Photo Illustration by Emil Lendof/The Daily Beast
Photo Illustration by Emil Lendof/The Daily Beast
I finally watched Selma last night. It may not have been one of the best films I've ever seen, but it was definitely one of the best of the year. And I found Ava DuVernay's directing to be stellar. She brought a pensive, humanist perspective to violent, tragic events--something rarely seen in films today. For instance, the film showed the 1963 Birmingham church bombing in which four black girls were killed in a terrorist attack. Before the bomb blasts, DuVernay showed the girls lightly discussing what little girls are wont to talk about: hair-dos. After the attack, instead of showing blood and gore, she focused on the fabric of the girls' dresses and a pair of ballet flats. Her choices in this scene added a level of profound sorrow to the event. She successfully captured the calamity of young lives being stamped out too soon and for no reason. Due to impactful directing decisions like these, there is no doubt in my mind that DuVernay's handling of this complex narrative merited an Oscar nomination.
While offensive on its own, it would be one thing if Selma had just been rebuffed by the academy. But to add insult to injury, American Sniper, Clint Eastwood's latest machismo action flick, was nominated for a whopping six Academy Awards. I must admit that I have not seen this film and cannot remember ever feeling less interest in a movie. I also loathe Clint Eastwood and cannot understand why people continue to flock to (what I gather, as I have not seen most of them) his predictable, sexist, cheesy action films. Yet it is one thing for the broader public to enjoy an unoriginal, overly nationalistic Hollywood movie. It's another thing for the academy--which is supposed to be the be-all-end-all of film criticism in the industry--to nominate this garbage for three times as many awards as a thoughtful, socially-conscious film about a critical time in our history.
As I said, I have not seen American Sniper, but I agree with Matt Taibbi's wry assessment that, "the mere act of trying to make a typically Hollywoodian one-note fairy tale set in the middle of the insane moral morass that is/was the Iraq occupation is both dumber and more arrogant than anything George Bush or even Dick Cheney ever tried." The movie tells the story of one supposed Iraq War hero, and celebrates American soldiers taking out as many brown "bad guys" as possible. On the other hand, Selma shares the narrative of Dr. King and the civil rights movement in a way that acknowledges the complexity of any battle to change society.
Both of these narratives--that of a "heroic" American soldier operating in an ahistorical setting and unquestioningly destroying darker skinned lives; and the story of mostly black activists fighting for the right to vote--are extremely relevant to American society today. Sadly, the academy's decision of which film to bestow more recognition upon may reflect the overall values of those the academy is made up of: older white men. And since this continues to be the segment of the population that controls most of the levers of power in this country, their worldviews impact all of us.
There has been much reporting on the lack of diversity in the academy. In 2012, the academy was 94 percent white, 77 percent male, and the median age was 62. They have been making efforts to diversify, but since membership is lifelong, this will be slow going. And even though Twelve Years a Slave won best picture last year, 2015's nominations show how far the academy still has to go. In addition to Selma being overlooked, not a single acting nomination went to a person of color this year.
In addition to being about race, I suspect the academy's snub of DuVernay was also about gender--or the intersection of race and gender. As I watched the film, I found that there was a distinctly female perspective throughout. To go back to my earlier example, many men might have focused on violent bloodshed in the scene where the four girls were killed in the church. Instead, DuVernay showed us their conversation about hair, and the materials they wore on their last days on earth. To me, this added a level of tenderness to the scene many men might have missed. When most of the academy is old white men, it is unsurprising they would favor a violent, simplistic action flick over this sort of intersectional, deep storytelling that might challenge their worldview. And in passing over DuVernay, the academy also missed a chance to nominate the first black woman to the "director" category.
In the end, the academy's choice to honor American Sniper so much more than Selma is evidence they lack relevancy in today's cultural criticism. But unfortunately, their choice still matters because it likely reflects the values held by the broader population the academy represents--elite white men.
