructing the whole process are extend the voting time (move it to late January instead of around Jan. 8) and to return to a solid 10 nominees.
Extending the voting time will allow for more films to be seen. Awareness is key. Moving it back two weeks will mean 14 additional days of screeners.
Back to 10 would allow for more recognition. This year we would have probably had Carol and either SoC or SW:TFA, all of which support diversity.
I concur. Also I would strongly suggest moving the ceremony back to late March (or even the first Sunday in March if they are concerned about Daylight Savings Time). That way both the public have more time to see the films and voters have time to rethink their choices.
Good suggestions, Rob. One of the reasons you help us deconstruct the process every year is so we can have a better idea of what the internal machinery looks like — and how so many choices tip one way or the other on a very small number of ballots.
Sobering thought though: what if we got the 10 Best Pictures nominees that some of us are literally begging for — and all 10 of them were still lily white?
Horrifying, right? But maybe we’d all take this a little more seriously if we could see the full extent of the horrifying reality.
There are some other things that can be done without restructuring the membership or doing something drastic. In addition to what I mentioned above, another would relax certain advertising bans for certain films. Those films would be determined by meeting certain criteria: low budget, small box office, or whatever. Again, the goal is to create awareness of the films.
“Sobering thought though: what if we got the 10 Best Pictures nominees that some of us are literally begging for — and all 10 of them were still lily white?”
That’s my fear as well. However, it would at least help further pinpoint the larger issues within the industry. People like what they like. HOWEVER, what they like is pulled from a relatively limited scope of films. I agree with many who think that Creed and Michael B. Jordan should’ve been nominated. I wish that Mya Taylor (Tangerine) had been nominated. And it’s heartbreaking to me that Carol was completely ignored. But even if we all put together a list of POC who were ignored, it’s still an unfortunately small piece of the pie. 🙁
While I think that expanding the best picture nominations to 10 would allow for more diversity, I’m honestly not sure it would have much of an impact on the actual best picture winner (*cough cough the King’s Speech).
Excellent points. Also as someone previously said they should be made to prove that they have seen a certain percentage of movies in consideration.
14 additional days will help some old white Academy members to die, and then some more diversity will be restored.
Then let’s make it a 15 Best Picture list I’m sure then everybody will have their favourite FILM nominated and once SoC Carol Creed Star Wars Youth and whatever Angelina has made is on the list we can declare the Academy cured and audiences around the globe will finally have a chance to see the 15 commandments of diversity forged by Hollywood
I definitely agree on extensions of voting time, both for the nominations and the final ballot. This year, I’ve been lucky enough to have time to see the movies, and a couple of oscar-interested friends to go with me, so I watched nearly all the movies in contention. But there have been busy years where I only got around to watching most of the nominees after they were announced, and I’m actually interested in the Oscars race. It’s a hobby for me. I’m sure there’s Academy members who care way less about the awards season than I do, so I think it’s unfair to expect all these probably busy people to watch around 15 movies during Christmas. So it’s inevitable that a lot of movies don’t get a fair shot, since they haven’t been seen or that people vote based on buzz instead of actually watching the movie, which is ridiculous.
And that’s obviously a big part of why there’s such a lack of diversity, since if people are only going to watch 5-6 of the contenders, they drift to the ones they think they will relate to the most based on concept. Old white dudes might like SOC and Creed a lot if they actually watched them, but it would have been hard to sell them on the concept and actually get the DVD in.
More voting time would result to better, more diverse picks, and I don’t see who it could inconvenience so very much. Do it, Academy.
The extension of the initial voting window mightn’t work, though. It was moved up because many voters had complained that there wasn’t time for them to see all the nominated films during the second voting window. It’s a ludicrous excuse, because surely any serious Academy member wouldn’t need to see so many nominated films during this time because they’d already seen them during the initial window. But it seems that they’re reluctant to even bother watching these films until their fellow members have nominated them and declared them worthy of their consideration.
But yep, 10 nominees both on the ballots and in the final nominations. My bet is that both Carol and Straight Outta Compton would have made the cut.
Sorry to say, the worst thing about this important post Sasha wrote is the way it has forced a few readers to show their strange asses in ways that none of us would otherwise have ever had to witness.
Sorry to say it, but I will say it, because I want a few of you to know that your very strange asses are showing.
What a strange ass you have. Flung out of space.
“…because I want a few of you to know…”
very few, but even one is one more than I expected.
This happens on every single post about this topic, without exception.
“We naturally want to see someone we love get recognized, like Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts or Rachel McAdams. We wait patiently for them to finally deliver THAT PERFORMANCE that will win them the Oscar FINALLY”
I have never thought abut this in exactly this way but yes. We wait for our favorites to finally give a good enough performance so that it can be Oscar worthy and even if their performance does not match up to be one of the best 5 in the year they will get in on the basis of general goodwill. the same happened with Stallone this year and probably McAdams.
“This situation is, I think, slowly changing, but it’s very much in place this year and it’s why you see actors automatically placed in frontrunner status — like Johnny Depp over, say, Michael B. Jordan.”
I have bitched about WB before but i will do it again. How did they see these two performances and decide that Depp was the one to back for BA ????
“What we saw happen with The Help was the beginning of the diverging roads between the much more diverse Screen Actors Guild and the staunchly less diverse Academy.”
As a non-american, I definitely disagree with this. Fernanda Montenegro, Emanuelle Riva, the two Bardem lead noms. All of the 4 performances were much more deserving of an Oscar than the winner in their years. At least, were nominated for the Oscars. Not the SAG.
And In the end: the Oscars nominated Terrence Howard, Djimon Hounsou and Beasts of Southern Wild, the last one desqualified for SAG.
SAG and PGA and AFI did their homework – if those are so important for the oscar race, why such a nominee’s difference? maybe now the academy finally revealed itself, and we can beat it into the ground. no: the academy isn’t the pga and isn’t the sag or even the bafta. the academy is the hegemony, the real dictator of the cultural industry – the real question here is: how do we change the cultural industry without being demagogic? lets say idris elba was nominated. and no hashtags have got in the internet’s air. what the f*ck would happen them? same shit as always. academy has power because it has consensus. beasts of no nation may be one of the best movies of the year – where were we to really love it, despite mad max? despite spotlight? despite the revenant and the big short and the martian? where are the black actors here?
the academy’s love truly is those, and those old fashioned ones too: brooklyn, room (!?), bridge of spies. so, let’s be very sincere: what do you, whitey goody commentators, truly love? one of those, right? so it’s enough to say you guys feed this consensus too, and feed it all along the way. please, see yourselves in the academy, because you are that too – and it doesnt change if your ballot has 1 black movie. ONE BLACK MOVIE. to hell with the white people. we need black people inside the system that votes 7, 8, 9 black movies because it SPEAKS TO THEIR HEART and because racism is a question of power, not only of inclusion.
46% of movie tickets were bought by african-americans in 2015. http://bossip.com/1273460/the-view-whoopi-goldberg-get-heated-talking-oscarssowhite-checks-candace-cameron-video/
come on, i really would like to see one of them commenting here about their choices. but i think straight right that, well, the only way to solve this and settle things up is not only by numbers, but with ethnical consciousness.
Room is an old fashioned one? This is laughable… Bring us some examples of old movies that look like Room.
room is a well directed weak narrative, with the same theme as Panic Room but with a kid in the center to make it likeable. i am not saying the movie has no value – but do you really think room is a revolutionary movie? it is so old fashioned as american beauty and the silence of the lambs, but poorer. because one thing is to be bold, other is to follow the classical western storytelling (but even in those two movies there were anti-trama events, such as the plastic bag). i dont see anything with the room’s directing that i haven’t seen in scott pilgrim.
just adding: and i think scott pilgrim is an extremely well directed movie, but more innovator than room – maybe because it is no oscar-pretentious too.
and if you wanna see something not old fashioned, go see embrace of the serpent, or others foreign nominees. to the best and to the worst, the tree of life is not old fashioned, despite being directed clearly by an old man… in another perspective, we must say that goodbye to language is old fashioned in relation to other godard movies: more of the same. buuuut these are perspectives, and i’m talking about oscar perspective: room is very much consensual and that’s because it was nominated.
It is common for people to be inclusive, cool, in their personal and political lives, but be racist/exclusive in their business choices. Somehow, ethically marginal choices made for business reasons do not lodge in our consciences, or memories. The film business is drenched in racism and they’re all guilty, suits and filmmakers alike.
‘but be racist/exclusive in their business choices’
I feel like anonymity also adds greatly to this. If they had to make their votes public they would have been more inclusive and thoughtful in their ballots.
Ask Mr Clooney to post his ballot along with his “the academy is moving the wrong way”
Dialing him now.
Great piece Sasha! I add here only what no one else has even thought to say.
Last semester, I taught two sections of a “Diversity in Cinema” class to about 60 undergrads, and I tasked them to make spreadsheets that broke down the ethnicity of the six “top roles” (as cited by rottentomatoes.com; each of their film pages ranks the film’s main six actors) in the 20 “top films” of each year of this century (as decided by the Top 15 earners at the domestic box office as well as the five Best Picture nominees, or the films that earned Best Director nominations in more recent years, when the Academy expanded its Best Picture slate).
No big surprises for followers of this site. Persons of color and women are drastically underrepresented, objectified and reduced to supporting white men in about 18 or 19 of 20 “top films” in each year of this century. In 2010, blacks constituted 6% of the 120 Top Roles in the Top Films, Latinos made up 4.5%, Asians made up 7%, Muslims made up 0%, and Native Americans were 1 of 120. In 2014, those numbers were 6%, 2%, 2%, and 0%. With very slight, 2 or 3-point variations, these numbers were seen in every year from 2000 to 2015. Most of this simply provides statistical evidence to support the complaints of the #oscarssowhite opinion pieces.
But there’s a detail that emerges from these pieces that I feel is important. To cut to the chase, as we say, Hollywood’s historical and period films are terrible at representing persons of color. As a rule, when Hollywood dips into the past, it’s a whitewashed past. These days, major blockbusters and minor films that are set in the present are almost always at least partly integrated (if rarely in the top six roles), making this “idealized” past seem all the stranger.
I mean films set in the periods of Les Miserables, Lincoln, The Great Gatsby, American Hustle, Dallas Buyers Club, The Wolf of Wall Street, and almost any film by the Coen Brothers…in other words, any time before this decade. This is a particular problem for the Oscars, which tends to look kindly on period films like, this year, The Revenant, Spotlight, The Big Short, Brooklyn, Carol, and The Danish Girl. If these films had felt the need to have persons of color in their top roles, the #oscarssowhite conversation would have been different or even unnecessary.
The whitewashing problem also plagues period blockbusters like the Indiana Jones franchise, Captain America: The First Avenger, and X-Men: First Class. If a franchise has a person of color in a lead role – like Rush Hour or The Fast and the Furious – you can guarantee that it’s set in the present. The world of fantasy/fairy tales is often “coded” white, even though there’s no reason for it to be – it’s made up! So films/franchises like the recent Hobbit trilogy, Clash of the Titans, Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, Oz: The Great and Powerful, Frozen, How to Train Your Dragon, Maleficent, and Cinderella have no reason not to include persons of color in prominent roles – yet they don’t. Why not?
There are exceptions to this rule, particularly if the film is about oppression of persons of color, especially if set in the 1860s or the 1960s. If Hollywood can connect to the civil rights movement, then there’s financing to be had, as in the cases of Ray, The Help, and Selma. And Trevor Noah was right on last week’s #oscarssowhite reaction to say that Hollywood finds slavery narratives palatable, though he may have overestimated just how palatable; in fact, Hollywood commits an 8-figure budget to a slave-related story about as often as it commits to the Little Big Man-like narrative of whites joining forces with Indians – namely, three times in 40 years (the other times being Dances With Wolves and Avatar).
In a way, Hollywood only reflects high school history classes, of which many people already ask: what happened to people of color before the Civil War, and in the century between emancipation and the Civil Rights Movement? Where are films about Reconstruction or the founding of the NAACP? What were Latinos and Asians doing in California before 1950? Where are films about the Harlem Renaissance or the Tuskegee experiments? Now, before I get angry emails, I’ve seen Lady Sings the Blues (1972), Sounder (1972), The Color Purple (1985), Rosewood (1997), Amistad (1997), Beloved (1998), and others, but these are rare exceptions.
There is also the hope and promise of the inevitable film version of the game-changing musical “Hamilton,” which upset convention by casting persons of color directly in “white” roles. It will be fascinating to trace the influence of this boulder as it hits the Hollywood stream, but we shouldn’t exactly expect, say, color-cast biopics of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford to happen anytime soon.
Some say the problem is that writers write what they know, and thus we have to bring more persons of color into the writers’ rooms. Indeed, when white people DO dare to write about persons of color, there can be blowback, as the white writers of Straight Outta Compton experienced last week.
That brings us back to the 2015-16 Oscar race, or what some are calling #oscarsstillsowhite. I tend to side with the more measured account offered in the New York Times by A.O. Scott, Manohla Dargis, and Wesley Morris. Gradual progress is happening through diversifying membership, though perhaps not fast enough. Some say that members should lose their voting privileges if they haven’t had a union credit in a decade, though I’m personally not yet ready to tell Kirk Douglas to stop voting.
In summary, Hollywood’s whitewashed version of history is one of the undiscussed drivers of #oscarssowhite. However, to end on a note of hope, it’s worth noting that Hollywood IS making more and more historical movies regarding persons of color outside the two “Civil”s (War and Rights Movement). In recent years we’ve seen 42 and Red Tails and Cesar Chavez. And Straight Outta Compton and Concussion (the latter set in the same period as Spotlight) were at least non-60s period films starring persons of color that made it as far as the Oscar conversation, if not to the Best Picture circle. What Hollywood really needs are more historical films that include more and more persons of color and white people in harmony and in conflict. Why not a Django Unchained-flavored rainbow coalition revenge mob, perhaps including one of John Brown’s sons, that rides against the KKK in 1869 or so? Call my agent.
More at my blog, maptothefuture.com
Either way, Academy, start by going back to the fucking 10 of 2009 and 2010. You missed female driven (Blue Jasmine and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), psycho driven (The Master, Nightcrawler and Foxcather), gay female driven (Carol) because of that shitty system you created in 2011.
Beasts of no Nation doesn’t need awards to make money. It is a whole different model. It already made money when sold to Netflix. It is not box office driven.
Netflix needed awards to enforce its position as global distributor of films it has exclusivIty.
As much as I admire a lot (really a lot) George Clooney, I keep asking myself: How many female or black driven films has he directed or produced? The answer is quite different from what his friend Brad has done. Has he ever handled a huge project to one of his best and most talented friends, Don Cheadle, to star?
I REALLY doubt the cinematic taste of someone that thinks SOC was more deserving of a BP nod than 3 of the 5 best reviewed films of the year, Inside Out, Carol and Ex-Machina, all of them with huge diversity issues that prevented them from receiving a BP nod. The problem is when you nominate Bridge of Spies, when you give a bunch of nominations to The Theory of Everything, when you nominate Mark Ruffalo for a shouting out loud scene, when you nominate that performance from Eddie Redmayne…
STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON was better than INSIDE OUT, CAROL, and definitely EX MACHINA.
Whaaaaaaaat? Please use IN MY OPINION or FOR ME when doing this kind of statements because I assure you you are in a minority with this one!
For me this sentence is blasphemy!
No.
Don’t then, but along those lines, you are very wrong. SOC has got a quite generic narrative and some of the acting in the supporting roles like Paul Giamatti was terrible. There is no comparison to the brilliance and emotional power of Inside Out, the beauty and director’s vision of Carol or the originality and suspense of Ex Machina.
Keep calling EX MACHINA original. I’m burning so many calories from laughing at that. There’s nothing wrong with CAROL. That’s just a personal opinion issue, but EX MACHINA whether you like it or not, couldn’t be LESS original. The fact that you think it is makes me think you don’t actually know what you’re talking about so I left you alone. But if you want to keep telling me what to think, I’m ready to roll.
Apparently you have no arguments other than your condescending disrespectful bs. So yeah, let’s just leave it.. You know better than me and everyone here.
Anything someone says in reference to a thing being good or bad, is clearly their opinion, whether they think it is a stone cold fact or not.
Eddie Redmayne in Danish Girl is one of the worst things I’ve seen in my life……I guess he’s just gonna be Stephen Hawking in every film from here on out since it worked for him once. That whole movie is a piece of trash. The only reason Vikander is nominated for it is b/c she’s the only thing you didn’t absolutely hate in it, not because she did something extraordinary, the performance was very un-even and all over the place at that.
Bridge of Spies and Brooklyn have no place being nominated. They are the most bland, middle of the road, average movies I’ve seen. You don’t hate them, you even like them, but do you give a single shit about either once you are done with them? I sure as hell didn’t.
The Revenant should have been a 30 minute expiremental film so Innaritu could stroke it to masculinity. But instead we get a 2 hour and 40 minute self-indulgent piece of poop he made for himself just because he could. What a waste of money and talent.
At least Big Short, Spotlight, Room, Mad Max and even The Martian (a very little bit) leave you with something on your mind when you are done with them and among those only Mad Max took chances artistically and tried to create something also cinematic in nature.
Eddie Redmayne’s acting for Danish Girl was so fucking bad it should have think-pieces written about it. He was better in Jupiter Ascending.
Eddie was great in Jupiter Ascending. Everything he should have been in that role. But he was an offensive parody in The Danish Girl. That whole film was a sickening piece of shit.
And what about old people. Neither Meckellen or Caine got a nom. I will boycott the Academy for not taking the chance to recognise seniors were they had the choice to select two great performances. I Have to say I don’t find that many movies about old people at the Oscars. Every now and then there is a Philomena, but not enough. The Academy is made 200% of white straight old men, why are they not giving all the Oscars to old people? I don’t understand
Time to take that shrivelled dick to bed, Byron.
”Academy members don’t want to be called “racists.”
As I’ve said before, I don’t believe the Oscar voters are racist. But if you’ve turned out a lily-white slate of acting nominees for a SECOND year in a row, even after last year’s OscarsSoWhite outrage, the Academy really has no one to blame but itself. Meantime, they knew SAG nominated not one, but TWO movies about people of color for Ensemble (and singled out Elba for Supporting). And it made no difference and had no influence.
Sorry, but to me it sounds like asking the Academy to throw minorities (or better black movie stars) a bone so everybody would leave them alone.
I don’t understand, someone can tell me what has changed in Hollywood after Lupita won out of nowhere? Someone can tell me what difference would have made the nomination of Elba or Smith? One way or the other the truth remains that among good movies in 2015 there were only two with a black cast. Only two. Pushing the Academy to either recognise one of them or both or be boycotted is plain stupid.
”The truth remains that among good movies in 2015 there were only two with a black cast.”
That’s YOUR ”truth.” Various critics’ groups, pundits and moviegoers see it differently.
To me, it’s ”plain stupid” to ignore any connection between an Academy that’s 94% white, 76% male and average age is 63, and how race, sex and age influences their choices of what they see (let alone nominate). In 2016, that’s a pretty pitiful representation of today’s film industry.
AwardsDaily readers must be not so different because if you take a look at the simulated ballot they didn’t give a Best Picture nomination to neither Straight Outta Compton, Beast of no nation, Creed, or Concussion…
That’s silly. I guess AwardsDaily readers are different from the PGA, AFI and NBR, too, because these groups all picked ”Straight Outta Compton” as one of the year’s top 10 films. I’m not giving the Academy voters any leeway because, unlike AwardsDaily readers, they got screeners to those various movies. That still evades the principal question: Do you think an Academy that’s 94% white & 76% male is fair and representative of today’s Hollywood? Common sense says a more diverse Academy would lead to more diverse nominations.
“Common sense says a more diverse Academy would lead to more diverse nominations.”
NO. It’s just like putting sun cream on a dead body.
A more diverse Academy will give Best Picture to 12 Years a Slave one year and snub Will Smith as well as Tom Hanks the following one! The FUCKING problem is not there! The real problem is that most of the people just want to be reassured and see that on the cover (the Oscars) there is diversity and they celebrate SOC, even when in reality there is NOT diversity and there are not real equal opportunities, not in Hollywood and more dramatically not in all other fields of society.
Again, evading my principal question with ”nonsense.” It’s useless reasoning with you. Bye!
AD readers nominated both Michael B. Jordan and Idris Elba (plus Carol in BP). If AMPAS had matched that, you wouldn’t hear any of these complaints this year.
Thank you. You just perfectly prove my point. All this nonsense is ABOUT not addressing the real issue, it is just smoke in the eyes because if AMPAS had given a couple of noms (throw them a bone) it would have been “HAPPY PERFECT WORLD FOR EVERYONE!”
I’m not ever sure where I would even begin with all of this…
“Weeks ago, I saw Scott Feinberg at The Hollywood Reporter putting Straight Outta Compton on his Best Picture predictions when no one else was willing to go there. That small thing he did created a shift in thinking among people who make the significant lists. We started considering Compton in a different way, and for a while there it seemed like voters might be paying attention. With ten nomination slots, and not five, Compton might have been nominated.”
Remember Dee Barnes? She wasn’t in the movie. How about Tairrie B.? She wasn’t either. Nor was Michel’le.
http://gawker.com/heres-whats-missing-from-straight-outta-compton-me-and-1724735910
There are other factors at play with the movie (even if we exclude the negative factors of what N.W.A. and the birth of gangsta rap).
I find it ironic, or not so much, that Feinberg, who spent so much time dismissing Mad Max (and leaving it out of his top 10), a non-oscary movie that just happened to carry a strong message of female empowerment.
Back to SOC though, I thought it was a fine movie (enjoyed Jason Mitchell in it as well), but the subject matter and some other issues surrounding the movie shouldn’t be just dismissed with the focus only on race.
Anyone remember Dope? Came out last summer as well and received the same score on RT as SOC, but people didn’t support it when it came out. People forgot about it.
Spike Lee was so outspoken that he cost John Singleton an Oscar nomination in 1992. Err… wait… Speaking of which:
http://variety.com/2016/film/news/john-singleton-oscar-diversity-reaction-1201682288/
I could go on about so many other things, but I would be here all night. As indignant and well-meaning as you might be, if everything is skewed and depicted in a certain way, it undermines your argument. This may be unpopular, but I would say pieces like these are the kind that fuel the folks who are giving Donald Trump traction.
It feel at one point Mad Max has personally offended the awards sector of THR. Agree about Dope, it was a wonderful movie but was too small perhaps for any consideration and also released too early for the Oscar rat race.
Yeah, SOC as Best Picture candidate is a strange hill to choose to die on. It’s a vanity project that sanitizes some really unsavory stuff and applied the paper bag test to its female extras. But then the fact that it’s the only snubbed black movies aside from Creed that anyone can think of is part of the problem.
It seems Viola Davis mostly retreated to television, which has no problem nominating and awarding diverse talent. I look forward to seeing her in Suicide Squad though.
Dane M,
I know you don’t intend it this way, but this sentence makes it sound like Viola Davis was fighting a battle to reign in some sort of fabulous cinema kingdom — but she lost and had to surrender to a sad fate in television.
But I know that you know that Viola Davis simply went to a realm where she could get paid many many millions of dollars to use her formidable talents to entertain Americans in ways that movie studios are incapable or unwilling to create for her.
So I just wanted to say the same thing that you’re saying — except let’s not make it sound so much as if television is the Siberia of narrative film-making.
And honestly, I prefer seeing Viola Davis’s talents every week versus every year or two.
It only reads that way if you view television as lesser than film. To a degree it is, but only in terms of glamour. For reasons that likely will not always hold up, movie stars are paid more and the Oscars attract far more viewers than the Emmys. But the litany of articles on the internet, which began to appear perhaps 5-6 years ago attest to the fact that television has already surpassed film in terms of quality and consistency. And it has far surpassed it in terms of diversity. So why wouldn’t she she go to television? Finding a home as a lead on a long-running series offers the kind of stability that a white-dominated film industry simply doesn’t match. And doing a series means there’s always an off-season where she can return to film if she so chooses.
I just giving you a hard time, Dane (and doing that annoying thing I do where I use someone’s very reasonable comment as a launch pad for me to say something barely related to that comment).
I think it was just “retreated” that made me go “wut!?”
Sorry to drag you into my tantrum.
She is playing the role all older women (regardless of race) play in action movies – politician/figure head, maybe supporting, maybe opposing the hero(es). They pay well, if your profile is high enough but even if the movie is good, the role will suck.
Rich and enjoyable examination. But 50 years from now no one thinking back of 2016 will care about #OscarsSoWhite. They will care about Oscar winners. What many people don’t get is that the Oscar race is a game. Think about that like the International Film Championships. There’s a jury giving points and there are players. Someone wins, someone loses. Rules are: make a movie and promote it. Not everyone can afford that just like not everyone can afford a football team. There’s nothing unfair except life itself, which doesn’t provide everyone with the same means to achieve success. Sometimes it happens that someone at a disadvantage succeeds, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s cruel, it’s bitter, it’s life. If you wanna play, play and accept the verdict. If you don’t wanna play just don’t. Oscars need movies but movies don’t need Oscars.
You’re going to get a lot of grief, but this was a wonderful read. Thank you for speaking out. I even agree with your 4th bullet point. The criticism movies like The Help and The Color Purple (a movie the black community is now embracing) received was ridiculous. Progress in the industry can’t occur if we keep putting up barriers and limits as to who can tell minority stories.
Well, you do have to be careful that it’s not just still white men telling POC and women’s stories, b/c if they could get away with doing it that way, THEY WOULD.
Yeah…I agree. I wish there were more popular minority filmmakers who could make these movies…
It’s not for lack of POC and female filmmakers. There are plenty, but they don’t get the same support, mentorship, encouragement, financing. I was reading an interview recently with Marielle Heller about her time at Sundance Labs and she said it was definitely intimidating and the males had more support and enthusiasm for their projects. Later on they laid out the stats and even though Sundance Labs had equality in males and females there, the male projects always received more financing and push while the female projects were relegated to “niche” financing and distribution. Same old refrain of male stories are for everyone, but women’s stories are just for women. And people see projects by POC the same way……just for POC, but it’s not true.
Again, I agree. That’s what I was trying to convey with the adjective “popular.” There are plenty of filmmakers out there…they just need to be given a chance.
Great article, very well written and engaging Sasha! There was only one thing I didn’t agree and it was about the “oscar movie rise”. As far I can remember I grew up (40 now) thinking there were always ‘Oscar movies’ (like Gandhi, Terms of Endearment, Amadeus, Schindler’s list, Forrest Gump, The English Patient, Shakespeare in love, etc etc).
Hey there – thanks! Yes you’re right but the difference between then and now is that those movies were not just for Oscar voters. They were movies watched and loved by the public too. They had to be. How a movie played with the public mattered just as much. Now, the public doesn’t matter but they are still keeping “the Oscar movie” alive only it doesn’t really exist for many outside that bubble.
Terms of Endearment and Shakespeare in Love feature female protagonists, with whole conversations between women! Typically Oscar eschews these films. Go ahead and count the Best Picture winners with female protagonists.
Besides, SiL and most especially Terms of Endearment are A+ movies. They prospered despite their disadvantage (again, lots of women talking with each other).
Of the list you cite, keep the crap (that would be Gandhi (biopic – truly and Oscar movie, and a tedious one) and Forrest Gump (disability for the win). The others are solid films, although The English Patient is a bit of a chore.
What makes me sick is the fact that if Will Smith, Elba and SOC were among the nominees none of this boycott talk would have taken place and every Hollywood celebrity who is now all of a sudden becoming Che Guevara would have happily enjoyed another year not giving a fuck about the lack of diversity in their movies. I want to repeat myself again and again, blaming the Academy is simplistic, wrong, useless, and even against the very essence of an award institution which is selecting a few and snubbing everyone else. What are we talking about???!! There are at least 5 white actors who gave extraordinary performances this year and were not nominated for each Elba, Smith, Isaac (whom I LOVE LOVE LOVE). The problem is elsewhere and everybody is asking the Academy to make a change within itself that is just impossible if everything around keeps being as it is!
Yeah, if Smith or Elba or SOC were nominated, there would be no boycotts. What’s your point? Do you realize what this boycott’s about?
The Academy is only as strong as the public. If the public isn’t going to take the Oscars seriously, then what’s the point of their existence? The Oscars should be a reflection of the film industry, not just what a bunch old, retired men “like” the most. SOC, whether you liked it or not, was a big critical and commercial hit. It was in the consciousness of America more than half those films nominated for Best Picture. The Oscars shouldn’t be a popularity contest, obviously. But when a movie with an all black cast hits all the right check marks and still gets snubbed, then there’s a problem.
The public? huh? You mean the public that isn’t allowed even inside the Academy building? The same public that isnt allowed within like 10 miles of the Dolby on Oscar night? The same public that has a zero percent chance of being invited to be a part of the Academy itself? I think you got it a bit twisted. This isn’t about the public credibility, it’s about the industry celebrating the industry.
I’d rather they go back to 5 nominees and snub everybody so we don’t have people crying that they their faves didnt get a participation medal. Like it seems that folks want to turn this into a mess like the BFCAs, who have 6 slots for acting and still didnt nominate anyone of color I might add.
Then what’s the point of televising the Oscars? They should just make it a closed door, non-televised, intimate ceremony like the Guild Awards.
I’m not going to boycott the Oscars this year because I have no self control. But I hope this ceremony gets so low ratings that the Academy will have no choice but to change its voting practices.
I think we should put the academy under pressure cause yes, they had options and didn’t choose them. But the #oscarssowhite is just a part of the problem. Hollywood needs to change so the academy will change.
I finally saw Concussion last night and I was blown away by Will Smith’s performance. I’m really not a big fan of his–I enjoy his movies enough, but I always thought of him as a one-note actor–but this film changed my view of him completely. He disappeared into his role to the extent that I didn’t see Will Smith, but Dr. Omalu. I’m really quite shocked that he didn’t get a nomination–I would have taken him over Bryan Cranston, whom I like enough in Trumbo, but felt was playing more of a caricature than a fully-fleshed out person.
For what it’s worth, completely aside from any Oscar talk, a couple months ago I was listening to an NPR piece about linguistics and accents and the whole thing was ripping apart Will Smith’s accent in Concussion as a glaring example of someone doing a crappy job at accents. All it takes is a small thing like that.
Kate Winslet did one of the crappiest accents this year and you do not see anyone talking about it or how her nomination was on the fence because of that.
Winslet, though, had the luxury of a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. That’s not a reason for her nomination, but having that in her back pocket didn’t hurt.
I am purely talking about accent tho. I keep hearing how bad Will Smith’s was and people imitating that ‘Tell the truth’ line. I always thought it was because Will Smith is way more popular than Winslet, but if someone is going to use it as a point against him for the nomination then so should Winslet’s be held against hers.
I completely agree with the assessing of the accents. But once you get past that, it’s factoring in the other filmmaking aspects. Many voters could’ve thought Winslet’s accent was terrible but loved the dialogue coming out of her mouth. In the same vein, many could’ve thought Smith’s accent was terrible but didn’t think much of the dialogue he was given. (Both cases are unfortunate since acting and screenwriting requires a helluva lot more than dialogue — though most people tend to ignore that.) Voting on a performance — and this is just me, I can’t vouch for others’ processes — involves all aspects of the performance. So even if an accent is terrible, a performance can still be impressive in all other regards; and if an accent is great, the performance can still be blah everywhere else.
It’s subjective, of course, and the way Voter A evaluates a performance is going to differ with how Voters B and C determine what makes a good performance. No one’s right, no one’s wrong; it’s just the way art is.
Will Smith’s hurdle in getting a nomination (in my opinion) is that, as always, Best Actor was seven to eight or nine deep. Winslet had the luxury of being in (again, my opinion) the weaker, yet still wide open, Supporting Actress category where name recognition probably helped more than performance. But that’s all speculation; who knows how the hell the actors in the AMPAS decided to vote.
Best Supporting Actress was in my opinion as meh a category as Best Actor this year. I agree with what you are saying. I just meant to point out that Will Smith’s bad accent is in many cases being used as an excuse for the snub rather than legitimate reasons for it.
She got nominated b/c she’s Kate Winslet and the Academy loves to nominate her, like her predecessor Meryl and her descendant JLaw……if they do anything remotely in the possibility of nomination, they will be nominated. And it BLOWS.
I’d like to add that I love all those people, but they are about to turn me on JLaw, I really can’t take much more.
Agree – I love Trumbo & Bryan Cranston, but definitely not as nomination-worthy as Concussion & Will Smith. The first half played like a suspense thriller, Smith’s performance better than his Oscar-nominated one in The Pursuit of Happyness, the accent was a small flaw, showed fatal beauty & exciting allure of the game, showed how discrimination worked against him as a black man & being an immigrant.*
A really informative and interesting article. So much really does seem to depend on the composition of the Academy membership. For years I had been under the impression that if someone won an Oscar they were automatically given voting rights for the category in which they won. So an original screenplay winner would be given voting rights thereafter for original screenplay. But the administration of that seemed like it would be a nightmare. However, it doesn’t see to work like that at all. Maybe it should?
AFAIK if you’re nominated for an Oscar (you don’t need to win) you are automatically invited to join the relevant branch of AMPAS. You can turn it down if you want but nominees are invited in without the usual requirements of industry experience, other members nominating you etc etc. The bulk of nominees will be younger than the average Oscar voter, however, they will still be majority white and majority male. You can’t rely on nominees to speed up diversity.
I’m sorry Sasha but it is NOT TRUE that the rise of “the oscar movie” was a result of the ceremony being pushed earlier. I know it’s a pet peeve of yours (the earlier schedule) but the studios have been playing that annoying strategy — go limited until you get nominations to market from for as long as I can remember. As long as I can remember they’ve been trying to keep the public reaction out of the discourse (not from nefarious purposes so much as hoping for box office dividends with the Oscar marketing hook I think). It’s always been backloaded and always will be until they make different rules (i’d love a threshold number of theaters instead of 1 theater for a week in LA as qualifying) because public response — how the movie looks when it’s out in the world — should be part of the experience.
But this doesn’t seem to have much to do wtih the discussion of diversity. The campaigning for Oscars has started earlier too so the smart films just have to adjust their strategies and start earlier.
Disagree Nat. My point is not that they didn’t create “Oscar movies” that were released in December – but the public was involved in shaping the popularity of them, like Titanic is a good example. What happens now is that the public is not involved in any way — except if a movie bombs at the box office like Steve Jobs but really, even then. Now, you have movies like Birdman that have ZERO to do with the public. Not like Gladiator or Out of Africa or even Terms of Endearment did. Movies do not have to have relevance or meaning beyond “the bubble” now. I should have clarified that.
I know you don’t like fanboy type movies, but they contain some of the most diverse casts you’re going to find. This year you had AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, FURIOUS 7, THE NIGHT BEFORE, and many other blockbusters that were made by and for people of all walks of life. Genre movies in a strange twist of fate represent the real world better than Oscar fare. But as far as movies that were in contention go THE HATEFUL EIGHT, JOY, STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, CONCUSSION, SICARIO, I mean, I can stop here and that’s a ballot. Those movies aren’t about race. The charcters involved, real and created, just happen to be not always white, just like the characters in SPOTLIGHT or THE BIG SHORT, just happened to be white. There’s nothing to push back against with those that weren’t nominated because they’re not trying to push any race based message. But there’s no good reason why none of the more diverse movies I mentioned didn’t make it, especially since there were two Best Picture slots left.
These are good theories about why the industry is the way it is. But I still don’t get why this year went this way. There’s a piece of the puzzle missing as far as I’m concerned. Because I am puzzled.
Maybe it’s because I’m a tennis fan and this stuff is on my mind, but has anyone ever looked at actual corruption? Like people/studios paying for votes.
The whole of the Furious franchise is wonderfully diverse. I personally do not like the movies and it gets a lot of heat but it is very inclusive without calling any attention to it. The Avengers however are not and I do not get how you included it.
Okay well I’ll have to rewatch it. I only saw it once. But I swore there were many kinds of people running around.
They shot in different locations to get the international buck but it wasnt diverse.
I agree with Whoopi Goldberg and Whoopi Goldberg only.
This article reminds me of a curious conversation I had once with a classmate while we were discussing Oscar nominees. He said he didn’t like movies like 12 Years a Slave because it depicts black people as poor, pitiful. I’m sure he didn’t understand the soul of this film.. Actually, I think he’s the kind of people that says “Never forget” when talking about Holocaust, but says “Get over it” when it’s about slavery (and we’re from Brazil). hmm, and he’s from a very, very wealthy family and, certainly, defends “meritocracy”.
Loved this. Favorite bits:
“Although the size of their fortunes has ballooned with savvy investment advice, they do not see themselves as part of the Wall Street schemes that support their lifestyles. They choose to see themselves as outside that system — fighting against it — even while living lavishly because of it. Above all, they most certainly do not see themselves in terms of the word being bandied about this week, as racists.”
“We’ve all seen people win Oscars for any number of reasons, though. To my mind “just because they’re black” is as worthy a reason as “I’d like to see her naked and astride my peen.””
“What they like most of all: movies about white movie stars being the good guys. They simply can’t see themselves reflected in films about black characters or black culture, especially if that culture hasn’t been whitened to be more “universal.” “
I’m just wondering how many people are going to blame/credit Sasha for writing this because they skimmed it and didn’t bother to double check the byline.
It says Sasha is the author
It wasn’t when first posted. Ryan’s adjusted now, so of course my comment seems out of whack.
Whatever, it’s still an insightful read no matter who penned it.
I sent it to Ryan to proof via email. He posted it.
Zach, here’s what happened. Sasha sent this to me via email for me to post, and I did that for her.
I forgot to change the byline because after 9 years I’m still learning “How Does WordPress Work?”
It read a lot like Sasha, but even I checked the byline. And yeah, WordPress can be… well, it’s WordPress.
Joe Wright:
ANNA KARENINA>>ATONEMENT>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>PRIDE & PREJUDICE>HANNA>>>>>>THE SOLOIST>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>PAN
I love how you breeze in to remind us what’s what, Bryce. No matter which hot-button issue we’re obsessing about, you’re always here to realign our priorities.
I’m not even teasing.
Aw–whoa–thanks. I’ll be sure to keep dropping like that. Just to clarify I alwaus do read the pieces and a good bit of comments. But you know I got y’all’s backs, homie.
“Either way, in a year when Hollywood has so much to be proud of, the
Academy gets to enjoy #OscarsSoWhite as the biggest story of Oscars 2016”
That. Something to think about.
I know ratings are not the defining constant here at the Oscar, but I seriously would not be surprised if the viewership dips below 30 million because of the bad press. And let’s not forget about the young people (even those that are not minorities) who are socially active and want to not support an crony and unjust system.
Also there are ways to see livestreams.. just follow on twitter and such if one does not want to give Oscars the viewership.m
I don’t get why the Academy have no shame that out of the four major showbiz awards (Emmy Grammy Oscar and Tony/EGOT), that the Oscars are the most resistant to diversity. Look how the Emmys have embraced POC’s as evident by Viola Davis’s win and their acceptance of LGBT families like Modern Family. With Netlfix blurring the lines between television and motion pictures (another medium that AMPAS has turned its back upon), the Emmys will continue eventually outshine the Oscars as the most prominent showbiz award in the world.
This is a very confusing complaint. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences did not turn its back on TV. It is not a TV organization. It was created before TVs existed and is meant to honor movies. Just like how the Emmys were created to honor TV and don’t honor movies except for TV movies.
I think he is saying AMPAS is turned its back on Netflix…..like nothing for Beasts of No Nation which is Netflix movie.
oh okay. got it. I wasn’t being “willfully ignoring” or “picking at semantics” – i just didn’t understand.
Always good to see you here, Nathaniel. You know you’re one of my favorite people-I-never-actually-met.
I just like to look out for the feelings of our regular readers — especially someone like Birdienest81 who’s contributed close to 600 comments here in the past year — and more than once has sweetly apologized for ‘grammar.’
Thanks Ryan,
I just felt that being a person of color (Filipino born in Los Angeles to be exact) and one who loves the Oscars, I felt this is the perfect venue to express my thoughts. All I was doing was trying to call out the cowards who simply taint the Oscars brand. Certain people–if not most, I’m sorry to say–in the Academy are a bunch of cowards and losers who can’t accept diversity whether by race, gender, or even method of distribution (notice that very few indie companies have ever won Best Picture).
The first sentence is pretty clear.
Don’t worry. I respect your questions.
To be fair, they did nominate two Netflix productions in the documentary category.
Birdienest81,
What you say is not confusing to me. Beasts of No Nation is a legitimate movie. It’s not TV.
Your meaning is crystal clear, even if your wording is a little askew.
I get so tired of people picking at semantics and willfully ignoring the important things that are obviously said.
Don’t worry, Birdienest81. Everyone else on this site knows exactly what you’re talking about.
I understand that Beast of No Nation is a legitimate movie, but tunnel vision Academy members sure don’t see it that way.
I know. I was only repeating what I know that you know.
And you’re right: Too many Oscar voters either don’t understand what Netflix is doing — or else they understand all too well, and they’re scared shitless.
I hated Straight Outta Compton simply because I hated the music. No biggie that many Academy members did also.
Congratulations for being Ancient and narrowminded, Hunter.
“I hated Straight Outta Compton simply because I hated the music. No biggie…”
Hunter Tremayne,
That’s really something to brag about.
You sound exactly like all the guys who said: “I hate fags so I hate Brokeback Mountain. No biggie!”
You’re as clever as a redneck bumper sticker.
Well, while I wouldn’t quite word it as Hunter did, I can’t stand that music either and, it did affect my enjoyment/appreciation of the movie I was seeing.
just don’t, John 🙂
don’t even finish that sentence.
Great article. Let’s remember as well, its even worse for Latinos, the largest Minority, and Asians, who represent almost 8% of the population.