Racism and the Oscars thread

[CJohn]

Just now, WrathOfHan said:

So looking at next year's potential Oscar contenders, there are very few movies that could have a POC in the acting categories. 

I am 100% they will put someone there. We all know how this works. "See, we are so cool, we are giving you guys some noms!!!". And failing to see the whole point of why everything that is happening this year happened. This is the world we live in.

[Cmasterclay]

2 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

So looking at next year's potential Oscar contenders, there are very few movies that could have a POC in the acting categories. 

Eh, way too early to tell. If you had told someone this time last year that Creed and Straight Outta freakin Compton would be at the very center of the Best Picture debate, they'd have laughed in your face. Outside of Revenant and Bridge of Spies, almost every major contender this year wasn't a big time challenger at this time. And alot of the same goes for the acting categories outside of a few exceptions. 

[CoolioD1]

7 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

So looking at next year's potential Oscar contenders, there are very few movies that could have a POC in the acting categories. 

A United Kingdom. Amma Asante directing (she's great) David Oyelowo starring (he's great). look out for that one if it gets a good distributor I'd say.

[Hermia]

2 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

Also, I don't see what's so absurd about Isaac getting a nod. He got terrific notices everywhere. The movie got a Best Screenplay nod. He showed up at a ton of critic awards, and even won a few of them. He's a popular and well-liked rising superstar. Hell, he's probably one of the favorites to win a BOFFY for Supporting Actor on these very boards, so it's not like only a select few posters like him. Not tooo absurd. 

 

Oscar Isaac is indeed a great actor, and soon he will get his Oscar with all it's glory and an amazing performance.

Ex-Machina wasn't it, i agree with the fact that Vikander didn't get an Oscar nomination for her role there too.

IMO Very overrated movie.

I don't know if they will do this for 2 years in a row but 2015 best movie (again IMO) was the revenant and Inarritu deserves it for a second time.

 

[CJohn]

10 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

Eh, way too early to tell. If you had told someone this time last year that Creed and Straight Outta freakin Compton would be at the very center of the Best Picture debate, they'd have laughed in your face. Outside of Revenant and Bridge of Spies, almost every major contender this year wasn't a big time challenger at this time. And alot of the same goes for the acting categories outside of a few exceptions. 

Joy I guess was also a big player but I am not sure if it already was in the schedule at this time last year.

[DAR]

11 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

This argument doesn't track. The whole reason that this new policy exists is to make the process better. If there's deserving performances, this policy makes it more likely they'll be nominated. That's the basic thinking behind any policy decisions: they're supposed to work in order to create a solution. And make things better. That's like saying "Well, we're going to war, but what happens if this war doesn't work, do we have to invade Canada?" Policies are supposed to lead to change. 

 

And again what if it doesn't work?  Are you going to keep changing it up?  Are you then going have to install quotas and say every year one acting category has to feature at least 40% non-white actors?  That would create I think an even bigger backlash.

 

Really I could care less, they could have all white (like this year) or they could have the categories look like the fucking rainbow.  It's not going to affect me.

[DAR]

14 minutes ago, CJohn said:

I am 100% they will put someone there. We all know how this works. "See, we are so cool, we are giving you guys some noms!!!". And failing to see the whole point of why everything that is happening this year happened. This is the world we live in.

It will be the equivalent of "I have plenty of black friends" argument

[CJohn]

2 minutes ago, DAR said:

 

And again what if it doesn't work?  Are you going to keep changing it up?  Are you then going have to install quotas and say every year one acting category has to feature at least 40% non-white actors?  That would create I think an even bigger backlash.

 

Really I could care less, they could have all white (like this year) or they could have the categories look like the fucking rainbow.  It's not going to affect me.

I laughed.  

 

[Cmasterclay]

4 minutes ago, DAR said:

 

And again what if it doesn't work?  Are you going to keep changing it up?  Are you then going have to install quotas and say every year one acting category has to feature at least 40% non-white actors?  That would create I think an even bigger backlash.

 

Really I could care less, they could have all white (like this year) or they could have the categories look like the fucking rainbow.  It's not going to affect me.

But again, you don't make policy and think in hypotheticals or automatically assume failure. You make it to fix something, and if it doesn't work, you re-asses. That's how literally any policy change works.

[Bond Bug]

Of course the academy is racist. It is racist as a group, by the nature of the proportion of older Whites in the academy being not reflective of the population, and by the fact that we know that in a large group of people, there will very likely be some who are racist. That is bound to affect the selection of nominees and the votes of those nominees. That is not to say that all, or the majority, of individual academy members are in any way racist.

 

Do all the academy members see all the movies and the performances that they vote for? Of course not. They will vote for many reasons beyond the performance and they are influenced by many factors, whether it is down to how good the marketing is that is aimed at academy members, or if they know somebody involved in the movie, or if they have a positive impression based on reviews. There could be a hundred reasons, but in addition, I would hazard at a guess that older White academy members are more interested in and more informed about "White" movies than "Black."   

Edited January 22, 2016 by Bond Bug

[John Marston]

don't have much of an opinion on this other than it looks like Will Smith is  throwing a tantrum that his average performance in his flop movie wasn't nominated. 

[DAR]

11 minutes ago, Cmasterclay said:

But again, you don't make policy and think in hypotheticals or automatically assume failure. You make it to fix something, and if it doesn't work, you re-asses. That's how literally any policy change works.

But again how far do you reassess?  What's going to be satisfactory for everyone?  Nobody really has an answer for that.

[Dementeleus]

29 minutes ago, DAR said:

But again how far do you reassess?  What's going to be satisfactory for everyone?  Nobody really has an answer for that.

 

It's not really a decision they have to make now (or potentially ever). The changes they're making have been talked about for a long time, and they're frankly overdue (even moving past the whole diversity question). For decades, the Academy's been essentially a country club with a lifetime voting privilege, so if you got in in, say, 1968, you don't need to have worked a single day since, and you'd still be able to vote today. Moving a lot of these people to Emeritus status while requiring that people be active in the industry at least one a decade makes complete sense. So does the general outreach to make the Academy more reflective of people actually working right now. (You could say even the percentage there is out of whack with the general population, but that's another argument).

[Ozymandias]

An old white guy got the biggest snub from the Oscars this year.

[Goffe]

1 hour ago, Cmasterclay said:

I'm not gonna debate the merits of Imitation Game and Selma anymore, but if you look at review and the consensus opinion of MOST, not all, but most people that saw both movies, and people liked Selma more. Again, large voting body, it's supposed to represent the consensus opinion of well-reasoned film analysis. But agree to disagree on that one.

You simply don't have an argument here. The Oscars are not supposed to represent anything other than the opinion of those six thousand voting members. 

 

And since when reviews mattered that much? If they did, we could just take a look at RT Top 100 and call it a day. 

 

"but most people that saw both movies, and people liked Selma more" I'm curious, how did you reach that consensus?

 

Selma is not objectively better than TIG or TOE. Period. You're not comparing Selma to some Adam Sandler, you're comparing movies so similarly received that it's impossible to objectively call one of them better than the other.

[Cmasterclay]

2 minutes ago, Goffe said:

You simply don't have an argument here. The Oscars are not supposed to represent anything other than the opinion of those six thousand voting members. 

 

And since when reviews mattered that much? If they did, we could just take a look at RT Top 100 and call it a day. 

 

"but most people that saw both movies, and people liked Selma more" I'm curious, how did you reach that consensus?

 

Selma is not objectively better than TIG or TOE. Period. You're not comparing Selma to some Adam Sandler, you're comparing movies so similarly received that it's impossible to objectively call one of them better than the other.

Ok, sure, whatever. Agree to disagree on that, like I said. But a few people's opinions on Selma's quality does not automatically dismiss an entire movement or render a discussion invalid, either. 

[Jawa]

I work in the education field, which, for better or worse, is loaded with social justice warriors. I have had to remain silent about #OscarsSoWhite on social media for fear of being ostracized by them as "racist." If I'm asked my opinion, I will share it with these colleagues and friends, but until that happens, I'll get it all out here with the cinephiles of BOT, who may actually understand what I'm talking about.

 

I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about. Do people have such short term memories that they have already forgotten 12 Years a Slave winning a bunch of awards two years ago? Lupita? Lightning McQueen getting nominated? Chiwetel finally getting nominated? I'm not going to list every single instance where a black performer is awarded or nominated, because there are plenty of examples. There just weren't any strong contenders this year or last (although Selma still got a BP nomination and won for song). I haven't seen Creed, although I intend to, but I have heard nothing but good things. I think it's like Baumer said; Creed being snubbed has more to do with it being a sequel than it being a film directed by a black man with a black star. Honestly, I'm more surprised Stallone was nominated (again, without having seen the movie).

 

Concussion got mediocre reviews (and if you ask me, Will Smith is overrated as a dramatic actor to begin with), Straight Outta Compton doesn't strike me as the type of film likely to get major Oscar consideration, and I hadn't heard of any of the other films people are pointing to. I refuse to take anything Spike Lee says seriously, since he has been a contrarian for years and I have to wonder how much of that is for show.

 

I saw a statistic that the rate at which black actors and actresses get nominated for and win Oscars is roughly in line with their representation as part of the U.S. population. The real problem is that other minorities, such as Latinos and Asians, barely get nominated at all. For this, I place the blame on the system itself, as I can think of very, very few Latino or Asian actors who have starred in anything likely to get Oscar nominations.

 

In America, we have defined race relations as purely a black/white dichotomy, which is inaccurate and serves to marginalize the other races I listed above. The most honest, most effective, and best solution, is to promote the growth of minority actors and actresses. That way, there will be a greater pool to draw from when selecting roles and we won't see the same people getting nominated over and over again. I'm not denying that there are racial problems in the U.S., but to blame the Academy for perpetuating this and planning to boycott them is, in my humble opinion, laughable.

Edited January 22, 2016 by Jawa

[4815162342]

16 minutes ago, Ozymandias said:

An old white guy got the biggest snub from the Oscars this year.

 

Agreed, Ian McKellen got robbed.

[Dementeleus]

5 minutes ago, Jawa said:

Do people have such short term memories that they have already forgotten 12 Years a Slave winning a bunch of awards two years ago? Lupita? Lightning McQueen getting nominated? Chiwetel finally getting nominated? I'm not going to list every single instance where a black performer is awarded or nominated, because there are plenty of examples.

 

I think people are frustrated because they see those as outliers... and honestly, the fact that the times a POC (or film about that experience) was nominated can be easily counted shows that they are outliers.

 

But I agree, while the Academy has its own issues and as a collective body is generally out of touch on things, it's a symptom, not the cause. And the best way to tackle the issue is to get more films made by and starring minorities and about their unique experiences and views.

[Cmasterclay]

The "12 YAS won an Oscar, the Academy can't have a race problem!" argument is sorta the same as the "America has a black President, so racism and racial problems are done!!" argument. Outliers are outliers for a reason. Yes, they both DO indicate terrific progress for our society- but at the same time, they don't mean we can stop moving forward and attempting to facilitate positive changes.