The truth behind the glitz, glamor, and allure of the Oscars
By: Mihika Yadav
Tweet posted by activist, April Reign
This tweet may shock you, confuse you, or rather make you laugh. Regardless, it is clear that it might ruffle some feathers, which it undoubtedly did. Activist April Reign tweeted this as a reaction to how racially biased she believed the Oscars, also known as the Academy Awards, had become. The hashtag went viral with many people putting their twist on the #OscarsSoWhite, so one could have anticipated the indignation that swept the nation when the Oscars announced their nominations for 2016.
All 20 acting nominations were given to white actors.
Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, all white.
As for the Best Director category, all were male, with one director being of Mexican descent. Now, this is just the surface level. There must be many more biases and injustices hidden within other less mainstream categories such as production design, costume design, makeup hair, sound mixing, and others.
This is what truly sparked global outrage, with the #OscarsSoWhite movement at an all-time high. What replaced usual discussions and gossip over who would win was pure exasperation over the Academy’s blatant disregard for racial and gender inclusivity. In response, notable names in filmmaking such as Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett-Smith refused to attend the awards ceremony.
Image of actress Charlotte Rampling
White Privilege and History
As if the Academy wasn’t already scrambling to host sudden meetings and panicking over unrealistic promises, 2016 Oscar nominee for Best Actress, Charlotte Rampling voiced her particularly controversial opinion on the issue at hand. During an interview at the time she had said that people’s wishes to boycott the 2016 Oscars was ‘racist to whites’. She added that ‘perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list’ And when the interviewer explained to her that black members of the film industry feel like a minority, Rampling replied, “No comment.”
This incident highlights how much of a problem this truly is, where the people being celebrated are blind to the minority communities who are equally deserving of celebration but are looked over because of their race, gender, and other factors. It seems as though Rampling is truly oblivious to this fact and considers the Oscars to be a fair playing field, where a movie or an actor is nominated solely for talent.
People like Rampling are given the freedom to be ignorant. She has no reason to believe that she may be snubbed of an Oscar nomination, especially one of Best Actress, as there is no racial bias against her. People of color (POC) in the film industry, especially POC women are not given the place to be as naive as Rampling. Their talents almost always get overlooked for a male-dominated film, probably about war or something violent, embodying what men love to define as masculinity.
Still, many A-list white celebrities used their platform to advocate for the improvement of opportunities for actors, filmmakers, and film crew from minority communities during this period. These were actors such as Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo, and Brie Larson who were recognised for their acting abilities in the Oscars, and still choose to speak against the unfair bias of nominations. Brie Larson went on to win Best Actress in the 2016 Oscars over Charlotte Rampling, proving that you can be celebrated for your work and still be conscious about the privilege you have.
Image of actress Brie Larson
Going back around 80 years to the very roots of the Oscars, it is evident how in 2016 all 20 acting nominations happened to be given to white actors.
In 1939, when Hattie McDaniel became the first black actress to win an Academy Award, she was seated at a segregated table in the rear of the theatre and refused admission to the "whites only" after-party. Also, the role for which she got the award was that of a racially stereotyped maid, one who was obedient, loyal, and devoted to a white family.
Image of actress Hattie McDaniel
Voting Bias
Bias remains openly rampant in voters of the Academy, however, it spreads further than racial and gender prejudices. The Academy Award voters are 98 percent white and 68 percent male, and they choose both the nominees and the winner. Given these figures, it's no surprise that women and people of colour are seriously underrepresented in the nominated films; the Academy thrives as a ‘historically white male institution’.
The Academy Awards voting process is also biased as it is truly subjective. There are no objective criteria for voters to use when selecting a winner from among the nominees. Nothing prevents members from voting for a nomination just because they are friends with the nominee or believe the nominee is overdue for an award for previous achievements. There was a scandal in which a voter had vocalised that they voted for Brad Pitt to win an Oscar over another actor they struggled to decide between simply because he hadn’t gotten one yet.
Voting is also rigged in the sense that voters are not drawn at random. They are all professionals in the film industry, with a median age of 62. Adding that with the male to female ratio, members appear to favour historical dramas, biographies, and social critiques, to horror movies, action movies and female-dominated movies, often classified as ‘chick flicks’.
Infographic of Oscar Winners compiled together with percentages comparing to the U.S. population
The Future
It seems unfair to undermine the recent nominations and wins for POCs from the likes of Chloe Zhao for Best Director, Parasite for Best Picture, Youn Yuh-jung for Supporting Actress, Riz Ahmed for Best Actor, and more.
But, there is something rather surprising about Parasite. Despite it winning Best Picture, none of the actors from the movie were up for nominations in the acting category, despite giving critically acclaimed performances that were described as unparalleled. This has very rarely happened in the history of the Oscars and has been pointed out by many film critics and viewers of the Academy Awards. Small successes, such as a Korean film winning best picture, may delude spectators into believing that change is on the way for a few years at least.
However, if the Academy's progress toward real diversity continues at this pace, we will be waiting a long time.
Sources:
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