Thursday, January 14, 2016

Too. Many. White. People.

The Oscar nominations were announced today and besides the usual disagreements on who and what should've nominated, some are very upset that the acting nominations were dominated by white people. As one concerned poster on IMDB entitled his thread "can we have a serious talk about diveristy in hollywood/awards."

The President of AMPAS also had something to with the lack of diversity in the nominations. In fact, she thinks AMPAS needs to "speed it up." 
Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs was diplomatic but clearly disappointed when I spoke to her at this morning’s Oscar nominations about the omission of African American-driven films like Straight Outta Compton, Concussion, and Beasts Of No Nation. “Of course I am disappointed, but this is not to take away the greatness (of the films nominated). This has been a great year in film, it really has across the board. You are never going to know what is going to appear on the sheet of paper until you see it,” she told me, while acknowledging the Academy’s very public efforts at diversity are moving too slowly. “We have got to speed it up.”
Gosh, it must be frustrating leading an organization so behind the times. I can't wait for trade magazines advocating for sensitivity training for all new members. The need to see darker pigmented human beings nominated has created its own twitter hashtag in the from of #OscarsSoWhite. At least that's a start, right? Because awareness and all.

As usual, though it hasn't been said already, people will blame the voting membership of AMPAS being filled with old, white men.

EDIT: Deadspin writer, Albert Burneko, lost his shit when the nominations were announced. As he writes -
For 363 days a year, nobody gives a fuck about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Today is one of the two remaining days, when suckers care—and other suckers pretend to care—about who gets nominated for the Oscars, which are worthless trash and always have been.
Did Burneko just call himself a sucker? Yep. He goes on about the injustice of Carol not being nominated for BP because it's so progressive aka features characters of the same sex who "love" each other. I mean, how can you not nominate it!
If you loved Carol, which didn’t get nominated for Best Picture, congratulations: As of today, it officially is not the same kind of movie as Forrest Gump. The milquetoast taste, bigotry, and self-regard the nominations reveal has been on abundant display every single day for more than 80 years, in your local cineplex, in the form of the movies these industry clowns crank out every week. How can you act surprised by this, let alone offended? Placing value on those same clowns’ choice of movies to award is precisely like rending your shirt because your favorite restaurant didn’t make Guy Fieri’s list of top places to eat.
 Hey now, Forrest Gump was a great film.

To add onto the "too white" nominations, LA Times, Hollywood Reporter and other prominent rags are building the narrative of racial injustice. As always.

EDIT: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti agrees that the Oscars lack diversity. 

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