“I think when everybody’s story is told, then that makes for better art”, Obama said.
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US President Barack Obama has for the first time addressed the lack of black nominees for this year’s Academy Awards, saying movies will be better if they represent everyone’s stories.
“In the past, black, Latino and Asian industry professionals could rest assured that they were admitted to the Academy or awarded an Oscar for one reason only: the brilliance of their work”. The film received only a supporting actor nomination for Sly Stallone.
“‘When I met Bennet and went through the science, I was terrified, as a parent”, Smith told The National.
As previously reported, for the second consecutive year, actors of color (and women) were shut out of the nominations.
“The Academy is ready for him to do that”, Oscars producer Reginald Hudlin recently said in an interview.
The duo also weighed in on the stars who have pledged to boycott the ceremony, including Will Smith, whom Boone Isaacs said was still welcome “with open arms”. Since this reflects the white, male power structure in the industry, it suggests the trouble doesn’t begin with myopic award voting but with a narrow perspective among the people who hire talent and decide which projects get made in the first place. Last week, the Academy announced new initiatives to diversify its membership.
Finally, the actors who playedthe rap group “N.W.A” in the film, “Straight Outta Compton”, deserve more recognition than a nomination for Original Screenplay, which in reality, has nothing to do with the actors in the movie. I managed to get my foot in the door of a challenging business to break into – for anyone, not just people of colour – and have been given many welcome opportunities to advance.
The main criticism levelled at the Academy has always been that its members are disproportionately, older, white, middle-class men. In interviews, Spike Lee and other black filmmakers referred to the whitewash as evidence of Hollywood’s institutional racism, while some industry insiders and Academy members insisted that the best films and performances were chosen in a completely colorblind manner.
He said a better way of ensuring members saw all the eligible films, would be to provide a password-protected streaming service that would allow the Academy to keep a tally of how many films members actually watched. “I think that is absolutely unfair because we don’t know how they voted”.
Based on the Hollywood numbers in the chart above, we’d still expect the Oscars to feature about 20 percent people of color across all award categories, which partially justifies the current pushback.
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April Reign creator of #Oscarsowhite emerged as the face to highlight Academy as the biggest platform to give more recognition to the minorities and women in its membership.
