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.