'Selma' star David Oyelowo and director Ava DuVernay.
After the announcement of the nominees for the 87th Annual Academy Awards, the news seems to be dominated by who wasn't nominated and how it's indicative of a lack of diversity in Hollywood. Of course, there's always subjective tastes inherent to this sort of thing, and every year there are always "snubbings" of actors, writers and films that people feel should have been nominated. Yesterday was no different, with outcries about the critical and popular hit
The Lego Movie failing to be nominated for an animation award,
Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn being excluded from the best adapted screenplay category, and the documentary category (which has a
long history of rigged nomination processes) failing to nominate the Roger Ebert biographical documentary
Life Itself.
However, it was the failure of either Selma star David Oyelowo, who portrayed Martin Luther King Jr., and director Ava DuVernay to receive nominations that's led to a social media backlash over the Oscars being so white, with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite trending on Twitter. Selma is one of the best reviewed films of the year, DuVernay would have been the first black woman to be nominated for a Best Director award, and most critics having praised Oyelowo's performance as being a standout. Couple all of that with the fact there is not a person of color to be found in any of the 20 acting nominees, only the second time that's happened since 1998, and you have one of the "whitest" Oscars in recent memory.
Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the current and first African-American president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, denies the lack of diversity in nominations are an example of a problem, instead arguing there are so many good movies some are going to be left out when it comes to awarding excellence. However, this is not a new issue. The problems with people of color and women gaining recognition and reward in Hollywood is a story as old as film itself. And when it comes to the film industry, there's a difference between perception and reality. As much as conservatives rail against Hollywood as a bastion of leftist liberals, the truth is a little different. As much as this town sees itself as progressive, the true power brokers of Hollywood are very male, very white, almost old enough to draw Social Security, and sometimes can't see their own biases and limitations.
In the retrospective montages played during the ceremony, the Academy will sometimes pat itself on the back and point to Hattie McDaniel receiving an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1940 as an example of how it was trailblazing and willing to reward excellence no matter the race of the actor or actress. But the same Academy never mentions it made McDaniel sit at a segregated table in the back of the Cocoanut Grove banquet at the Ambassador Hotel, away from her Gone With the Wind costars.
Follow beneath the fold for more.
There are over 6,000 voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The rules for membership are a bit convoluted, but it basically consists of people working in the industry who are either sponsored by two Academy members or by those who've been nominated or won Academy Awards. A 2013 analysis by the Los Angeles Times found the demographics to be about what you would expect if one attended a tea party meeting.
- 94 percent white
- 76 percent male
- An average age of 63 years old
However, since the industry has issues of diversity both in front of and behind the camera, it contributes to the lopsided demos of the Academy. In the annual
“Celluloid Ceiling” report tracking women’s progress within the film business, the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found that only 17 percent of workers behind the camera on films were women. Only 7 percent of films were directed by women in 2014. A
study released last year by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism found little racial diversity in film, either in the acting roles or positions of production. Of the 100 top-grossing films in 2013 comprising 107 director credits, only seven were black.
And this is still a commercial business, where beliefs about marketing demands and public attitudes are taken into account when decisions are made about casting roles. The hacking of Sony and the leak of their internal emails not only revealed pay disparities between female actors and film executives and their male counterparts, but also discussions about how race should affect casting. In one email, an unnamed producer wrote to Sony co-chair Michael Lynton warning that casting black actors, such as Denzel Washington, in lead roles limits the amount of revenue a film can generate worldwide. According to media reports, the producer wrote "I believe that the international motion picture audience is racist -- in general pictures with an African-American lead don't play well overseas," when discussing the grosses for Washington's film The Equalizer.
So, given the Academy membership requirements and the demographics of who works in the industry, is it really that surprising the Academy's voting blocks are made up of mostly old white men?
From a column by Chris Rock at
The Hollywood Reporter:
It's a white industry. Just as the NBA is a black industry. I'm not even saying it's a bad thing. It just is. And the black people they do hire tend to be the same person. That person tends to be female and that person tends to be Ivy League. And there's nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, that's what I want for my daughters. But something tells me that the life my privileged daughters are leading right now might not make them the best candidates to run the black division of anything. And the person who runs the black division of a studio should probably have worked with black people at some point in their life. Clint Culpepper [a white studio chief who specializes in black movies] does a good job at Screen Gems because he's the kind of guy who would actually go see Best Man Holiday. But how many black men have you met working in Hollywood? They don't really hire black men. A black man with bass in his voice and maybe a little hint of facial hair? Not going to happen. It is what it is. I'm a guy who's accepted it all.
But forget whether Hollywood is black enough. A better question is: Is Hollywood Mexican enough? You're in L.A, you've got to try not to hire Mexicans. It's the most liberal town in the world, and there's a part of it that's kind of racist — not racist like "F— you, nigger" racist, but just an acceptance that there's a slave state in L.A. There's this acceptance that Mexicans are going to take care of white people in L.A. that doesn't exist anywhere else. I remember I was renting a house in Beverly Park while doing some movie, and you just see all of the Mexican people at 8 o'clock in the morning in a line driving into Beverly Park like it's General Motors. It's this weird town ... Now, when it comes to casting, Hollywood pretty much decides to cast a black guy or they don't. We're never on the "short list." We're never "in the mix." When there's a hot part in town and the guys are reading for it, that's just what happens. It was never like, "Is it going to be Ryan Gosling or Chiwetel Ejiofor for Fifty Shades of Grey?" And you know, black people f—, too. White women actually want to f— black guys, sometimes more than white guys. More women want to f— Tyrese than Jamie Dornan, and it's not even close. It's not a contest. Even Jamie would go, "OK, you got it."
Or how about True Detective? I never heard anyone go, "Is it going to be Amy Adams or Gabrielle Union?" for that show. I didn't hear one black girl's name on those lists. Not one. Literally everyone in town was up for that part, unless you were black. And I haven't read the script, but something tells me if Gabrielle Union were Colin Farrell's wife, it wouldn't change a thing. And there are almost no black women in film. You can go to whole movies and not see one black woman. They'll throw a black guy a bone. OK, here's a black guy. But is there a single black woman in Interstellar? Or Gone Girl? Birdman? The Purge? Neighbors? I'm not sure there are. I don't remember them. I go to the movies almost every week, and I can go a month and not see a black woman having an actual speaking part in a movie. That's the truth.
But does this sort of problem with institutional diversity explain the snub of
Selma? Maybe. There are at least three reasons people have asserted as to why
Selma had such a difficult time with award nominations that can be either seen as an alternative or a contributing factor in the process.
- Paramount failed to send advanced screeners to voters: Selma was also shut out of the SAG, PGA, DGA, and BAFTA awards, with failure to send out screener copies of the movie being blamed. Just like in politics, award nominations are a campaign/lobbying process, with the better studio campaigns being able to push a movie over the top. And the lack of a campaign can really hurt a film's ability to gain recognition. The telecast is still a 4-hour commercial for the film industry, and some people like to have their egos stroked with screeners and gifts in order to get their vote to make it into the broadcast.
- The depiction of Lyndon Johnson and the backlash toward it turned off some voters: As I mentioned on Monday, Selma has encountered backlash for its depiction of President Lyndon Johnson. Historians, former aides of Johnson, and even some civil rights activists have complained the film presents a very inaccurate portrayal of Johnson's actions during the civil rights movement. Supporters of Selma, as well as DuVernay, have complained the criticism has reduced the film to the scenes with Johnson, instead of the larger narrative. Also, both The Imitation Game and American Sniper have historical inaccuracies and it didn't stop their nominations in major categories.
- The Oscars like to check off boxes: If one looks at the nominations/winners over the past 30 years, the Academy tends to have the mentality that it either needs to hit certain demos and issues, or reward certain people because they're "due." Paul Newman won a Best Actor Oscar for The Color of Money in 1987. No one really thinks, that of all his roles, The Color of Money is the performance Newman should have won for, but it was basically a lifetime achievement distinction given to him because he was due. And you can go through the Academy's history and pick out a lot of situations where Oscars were makeup calls or given out because they felt the time had come to honor an actor or film that dealt with a certain issue. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers makes this argument about Selma's snub. Basically, because 12 Years a Slave won last year, plus nominations for Steve McQueen and Chiwetel Ejiofor and a win for Lupita Nyong'o, the voters thought "hey, we've already dealt with race" and they had some room not to worry about it this year. It's basically the same thinking of "hey, Obama is president, we solved all race issues and don't have to talk about it anymore."