Handwringing: The Ongoing, Important but Not Always Helpful #OscarsSoWhite Conversation
Saturday, January 16, 2016 at 1:00PM 
Have you been following the #OscarsSoWhite discussion? Or rather the shouting? Discussion happens after the fact so we waited 48 hours. There was a lot of knee jerk anger on the day of the Oscar Nominations and many bold statements. Some were totally understandable. Others had us wondering if we've been watching a different Oscars for the past quarter century than anyone else.
If you can't read another word about this we'll understand and hope you'll come back for the next article. But if you'd like to discuss and are willing to think about diversity as a wider and more important topic than a list of 20 names published this year and who or who isn't on it, than read on.
First, I need to get something off my chest...
Though I too wish we could have more racial equity at the Oscars (I still can't let Viola's Oscar loss go! And that's just the tip of the iceberg) I think the anger directed at the Academy is often as ugly as their own difficulties at recognizing life outside their own limited world view. Oscar voters have historically had trouble with gay films (Carol is the latest victim... oh, they weren't tragic? We can't sympathize!) and black films of course -- that's well documented. But they've also been ridiculously resistant to Asian cinema (unless the name Ang Lee was attached) even in the foreign film category.
But the anger at the Academy often takes ugly shape. Recently there was a tweet which Murtada and Jose pointed out to me that was upsetting. And here it is...
Obviously this is an attempt at reversing the joke of white people being too ignorant to distinguish POC from one another. But is reversing the joke less offensive? Will treating actresses like shit -- suggesting that they're all reducable to one person because they are white -- help the cause of black actors? I think not.
It is enormously disrespectful to suggest that a legendary European septugenarian is indistinguishable from a two time Oscar winning Australian goddess who is indistinguisable from an Irish child star coming into her own as a movie star and so on. This is not a progressive plea for diversity, it's closer to bullying. And it's par for the course for our misogynistic culture. Upset about something? Attack women! (You don't need a good reason. Everyone's doing it all the time.)
A non-hateful, sometimes edifying, but still problematic impulse is to publish lists suggesting replacements for the white actors who were nominated -- this is a relatively new phenomenon since the #OscarsSoWhite thing started just last Oscar season and is only two years old. The Academy has been publishing lists of new invitees for a handful of years now and every year we have seen the Academy become MORE diverse (not less) so it has to be coincidence and a direct result of which films are made and campaigned (both problems external to the Academy) that have seen the acting lists backtrack in this way.
These 'all POC' lists that get published each year -- or, rather, the past two years-- always pretend that it's easy to nominate POC in every category, despite how few choice roles they get (one of the real problems). Consider this well meaning tweet.
What if ALL the acting Oscar nominees were non-white? Here are 20 eligible acclaimed performances by actors of color pic.twitter.com/g5ELu3wTcr
— Apollo (@thisisapollo) January 16, 2016
This is cute and makes its point to an extent. Yes, actors of color do good work each year even though they have far less opportunity than white actors (again not the Academy's fault at all). But do my eyes deceive me (I'm overdo for the annual eye exam) or is that the ghost from The Revenant in the bottom tier? If it is, suggesting that this floating cameo, the latest member of Leonardo DiCaprio's infamous Dead Wives Club is "acclaimed" or even, by implication, worthier than a Rachel McAdams or a Jennifer Jason Leigh in full bodied character roles (whether or not you like their work) helps no argument unless you're arguing for a quota system. Does anyone really want that for awards? However compromised awards and "Best" lists are by campaign budgets, levels of fame, laziness of voters, and systemic injustices, they spring (at least originally) from the impulse to discuss merit.
Our friend Joe Reid made a similar argument on Decider filling out all 20 nominee slots with actors of color and though Joe is smart and has great taste that list too, however fun and well written, is also a disingenuous exercize. He fudges the rules to include people like Ibreheim Ahmed in Timbuktu and Qi Shu in The Assassin -- neither of whom are Oscar eligible. Rules don't get fudged for white actors even in the current system people dislike so much that favors white actors. The rules are still the rules.
The bigger problem: of the 26 actors cited in these two combined lists if you remove skin color from the equation 80% of them would still have zero chance in hell of a nomination.
The biggest problem: some would never ever be touted as "someone who shoulda been nominated" and skin color alone shouldn't qualify you to be named "best".
Those of us who want diversity have to be reasonable if we want to be taken seriously! The exceptions to this 'it wouldn't have happened anyway' pet peeve (which is problematic in its own artistically defeatist way, I should add) are, by my estimation as someone who has followed the Oscars since the 1980s and gets how they work (for the most part), are five... nine if you're being generous:
There were five viable acting contenders this past season who are people of color - no women though. (Categories listed are where they were campaigned)
- ACTOR: Michael B Jordan, Creed
- ACTOR: Will Smith, Concussion
- SUPPORTING ACTOR: Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation ... the only statistical "snub" for a person of color this year since he had plentiful precursor support
- SUPPORTING ACTOR: Benicio del Toro, Sicario
- SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jason E Mitchell, Straight Outta Compton
There were only 4 other feasible nominees who are people of color but all were extreme longshots
- ACTOR: Samuel L Jackson (The Hateful Eight) Popular assumption is often not based on fact and Tarantino movies don't have a great track record for acting nominations versus how celebrated their acting is in popular culture. Look it up. John Travolta in Pulp Fiction is the sole lead acting nominee from a Tarantino film. But yes SLJ is very good in the film.
- SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Angela Bassett (Chi-Raq) Oscar is usually terrified by this level of in your face confrontation in message movies, no matter the color. But yes she is excellent in the film.
- SUPPORTING ACTOR: Oscar Isaac (Ex-Machina) Sci-fi is the Academy's actors branch least favorite genre (they prefer ANYTHING to sci-fi). Many of us have never understood this but it is nevertheless completely true statistically. But yes he's superb in the film.
- SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Tessa Thompson (Creed). Yes, a lot of actresses over the years have been nominated for playing sidelined roles that can best be described as "the girlfriend" but it usually takes being in a Best Picture nominee to accomplish that unless you are a) already famous or b) have juicier "clips" than she gets. But yes she's very good in the film.
[Yes I left off Tangerine, easily in my top ten this year, but let's be reasonable. When was the last time the Academy was interested in no budget DIY LGBT comedies? That's right, never.]
Unfortunately, wildly optimistic and justice-seeking lists like these (not accounting for those 9 performances) as well as the similarly overstuffed "female directors Hollywood should hire" lists, can cloud very righteous arguments about diversity by inadverently implying that skin color and genitalia are the only criteria that should matter. This is a terrible message to send out because it's the message we're already getting from Hollywood; the only difference being which color and which type of genitalia.
In the anger around this issue each year people willfully disregard 1) the field of competitors, 2) the actual eligibility of the films they've seen, 3) the quality of the roles they have or haven't seen, 4) the creative challenges faced and how well people conquered them, 5) whether or not the actor campaigned 6) whether or not the actor is famous and 7) whether or not lead actors were fraudulently campaigning in their supporting category making less room for them to have a reasonable shot at a nomination 8) the depth and size of the parts the actos played. None of those absolutely crucial elements seem to matter to people when they are politically riled up.
But I propose that these things do and should matter and people should speak more carefully or at least educate themselves on how the Oscars work before they want them torn down or even before they build a list of suggestions on how to fix the matter.
On Creed
The most unfortunate victim of racial inequity and systemic problems this year is not Straight Outta Compton (though that's where the media's focus seems to be) but Creed. Creed should have been a no brainer for Warner Bros to push crazy hard the second the executives got their first look at it. Not only because momentum is important to awards (Ryan Coogler's debut feature Fruitvale did not receive Oscar nominations but it won plenty of "it's worthy" conversation -- the perfect volley for a future awards strike) but because it is very good and it is directly connected to Oscar's own history (Rocky, 1976). Oscar likes thinking about itself as the early precursor success of Trumbo reminds us.
What was it that prevented WB from seeing the potential Oscar gold in Creed? What was it that prevented precursors from pushing it? Who decided that Michael B Jordan couldn't compete with more regular Oscar Best Actor players despite giving such an emotionally full star-making performance (again) that runs circles around some of the actual nominees?
We can blame the Oscars for ignoring Creed and Jordan -- except for Sylvester Stallone's moving work -- but Oscar isn't the whole problem.
FUN 'CREED' TRIVIA: Stallone, now the boxing mentor, is the exact same age now that Burgess Meredith was as *his* trainer in ROCKY (1976)
— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) July 1, 2015
I voted for Michael B Jordan when I got my Critics Choice Ballot (even though we only had 3 votes in the category - and yes he's on my Best Actor list) and he won ONE major prize (NSFC) very late in the game, but for most of the season beyond African American critics groups and a few regionals who don't have much pull or history, he was ignored. Why weren't more people rallying? It's worth noting that a lot of people who write about the Oscars each year at websites and in papers and online magazines also vote as members of this or that "precursor" whether it's small critics groups or televised shows like the Critics Choice, or big deal but non televised stuff like NBR or one of the major critics societies. The media contributes each year to who is included in "the conversation" so why, when most people ignored Jordan this season, were they then upset that Oscar didn't nominate him?
I think this is a very reasonable question to ask but it's a complicated question since it implicates everyone. It's so much easier to just blame a monolothic institution like OSCAR. There's a whiff of hypocrisy to blaming Oscar if you ask me. They don't vote in a vacuum. If you don't advocate for worthy players shouldn't you shut up when Oscar ignores the same worthy players?
Progress and Forward Thinking
Consider advocacy but let's use it wisely. I ask people to consider, however put out they are by the gender and racial inequities, that talent and achievement should always matter. So let's get out there and champion actors of any color who are doing great work and stop focusing on any given list of 20 people as if that one list is the be all and end all of a diversity report card for Hollywood. The Oscars are only part of Hollywood's massive empire. And the racial injustices of Hollywood are reflected in the Oscars but never wholly accurately. It's easy to be blind to signs of sure progress (there was a ton this year -- most noticeably that the biggest film of all time cast a black man, a woman, and a hispanic man as its leads) when your eyes are red with anger.
The laser focus on and annual gripes about the plight of black actors in Hollywood also does a disservice to diversity initiatives because it pretends that black actors are the only people who are marginalized. This will come as shocking news to the many POC behind the scenes or Asian actors (who are the least reocgnized in Hollywood history) or you know women -- who happen to be half the human race! Phyllis Nagy, Oscar nominated screenwriter of Carol, asked people who were surely upset about the Carol Best Picture snub to focus on the good -- four female screenwriters were nominated this year! That is quite a nice number considering the heavily male membership of voting groups -- only the actors and costuming branches seem to have anything like gender balance. We also had several nominations for POC from films like The Revenant, Amy, Embrace of the Serpent, and Theeb, and a trans person being nominated for Original Song!
And though the year's best film (Carol) was shut out of Best Picture, three films centering around women (Room, Brooklyn, Mad Max Fury Road) made it in which is more than usual!
Mark Harris recently tweeted a series of comments about this that I think are worth sharing though I'll just collect them in one quote because it was several tweets.
The problem w/ "The Academy's racist" is that it treats it as an institution that can be lobbied in some way. It isn't. It's just voters and campaigns, and a shifting crop of movies from an industry that is just starting to address its own massive and systemic racism.
So while I think #OscarsSoWhite shines a useful light on a larger issue, I'll just note that the Oscars are not what primarily need fixing. I question whether AMPAS can do anything but what it's doing: A sustained and wholly transparent years-long push to diversify its ranks.
But of course, I'd be eager to hear any better suggestions.
Well said. I'd also love to hear any better suggestions. And I especially would love for people to use their anger to suggest ACTUAL SOLUTIONS not just 'Burn it down' which Sasha Stone seems to be promoting at Awards Daily. Lighting fire to the Dolby, even if only figuratively, won't make Hollywood more diverse. It just punishes the messenger instead of wondering who is writing the message or treating a symptom but not worrying about a cure.
We need more pushes for inclusitivy within the powerful decision making chairs as Aisha Harris suggests at the NY Times (it's certainly helped on the small screen) and, I'd argue among the various teams at the studios who decide which films to really rally behind for Oscar campaigns.
Reader Comments (74)
Quite frankly, this is the best article -- very even-keeled and nicely detailed -- I've seen written on the subject which I found irritating last year and irritating this year. This problem doesn't fall into the Academy's hands. It's in the hands of the movie studios that either (a) don't give the Oscar push to deserving movies (ie. Creed), or (b) don't make quality movies with persons of color in major (or supporting) roles. Being angry with the Academy is focusing one's ire on the wrong party.
Very well put Nathaniel. And an excellent quote from Harris re: the bigger problem. These nominations are the symptom, not the disease. Granted, the symptom is bad, too.
I also agree that internet hysteria can take a gross sexist turn. The world is intersectional, people! It just looks ugly. And we're not ugly people.
Charles O -- bonus points for quoting CAROL.
Well said!
One thing that I think would not only go a long way to alleviating Oscar's representation problem, but also a lot of other issues, is to end the practice of lifetime memberships. It makes no sense to me that someone retired and out of the film industry for ten or twenty years can continue to vote on that industry's supposedly best achievements every year. I think if they required members to re-apply every ten years or so in order to ensure their voter base isn't overwhelmingly old and white and male and out-of-touch, combined with continuing to make an effort of admitting more POC, women and LGBT people in their ranks, these problems will eventually go away.
Robert Hamer -- i understand this impulse but i guess I'm tired of age and work status and whiteness being automatically equated with "out of touch". My feeling is taste and discernment in art have very little to do with skin color or age or how well employed someone is.
but i understand what you're saying. they do need to look at multiple options and some rule changes. It still annoys me that voters can vote on things without having seen them.
Not to nitpick smaller points in an overall interesting piece, but it's kind of odd to read a "Tangerine was never going to happen" dismissal here. I don't disagree that it was always a long shot, but I seem to recall some pretty earnest FYC type posts here, though not all were by Nathaniel specifically. Feels a bit curt to retroactively tell people they were wasting their time there.
I 100% think that if Creed came out in the summer, it would have factored, and Jordan would be a nominee (and conversely, that if Mad Max came out late fall, it wouldn't be in the conversation.) Studios are trained not to look at genre/blockbuster/sequels as awards bait, and aren't likely to spend campaign money on them - but maybe that will change with Max (not to mention The Martian) doing so well, and Star Wars probably coming close to a best pic nod, as well.
Which would be an important step, since if studios only take the prestige stuff seriously, then it's mostly white teams that are being pushed. #PrestigeSoWhite
Nathaniel, I love you and respect your opinions about movies, actors, and film culture more than anyone.
But do you really think the finer points of this argument matter—the exact number of eligible/viable performers each year? People (on the outside) believe they're talking about a specific film year when they're not, but it doesn't fall to white "experts" to correct them. If anything, posts like this diminish the credibility of real, valid anger and frustration at Hollywood. It seems wrong to pick tweets and thinkpieces specifically to say why they're technically not correct.
Look at our political system: Passive observers of politics didn't need to be experts to know that something was up with representation by women and minorities. Pundits saying "welp, to be fair, there just weren't any qualified women or minorities this year!" isn't what got us a black president.
I welcome the input of people without sophisticated Oscar, Hollywood, or film knowledge.
This is why I read this blog and not others. Well said.
There was a time in Hollywood when the most and best screenwriters were women. Times change and Hollywood changes with them. To expect that Hollywood will lead the change is ridiculous. It is an entertainment industry that does well almost in any kind of times due to its nature. But it's an industry nonetheless and it reflects exactly where we are as a society.
Of course I would like them to be as liberal and forward thinking as the media tries to think they are. They aren't. A few of them take up charitable causes, another few get more political but all in all they're just working people in a very profitable industry.
Whey there aren't #EngineeringSoWhite, #CEOSoWhite , etc ? I think that's where we need to start, and the rest will follow.
Will Smith was very much in the mix too for Best Actor. More so than Sam Jackson.
I've already had this discussion this year, and I'm mixed on the issue. To address a couple points in the article, I agree it's ridiculous to assume the ghost from The Revenant would be nominated, but is it more ridiculous than a nomination for Helen Mirren in Trumbo, which the precursors all but championed? I mean, one more significant flashback scene and she's fairly comparable to Laura Dern in Wild, isn't she? And she's one of the most "out there" examples on the list. The easy go-to answer there is to point out Mirren and Dern are popular actresses that have shown up here before... which highlights a major reason actors and actresses of color have a hard time getting in. There are still only two black women, ever, to have more than one acting Oscar nomination - Whoopi Goldberg and Viola Davis. That's it, and they only have two each. Now, I absolutely agree with the article that POCs should not be limited to only black actors and actresses - Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, for example, seem to be in the realm of likely perennials. But as you pointed out, Asian cinema is also widely ignored in the major categories. Even Crouching Tiger didn't pull a single acting nomination. So... what to make of all this?
I keep my own personal awards for my favorites each year, and guess what? The last year where I don't have a POC nominated was 1999, and ironically, the Academy didn't have an all white slate that year. I occasionally have a pick or two that's really "out there" but generally, most of my picks come from movies the Academy has seen. We know they saw Creed this year - as Oscar fans, I actually think we should be leading the charge on why Michael B. Jordan wasn't taken more seriously all season, especially pairing again with a director that got him critical acclaim on their last outing. (For my money, he was better than all of the nominees.) We know they saw Ex Machina, and Oscar Isaac is my personal pick for Best Supporting Actor - far more compelling than Alicia Vikander, who surely only missed because of her other film. A lot of them saw Sicario, and while Supporting Actor was crowded, Del Toro AND Elba were viable options. None of these would be big surprises. But they "just went another way." They just go another way A LOT. They go the way that favors their inner circle, with lots of repeat nominees, and until that inner circle is less white, that won't change.
I was ready for the Academy to butcher female-led films this year, and I'm happy to see that didn't happen (outside of Carol). The guilds were far worse. Can I switch up the conversation though? There are people saying it's not the Oscars' fault, it's the studios. Well, here's my take - they are BOTH completely to blame. If the Oscars genuinely looked outside their inner circles, it would benefit everyone. The same goes for studios, and I'd argue one of the reasons Universal had an incredible year in 2015 is they got the memo. Maybe the finger pointing should stop, we should all agree the current set up is gross rather than excusing it, and then all of these groups could make more money by making great films for groups that have traditionally been given too few green lights. Who's with me?
(Sidebar: Qi Shu wasn't eligible? I didn't realize that. The film had a qualified run, didn't it?)
"In the anger around this issue each year people willfully disregard 1) the field of competitors, 2) the actual eligibility of the films they've seen, 3) the quality of the roles they have or haven't seen, 4) the creative challenges faced and how well people conquered them, 5) whether or not the actor campaigned 6) whether or not the actor is famous and 7) whether or not lead actors were fraudulently campaigning in their supporting category making less room for them to have a reasonable shot at a nomination 8) the depth and size of the parts the actors played."
Nathaniel, with that paragraph, you've explained the real situation better than probably everyone else could. Sadly, no matter how many times these points are brought up, they'll be ignored every year in which we have exactly 20 white performers nominated. But at least the fans of Oscar know the truth.
Now that I've praised this essay, I must mention that calling the alternate list of 20 people of color "cute" is a bit insulting. Yes, it's dumb that whoever made the list you showed us included Leo's latest dead wife, but I'm sure the author did that to have an American Indian in the conversation as opposed to another black performer. (You failed to mention that the actress' name is Grace Dove, by the way)
It IS important to recognize that there are at least five other performances by people of color in each category that are worthy of being nominated. You can do that while still acknowledging that most roles for people of color, particularly women of color, aren't in blockbusters. In 2015, Star Wars did change that slightly, and, of course, there was a huge backlash. Not solely against John Boyega, but against Daisy Ridley, too. The Oscars aren't at fault for this, but they are a reflection of the industry they award.
One thing to keep in mind is the Oscars are the only film organization that gets criticized for its lack of diversity so vocally. It means the Oscars are the most important awards group, which we all already know. And they're going to stay that way for as long as we're alive. So the idea of throwing out the Oscars is ridiculous. Sasha needs to relax.
Very good and thoughtful piece.
I've got to say I was feeling the whole #OscarSoWhite thing a lot more last year because Selma felt a lot more like what Oscar normally rewards when it's white (inspiring biopic). Hell, two of the movies that did get more heavily rewarded (Imitation Game and Theory of Everything) were just that, biopics about white people. This year... eh, did anyone really think Creed (populist sports movie) and Straight Outta Compton (a movie about edgy foul mouthed rap group) or Beasts of No Nation (disturbing movie about third world war crimes with streaming service baggage) were really in the Academy's wheelhouse? And it's not like the movies they did go with were the baity Weinstein-crafted B.S. like Trumbo, a lot of really good stuff did make it in.
Congratulations on the article. One comment by way of example: 5 of the last 9 Best Supporting Actress winners were not white: Hudson, Cruz, Mo'Nique, Spencer and Nyong'o. That's more than half. Six other non-white actresses were nominated over the same period: Barraza, Kikuchi, Dee, Davis, Henson and Cruz.
I have a much more diverse crop of acting nominees than the Academy Awards, but that's because I also include films that wouldn't be eligible for the Academy Awards. Advantageous (that sci-fi darling from Sundance two years ago), a film represented in my own honors with a lot of nominations for Asian American actors and creatives, had a one week release in NYC and went straight to Netflix after that. I also singled out Suburban Gothic, A Pigeon Sat On a Branch Reflecting on Existence, The Nightmare, Tig, and Matt Shephard is a Friend of Mine, which were all also ineligible. A few of my score nominees were deemed ineligible as well.
Yes, there is a diversity problem in Hollywood and the mainstream awards shows. No, setting up a false narrative by ignoring the eligibility rules to prove your point doesn't help.
Those of us who want to help this change need to actually speak out with our wallets and support films created by and starring a more diverse group of creatives. And if we have a problem with casting or creative decisions that blatantly ignore issues of representation that are critical to the film (like Stonewall and The Danish Girl), it becomes our responsibility not to support them. The only thing that's going to change these OscarsSoWhite moments is hitting Hollywood where it hurts: their wallets. Either load them up with so much cash they can't ignore a film, or let them empty their wallets and see no return on films that blatantly miscast their productions.
My problem with the Oscars so white thing is that who wants to be a nominee purely because the nominations needed diversity? If I do something good enough to even warrant Oscar talk for me, don't you DARE give me that nomination because I happen to be black. Give it to me based on the strength of my accomplishment.
I could see the frustation when it came to everything involving Selma, but this year? Other than Creed, there were hardly a great deal of black frontrunnners to choose from. That's a symptom of a different problem rather than the Oscars. You have so much period pieces or biopics that don't even have room for people of color because it would be historically inaccurate or movies with people of color that don't scream PRESTIGE or aren't your typical Oscar bait.
@Marcos How Penelope Cruz is not white? Aren't Spaniards white because they speak the same language of Latin American countries?
Forgive me for the longer than necessary post!
For the record, Asians are rarely in danger of getting Oscar love. In fact, I often find that even in articles concerning diversity in Hollywood & Oscar rarely bring up Asian actors which is frustrating.
In the history of the Oscars, no Asian producer has ever won the Academy Award for Best Picture. 10 films with an Asian producer has been nominated for the Best Picture prize. Should The Revenant prevail this year, Arnon Milchan could become the first Asian producer to win in this category.
Ang Lee remains the only Asian director to have won the Academy Award for Best Director winning twice for Life of Pi & Brokeback Mountain as well as another nomination for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. 3 other Asian directors have been nominated for the Directing prize with them being Hiroshi Teshigahara (WOMEN IN THE DUNES), Akira Kurosawa (RAN) & M. Night Shyamaln (THE 6TH SENSE).
Yul Brynner & Ben Kingsley are the only Asian actors that have won in Lead Actor and to date remains the only actors of Asian descent to have been nominated in that category.
No actress of Asian descent has ever won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1935 Merle Oberon (THE DARK ANGEL) became the first Asian actress (INDIAN) to be nominated in that category and 80 years later, she remains the only actress to accomplish that feat.
Haing S. Ngor became the first actor of Asian descent to have won the Oscar for Supporting Actor in 1986 for his work in The Killing Fields. 31 years later, he is still the only actor of Asian descent to have won in this category. 5 other actors have been nominated in this cateogry with Watanabe being the last in 2003 for The Last Samurai.
Miyoshi Umeki's upset Supporting Actress win in 1957 for Sayonara marked the first time an Asian actress won an acting Oscar. 58 years later, she's still the only actress to have won an Oscar in the Supporting Actress category. 5 other actresses have since been nominated in the Supporting Actress category. Meg & Jennifer Tilly (Agnes of God/Bullets Over Broadway), Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand & Fog), Rinko Kikuchi (BABEL) and Hailee Steinfeld (TRUE GRIT).
No writers of Asian descent has ever won a screenplay Oscar. 5 Asian writers have been nominated in the Original Screenplay: Hanif Kureishi (MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE), M. Night Shyamalan (THE 6TH SENSE), Iris Yamashita (LETTERS FROM IWA JIMA), Asghar Farhadi (A SEPARATION) & Ronnie Del Carmen (INSIDE OUT). Ronnie Del Carmen could become the first Asian writer to win a Screenplay Oscar should he prevail on Oscar night. In 2000, Hui-Ling Wang & Kuo Jung Tsai became the first Asian writers to be nominated for the Adapted Screenplay Oscar. 15 years later, they are still the only writers to do so in the Adapted Screenplay category. And Asghar Farhai totally deserved that ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY win in 2011.
In the history of the Oscars, a film from an Asian country have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film 45 times. 4 films have won the Foreign language Film Oscar with it being Dersu Uzala (SOVIET UNION), Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (TAIWAN), Departures (JAPAN) & A Separation (IRAN).
It's a category that's historically kinder to Eastern Asian films than any other category. In the history of the Oscars, an Asian DP has been nominated in the Cinematography category 18 times with 3 wins (2 for James Wang Howe for The Rose Tattoo/Hud & Peter Pau for Crouching Tiger).
Despite garnering 10 nominations including Picture/Director/Adapted Screenplay, not a single actor from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon received an acting nomination at the Oscars (That Yeoh/Zhang snub burns!). Despite 9 nominations, The Last Emperor received 0 acting nominations from its predominantly Asian cast. The film would later sweep at the Oscars winning 9 out of 9 including Best Picture & Director.
As Nathaniel Rogers noted in that glorious Gong Li post, she's probably the only Asian actor that the Academy has been consistently interested in. To this day, she has yet to recognized by Oscar. Think of all those Zhang Yimou films! Who else had as good of a 90s than her??
Furthermore, if, say, Idris Elba did make the cut (as I'm confident he was quite close) and there was a single POC among the acting nominees, that wouldn't make it all okay. Michael B. Jordan would've made a great nominee because he gave a fantastic performance in a film voters saw and probably liked (based on historical assumptions of their taste) - AND it was a weak field. Not because of his skin color. We need the Spotlight team to highlight that this is a systemic issue that stems from the top down, and blaming the Oscars alone (however culpable they are) isn't particularly useful.
The changing landscape of television (and theater - look at Hamilton!) gives me hope for Hollywood's fututre. Films can take years to produce and complete before they're put in front of audiences and voters, so I'm praying last year's and this year's #OscarsSoWhite prompted more greenlighting of diverse stories and casts that we'll begin to see soon. I hope. I really hope.
I just always find over-identification and over-labeling in America irrational and pointless.
Isn't it downright WEIRD that Penelope Cruz is considered white in Europe but a person of color according to many Americans? Benicio Del Toro would totally be considered white had he been European. He'll easily pass as French, Italian, Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, you name it.
I worked on a student film with a Brazilian girl a few years back. She's totally white, blond, and green-eyed and for some reason self-identifies as a Latina? But Al Pacino and De Niro, who are darker than her in all departments are white? I just don't get it.
Growing up I always, absolutely always believed Mariah Carey was white until one day my sister finally proved to me that her father was black.
Also, I've always seen Beyonce as a mix, not a black woman. She can identify as black until the world ends but both her look and especially her genealogy (you know, science) say she's not black. Same goes for Halle Berry and Tyra Banks.
A lot of people will be offended by this because history hasn't been kind and that must never be forgotten. But the "I identify as so and so because I say so" is deeply unscientific and tremendously pointless in a world that's trying to let go of stereotypes.
Morgan Freeman said it best, to let go of all the racist shit out there "Just don't talk about race."
The notion of whiteness is always a matter of perspective and privilege. Some light-skinned Spaniards and Latin Americans (want to) consider themselves white (in a "master race" sense); others consider themselves non-white a) out of solidarity with peoples of color and b) because "white" people have denied them whiteness. Some black people view light-skinned Spaniards and Latin Americans as "brown white people." And non-Hispanic white people have a broad spectrum of views on the "whiteness" (or lack thereof) of these people as well.
"I've always seen Beyonce as a mix, not a black woman. She can identify as black until the world ends but both her look and especially her genealogy (you know, science) say she's not black. Same goes for Halle Berry and Tyra Banks."
That's where you lost me, Yavor. Both of Beyonce's parents are notably black and I'm not entirely sure what Halle and Tyra would identify as other than black. Mixed is not an ethnicity. Or at least once you have a good deal of black in you, you don't really get a choice.
Cal: Other Spaniards have been considered to be non-white as far as the Oscars are concerned. Unless I am terribly wrong. Of course, in my opinion Spaniards are white, in the same way I am white. All my direct ancestors are 100% Italian blood. However, when I lived in the US for 6 years I was not considered to be white, just because I was born in Argentina. No big deal, it didn't bother me at all. I suppose that added to my confusion of what Americans consider to be white. And now I read Paul Outlaw's comment, which confirms the different perspectives.
PS. I also know Jews, Italians, Portuguese and even Irish people who refer to Brits, Scandinavians and other Central Europeans as "white people," not including themselves in the designation.
@ Derreck, I'm not here to win or lose you but I'd ask you to go back to your science books. In what sense can you possible say the mixed isn't an ethnicity, since it is? If you're talking about labeling, a social construct, then we can stare at the moon and call it sunny. Labeling might have a belief that mixed isn't a race. Thankfully, social constructs aren't science. Facts don't care about opinions and made-up notions, even for the eon-old ones, be it god, chakras, self-identification and all of the BS entangled in it.
Beyonce's ethnicity goes as follows:
*African-American (father)
*Louisiana Creole (including African, French, French-Canadian, as well as distant Irish and Spanish) (mother)
=> you know, mixed.
I think the best thing we, as movie lovers, commenters and pundits, can do is make sure that we're supporting films, especially vaguely baity ones, with diverse casts. Make sure they're in the conversation early and consistently.
Luckily 2016 looks like they'll be a few
Moonlight
Queen of Katwe
Agassi (The Handmaid)
Loving
A United Kingdom
A Promise
Any others?
@ BJT, exactly!
I see what you're saying, Yavor. But.. Beyonce is very much interpreted, critiqued and self-identified as a black woman. I get your point, but it's a little like the "Obama is just as much white as he is black" thing a lot of conservatives (and I would never accuse you of such a thing...just drawing a comparison) said to soften largely race based prejudice of him. Only one of my parents is black, but I identify as such because that's how my experience has been--that of a black person, with a lot of the commonalities shared with other black men. Just my two cents.
Great piece, Nathaniel. Glad you mentioned the Best Actress meme, which showed up a lot in my twitter feed and really bothered me for the reasons you highlighted. Or the people like "she got nominated for playing a woman who invented a mop" disparigingly as if good performances can't come from films about any subject matter under the sun. The #Oscarssowhite conversation is important. And it sucks that ac tresses of color aren't given vehicles like ROOM or CAROL or 45 YEARS. But it doesn't mean that those performances need to be reduced in that way. I think everyone would do well to think of these conversation about inclusiveness and representation (which are so important) in terms of "in addition to" rather than "instead of".
Brilliant stuff, Nate.
Yavor, African-Americans, i.e, people whose parents were not Sub-Saharan African natives, are all "mixed." Beyonce is nothing special in that regard.
#OscarsSoWhite? More like #EveryAwardThisSeasonSoWhite.
Check out the nominees for the Critics' Choice, SAG, and BAFTA. Pretty white!
The Spirit and Globes are somewhat diverse.
It isn't just the Academy.
The oscars aren't the problem. But they probably aren't the solution either.
Nate, you leave me speechless. I have the same issues with this whole thing as you, but you have said it all better than I ever could. Amen.
On fire. Simply on fire. Everything from "...But I propose that these things do and should matter and people should speak more carefully or at least educate themselves on how the Oscars work before they want them torn down or even before they build a list of suggestions on how to fix the matter..." to "...There's a whiff of hypocrisy to blaming Oscar if you ask me. They don't vote in a vacuum. If you don't advocate for worthy players shouldn't you shut up when Oscar ignores the same worthy players?" are sentiments I have attempted to trumpet for the last several days, as I've grown increasingly annoyed by the annual horde of Tweeters, Facebookers, and commentators (whom I'm convinced know very little about how these awards work) offering their knee-jerk (and frankly, ignorant) reactions to a rather complicated matter. It is AH-noy-ying. I'm especially pleased that you attempted to deconstruct the asinine exercise of assembling lists of actors of color who - even in the most progressive and extreme of circumstances - would never be considered for nomination. Tessa Thompson in "Creed"? When was she EVER in the conversation?
On and for the record:
No. I would have not nominated Michael B. Jordan. No. I would not have nominated Idris Elba. Yes. I would have nominated Abraham Attah. Yes. I would have nominated Mya Taylor.
I don't know how to make intelligent arguments so I'm just going to state my point about something that bothered me about this article and then leave- Nathaniel, your poor white Best Actresses are going to be fine after one person on the Internet said that their different facial expressions make them look like the same person in the different stages of life. god forbid anyone says anything that isn't "PRAISE THIS GODDESSS" about one of those actresses and you'll consider it an attack. they are well paid, well -praised , well-established white actresses who will all easily get award traction and wide admiration for their performances.
Hayden you wrote
Thank you for writing this! It's calm and measured yet takes me to task and i see what you're saying and makes me reconsider the nitpicking.again i understand why people are angry. I am part of a minority that you still hear people wishing death on regularly in the political discourse (those GOP candidate friending up to that guy who says all gays in America should be executed is particularly comforting this week!) so i understand how important it is to have a place at the table and for your contributions not to be reduced or for stereotypes and intolerance not to be the only thing you encounter in your daily life. It's exhausting to have to fight all the time to not be marginalized.
But i guess i love the movies (and the Oscars, yes) too much to not get nitpicky about it. My personal problem with all this i suppose.
anyway i appreciate constructive criticism.
Samuel -- I know they're going to be fine.but it's like people mocking Jennifer Lawrence for her demand at pay equity. People are like "poor multimillionaire" but isn't her request for pay equity actually a righteous request? i get that she lives a VERY filthy rich life. But i remember living through this in 1990 when Meryl Streep spoke out about pay equity and people started mocking her in the same way "oh poor Meryl who makes a million (or whatever it was) a movie and has two Oscars. poor thing" it's just tiring to see women continually targeted, even by people who actually probably agree with the root issues.
Morgan oops. you're right. sorry.
Dave you wrote
this is a great point. sorry. I guess i was just burned out about all the talk of Tangerine...and it hit me in a really weird place because it was one of those films that pretended it didn't have two leads. and as much fun as Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor were they aren't "great" actors in the way say people like Blanchett and Rampling are you know? so i got a little frustrated when people wanted them to be nominated... there is only room for 5 people in a category. No matter how good someone is, being one of the 5 best is often a tall order. FTR i think Mya Taylor was actually quite strong, very strong for a novice actor (Rodriguez less so) but the year was so ridiculously competitive in lead actress that i didn't even have room for her in my top ten.BJT thanks for the reminder. that is a lot to look forward to. I'm especially excited about A UNITED KINGDOM and QUEEN OF KATWE (it's about damn time we got Lupita onscreen -- and The Force Awakens doesn't count for me. Don't hide that beautiful face with CGI. especially when no one but fashion blogs is letting us see it.
Nice article, thoughtful and more balanced than most on this subject. But you tease us with a link to your best actor nominees and only MBJ pictured!
So much anger hitting out at irrelevant places. I include myself as I get annoyed when some seem to be portraying the Oscars racial snubs as a kind of conspiracy and citing the screenplay nomination as part of the conspiracy. But it is a secret vote by branch so a writer who gave Straight Out of Compton their number one vote had no knowledge of how the directors or actors branches were voting.
This was not a festival jury or a critics prize decided over dinner, where there was a chance to see the results and make some adjustments before releasing the results.
This is what I had to say on Facebook about the nominations when they were announced:
If you didn't make a point of going to the movie theater last year to see films that prominently feature non-white characters -- if you spent all of 2015 watching straight, white men be heroic saviors -- then I don't want to see or hear you talking about how white the #oscars are. If you had more of an interest in witnessing Matt Damon -- who doesn't think diversity belongs in the boardroom -- in a film by Ridley Scott -- who sidelined actors of color in Gods and Kings because we "don't sell" -- than any number of movies about people of color, women, the LGBT comunity, etc., YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM. Therefore, you don't get to criticize AMPAS for its lack of inclusion. How about every now and again we show that one black friend and that one gay uncle and our mamas and grannies how much we value their experiences by making hits out of movies about them? The Oscars can only be as white, straight, and male as we allow them to be with the tickets we purchase.
The issue for me is not that non-white actors were snubbed - there have always been outrageous snubs in the past and we should expect more in the future.
What outraged me is that the Academy HAD the chance to nominate two more Best Pictures but according to the new rules didn't or couldn't. The final two slots would have undoubtedly gone to Carol, Straight Outta Compton or Star wars the force awakens.
Either of these 3 films would have been worthy Best Pic nominees - but their subject matter probably displeased the mainly white conservative male members. One is an LGBT drama, another focuses on black people and the third is a sci fi film with strong female and black performances.
The other issue I had a problem with is that the two films with 'black' themes that received nominations ie. Compton and Creed - only rewarded WHITE people. The white screenwriters and rightwing conservative Republican - Sylvester Stallone.
I am disappointed with some of the nominations and snubs this year - but that happens every year.
We can only hope that the Academy invites more diverse people as members and more and more members get a chance to see as many non-white conservative films in future.
Whey there aren't #EngineeringSoWhite, #CEOSoWhite, etc? I think that's where we need to start, and the rest will follow.
People can be passionate about multiple issues at the same time even if every single issue does not have a hashtag. This sounds like policing what people should care about and when they should care about it.
There was one tweet (I can't remember the tweeter) that pretty much said that Hollywood is eating it's own tail. A lot of film critics, beat writers, pundits etc. that didn't promote people of color are now writing about how there are no nominees. What if Ryan Coogler was in that Hollywood Reporter Director's Roundtable instead of Tom Hooper or Danny Boyle? What if Jada Pinkett Smith (Magic Mike) had been in the Actress one instead of Carey Mulligan or Helen Mirren? That could've created a narrative.
Why is it that a lack of nominations for a POC actor almost always has to be explained away by "facts"? It wasn't the Academy's cup of tea. There was no campaign behind it. The movie wasn't big enough. Then a performance like Bryan Cranston in Trumbo or Eddie Redmayne in "The Danish Girl" gets nominated and people just accept it because it's the status quo. People were ready to accept that Suffragette was going to be an Oscar Contender but Creed had to prove itself.
That's incredibly discouraging and feeds into the narrative that POC must work twice as hard to get half as much. Especially with comments like "This is cute and makes its point to an extent." Viola Davis was in a hit movie, had a big campaign behind her, and is beloved by the industry and she still didn't beat Meryl although many actresses have done it before her for less.
This post is getting long but people's "status quo" reactions to this are reminding me of words from an incredible man who's birthday is being celebrated this week. "Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." The actor who portrayed him on film was also not nominated for an Oscar just last year.
NoNo -- i don't know if you read this article but we agree on at least half of these things. I was infuriated when Viola lost (shoulda been a slam dunk win) and I am sick to death of the media not taking responsibility and then attacking the Oscars themsleves when they create the narratives and the status quo.
@NATHANIEL " He fudges the rules to include people like Ibreheim Ahmed in Timbuktu and Qi Shu in The Assassin -- neither of whom are Oscar eligible. Rules don't get fudged for white actors even in the current system people dislike so much that favors white actors. The rules are still the rules."
Pardon me but would like to ask what are the rules? I have no idea about them.
If you didn't pay to see a film directed by a person of color (and not just a film starring one) then you're undoubtedly part of the problem. But if you're also using up the bulk of your year talking about the work of well-known white people that could be recognized by The Academy while simultaneously relegating their PoC counterparts to the back burner because they "don't stand a chance" or whatever then you're also actually part of the problem. Oscar bloggers/critics/prognosticators create the narrative and insist on their relevance to the Oscar race, but then when there's this huge, heated whiteout, it's suddenly only the industry's fault, or the Academy's. Anyone involved in the business of singling out moviemaking for a living who is not offering due and equal time to the Tangerines and Girlhoods of the world (but also the Comptons and Creeds) is part of the problem and should take a long, hard look at themselves and their work when these #OscarsSoWhite scandals break out and see if they could've done more. Helen Mirren in Trumbo doesn't need any more coverage, trust me, but Karidja Touré does, in a film that's already a year old but could've been a much more integral part of our general critical discussion if only people had taken the time to see it. If only.
And why aren't Ibrahim Ahmed and Qi Shu eligible? Their films had first-run releases in the U.S. this year.
I did read the article. That's why I used Viola as an example and quoted you. ;-)
"Anyone involved in the business of singling out moviemaking for a living who is not offering due and equal time to the Tangerines and Girlhoods of the world (but also the Comptons and Creeds) is part of the problem and should take a long, hard look at themselves and their work when these #OscarsSoWhite scandals break out and see if they could've done more."
But I think journalists like Nathaniel, Mark Harris, and others actually do champion films like the ones you mentioned, particularly in relation to Tangerine which has been extensively covered on this site. Low-budget indies like Tangerine, James White, Dope, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, etc., are always going to face an up-hill battle in relation to awards when you are facing off against established icons like Steven Spielberg and Bridge of Spies. But I've heard much, much more about Tangerine, Diary, Carol, James White on this site than, say, Bridge of Spies and The Big Short.
BlueMoon02 & Let's be Real -- I'm unclear on why THE ASSASSIN was ineligible because it did receive a US theatrical run but when the Oscars released their list of eligible titles to be considered in all categories this year (this list is usually around 300 titles long) it was absent. TIMBUKTU is an easier explanation. Though it did not receive it's US release until 2015 it qualifies for the foreign film category last year and was nominated, making it ineligible for awards this year (they changed the rules in the 1960s after the same foreign film was nominated in two separate years for different categories)
Aaron thanks. we do try to point out worthy films. sometimes i don't think we cover the major ones enough (like Bridge of Spies got like half as many articles as Tangerine ;)
But one of the weird truths of what we do is the site gets a lot more traffic during Oscar season when the films that become frontrunners become the topic so people miss the earlier stuff where we had more freedom as to what could be talked about at any given moment.. But yes we've covered lots of indies and foreign films this year. I wish i had gotten around to GIRLHOOD sooner but one of the reasons I'm proud to have build a good diverse team is that other people can get to stuff I miss and champion it and Glenn, Amir, and Anne Marie all raved about it right here on the site before I even saw it.