By: Rafeeat Bishi
Funny. Right as I was writing this blog, Stephen King, a member of the Academy, tweeted (lacking context) that he does not consider diversity when it comes to voting
I may be a jinx because my last post was about how younger, POC people were breaking into hollywood. When the Oscar nominations came out, people were disappointed (but not surprised) to see that a majority of nominees were white males. In the acting categories, and directing categories, all of the nominees (except 1) were white/male.This prompted a thought. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is historically a white, male dominated group. Through the recent years, they've been attempting to diversify their group by admitting younger people of various backgrounds. I thought that after Moonlight won Best Picture (first time with an all-black cast, LGBTQ centered story), we'd see more opportunities.
This sounds morbid but no one really leaves the Academy unless they die, so I guess we'll always have to deal with people who may have outdated views. If that's the case, then in my opinion we should stop looking there so intensely for validation. Especially if quality film is regularly ignored because it didn't make money at the box office.
We should recognize smaller, independent award shows that are doing the most to recognize diverse stories. For now, I'll probably be more invested in the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which reflects much more diverse storytelling.
Yes queen. I agree, it sucks when the movies you and your friends have been watching featured people of color but then yiou turn to the Oscars and don't see anyone you watched. Gotta wait for all these old people to die so we can step in and let the real stars shine period
ReplyDeleteI'm not too well-informed on the Oscars, the film industry, or cinematography at all, but honestly... people SHOULD be considering diversity when voting. I'm tired of the excuse that "it just so happens that white-majority casted movies are the ones winning" because there's actually no way that happens almost every year, and there's allegedly no bias involved. The only reason why many people can't name a lot of fantastic POC-centered cinematic masterpieces is that these films do not get the spotlight. Racism. wow
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