I have held back from commenting on this "issue" because I really don't care on whit about the Academy Awards which I haven't bothered to watch in over 40 years. My take is this: It's a popularity contest voted on by the members of the Academy. Since said membership is overwhelmingly white AND male, they will vote on films that reflect their POV and life experiences. Which is why a film like Straight Outta Compton or Beasts of No Nation would fail to register with the Academy voters because they describe a world that's alien to the Academy members. More than that, films such as Compton reveal ugly truths that many are unable to acknowledge especially when they deal with the lives of people who do not look or act like themselves. It's just the nature of things especially today in our extremely polarized social, political and religious climate. I am more in tune with Ice Cube's stance. He wasn't going because he never goes. I won't watch because I never watch.
To be fair...Compton got a 72 on metacritic, so it was by no means a critical masterpiece. One of those movies that everyone likes, but not enough people LOVE. Beasts of No Nation's distribution was going to be a much bigger uphill climb to a nomination than what the movie was about...it essentially was never even shown in movie theaters. I don't buy that Hollywood is afraid to nominate ugly or difficult films. 12 Years a Slave rightly cleaned house two years ago. Selma was nominated last year. And a prediction: next year we will be talking about "Birth of A Nation" cleaning house at the Oscars, which is about the Nat Turner slave revolt that killed 55 whites including women and children. I really don't think this argument holds much water.
Agreed. Also keep in mind that in the last 20yrs, black actors have taken home 12.5% of the Acting awards which is almost exactly in line with the percentage of the black population. Like someone else pointed out - its latino and asians who've really been locked out of Hollywood films. Think about it..lets take cop movies as an example: Off the top of my head..Denzel, Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, Samuel Jackson, Chris Tucker, Martin Lawrence - have all starred as Cops in big budget films - name more than 2 asians and 2 latino's that have starred in big budget cop films? (no cheating, no googling..off the top of your head) If anyone should be complaining about roles..
As a Hispanic, I don't give a second thought to these awards, and I don't know any other Hispanic that gives a care either. It's all subjective. Some people are just always looking for something to b**** about. If you don't like the game, take yourself out of it. My .02
I really hate the argument "I don't care so it doesn't matter." What matters to you doesn't then apply to a huge group of people. You don't know any other hispanic that care about it. That's cool. I can quote hispanic actors and people in the industry that clearly do care. I'm sure a quick search would find every day average people that care as well. Obviously if your field of work is acting or directing then you may care about this more than someone that doesn't. It affects them differently then it does you or I. It's not that hard to understand right? Getting an Oscar is a lifetime achievement to them, no matter how silly the voting may seem. It has prestige that says "Hey, you are one of the best to ever do this." so yes, OBVIOUSLY people care about it. If you are a big fan of it you may care more. It's like there are many people that didn't give a single ____ about who won the NBA MVP award last year or who goes to the all-star game...then there is Harden and the Rockets who clearly did care. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, to Harden it mattered right? The voting is also a little silly but it still mattered to him right? Because it's his occupation, for it to be said "You were one of the best ever." means something to him. It's the same with these awards. They mean a lot to the people eligible to receive them and those people have fans that want the people they look up t, to to win these awards. Also, I take "If you don't like the game take yourself out of it." as quitting.
I get it. Some people need others approval. I get mine from knowing I did the best I could do. I've never gotten a teacher of the year. I've been on the ballot, but I don't need to hear it from others. l It doesn't mean I'm not doing a damn good job. It's just a popularity contest. Knowing they did the best they can is enough for some people. Others need the coddling. Some do it for the love, some do it for the recognition.
I don't think we are talking about "needing" or getting approvals. I think the bigger issue is whether its a level playing field to get the same movie opportunities. And whether you get the same opportunities for recognition of the work you are doing, since that some times effects whether you get the same movie opportunities. You mention teaching awards. If every year, a disproportionate number of awards went to one race, and teachers outside that race weren't getting the opportunity to win those awards, then there is obviously a problem. Not just because the award is a "popularity contest" but also the effect it has on raises, bonuses, and future employment opportunities.
That's not exclusive, ESPECIALLY for an award in the arts. You can do something for the love and also for recognition. It's not one way or another. Also no one said it doesn't mean you aren't doing a bad or good job, it is just recognition for doing great work. I'm not sure if you'd understand getting any sort of recognition for doing anything artistic. Especially since in many artistic fields getting recognition is the difference between getting paid to do what you love or not. It's not about being coddled. It's subjective so usually the only way to prove your work is quality work in any art field is to talk about how many people enjoy your work OR have won awards for it. Yes, the original argument has always been about opportunities and not the actual awards. Also yes, the bold. These are career boosters, even being nominated can help a career.
It's subjective for crying out loud! If every year the award went to one race, I wouldn't give a care. It wouldn't affect me one bit. There is no money, advancement opp, bonuses in it. I think there is a small monetary win involved. I never cared enough to look into it. I would rather get my masters ($5000 annual stipend), coach (stipend), and get perfect attendance(bonus), and make sure I'm doing my job rather than depend on a popularity contest to say I'm doing a good job. If you want to get ahead in a culture where popularity pays the bills, It's not what you know, but who you know.
Yeah but that doesn't really apply to the Oscar award. Acting IS a culture where popularity pays the bills...
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Maybe they should ask for the rubric. Anyways, just giving my .02. My conference pd is over. I've gotta go earn my pay.
Does the Idris Elba video need to be posted again? The Clooney quotes? The academy quotes? Don't cherry pick what you listen to unless you just want to get one single thing out of this. Okay, Ice Cube doesn't care (or at least says that) because he doesn't make Oscar bait movies any ways. He didn't make the Ride Along series to get any kind of recognition from the Academy. Not only that, he's had a legendary career as a musician...SO MUCH SO a movie was made about his musical career. He's already achieved more than most artists can even hope for. He has room to be humble about these things. Any ways, he has many people speaking up for him lol. It reminds me of the "Curry doesn't care about winning the MVP. He just cares about winning unlike James Harden who cares only about the MVP." argument we heard so much last year...yet every single person around Curry was arguing for him to win while Curry was the one to play the humble man and pretend like he didn't care. Everyone did the talking for him. You also need to read what you quoted. What does he do in that video? Talk about how many people enjoy the movie. That's still recognition for it.
You keep saying that, but the main purpose of that speech to Parliament was about British television (a country that is 80% white and less than 4% black). And he even said he had to go to America for acting opportunities. He definitely makes good points about why there needs to be more diversity in television in the UK (and applicable to films as well), but it's not really a very damning to the lack of opportunity for minority actors in America...especially in television. What did I miss in that speech?
Animal House actor Stephen Furst laments Academy rule changes http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35418010 Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has pledged to double female and minority members amid a row over the lack of diversity in the nominations. Furst said the Academy was being ageist and sexist in blaming its membership, made up largely of older, white men. He said the problem was not enough members watching all the films. Furst suggested the Academy was to blame for this by not keeping tabs on just how many of the advance screening DVDs, which members are sent, were indeed being watched. "One of the many reasons for the lack of diversity in nominees this year is that many members vote without watching all the films," he said in a open letter published by Variety. The all-white line-up in the four acting categories for this year's Oscars has prompted protests from actors and film-makers. Among them, director Spike Lee, actress Jada Pinkett Smith and her husband Will Smith announced they would not be attending next month's awards. The main criticism levelled at the Academy has long been that its members are disproportionately, older, white, middle-class men. 'Saddened and offended' In response to the growing protests, the Academy said it was going to create three new seats on its board of governors to improve diversity in leadership. It also said voting rights would be stripped from those who had not been active in the industry for the past decade. Academy president Boone Isaacs said in a statement the move would "begin the process of significantly changing our membership composition". But Furst, 60, expressed his disdain at the "disturbing" move. "Like many other members I know, I was saddened, as well as offended, to learn the Academy Board of Governors has chosen to scapegoat the older members of the Academy in order to deflect the criticism about the lack of diversity this year in the nominees for Academy Awards." He said he feared he, and fellow older, male members, would be branded "irrelevant" from now on. "The Academy can't fight issues with diversity by engaging in ageism and sexism," he said, adding that there was absolutely no proof that he or other members like him, were in any way "racist, do not appreciate the art of minorities, or refuse to vote for minorities' work". On the contrary, Furst said, he fully recognised that "diversity in film is important, and having that diversity represented in Oscar nominees is important". Streaming and passwords Furst highlighted that he nominated the films Straight Outta Compton - about the rap group NWA; Beasts of No Nation, starring Idris Elba, and actors Abraham Attah, Zoe Saldana, Jason Mitchell, and Tessa Thompson for awards. He also assessed the Academy's definition of "inactive" as troublesome and claimed the award show's inclusion problem "is an integrity issue, not a racism issue". As a solution to the diversity problem, Furst suggested the Academy should do away with its system of sending out screening DVDs. He said a better way of ensuring members saw all the eligible films, would be to provide a password-protected streaming service that would allow the Academy to keep a tally of how many films members actually watched. While an online portal might encourage reviewers to pay equal attention to all the nominees, it's by no means a fool-proof solution. Some of the films that go up for consideration are still in cinemas, and film studios would have concerns about putting copies of those on the internet. Even if the films were only available to stream online, screen-capture software would make easy work of recording copies, and watermarks can be easily obscured. Simpler still, would-be pirates could just point a camcorder at their monitor - poorer picture quality is not usually an issue for people desperate to see the latest releases without paying. The website might also become a target for mischief-makers, keen to leak the films and stars being considered for awards. Not everyone that goes online is cybersecurity-savvy and many users make their accounts vulnerable. Even if security concerns could be addressed, a website couldn't prove that reviewers had stayed awake all the way through a film - and even if they had, it wouldn't address any bias the reviews may harbour. This, Furst concluded, would be a much better way to promote fairness in the nomination process. "The Academy does not have power over what films producers and studios make, but the Academy can take steps in assuring that members see a certain percentage of films before they are allowed to vote. "Those who don't are the people that should have their vote taken away for that session." Seems Furst is lacking just enough self-awareness to understand how these prejudices and biases work. He is proving the point critics are making. How are people deciding what and what not to watch? Seems the Academy is onto something by diversifying the body of voters with people who actually have an interest in watching a wider variety of films. What's to stop these disinterested voters from just logging into Netflix For Oscars and just letting the video play while they eat crepes or whatever? Better to protect the integrity of the process by improving the voting pool.
Post it. By all means. Nothing like half an hour of eloquent speech about the need for diversity. I agree with that. But I'm just a firm believer of the best PERSON gets the award. Not that a person should get selected to make sure that there is x amount of each race and ethnicity per movie. Post Clooney. Throw it out there and bring the Writer's Guild into it. After all, shouldn't the Guild be making sure there are Oscar Award worthy scripts being written for a diversity of races? Who's going to play Pancho Villa, or Kiki Camarena...Where's the screenplay of Emperor Hirohito? Let's make sure to meet the quota. As for Cube, he knows that him doing a good job sells tickets. He has room to be humble? LOL...you've got an excuse from every argument. He's doing it without Oscar Awards recognition as an actor...not as a musician. I don't care for rap music in particular, but I still enjoy him in movies.
The main point was about diversity. Yeah he would come to America for acting opportunities, any one would since it is the mecca for the film industry. Hollywood makes movies for the world after all. He also quoted Viola Davis so yes it was focused on the UK but that's not the end all of it.
Yep, the voting process is kind of messed up. They don't even see all of the movies they are voting for
Starting to get to the root of the problem, but forcing a quota of different races or genders is not the answer. Mandatory screenings before voting, rubrics, and diversity of judges (gender, race, economic status) seem to make sense to me, but what about having x number of movies roles made for the various races and genders?
No one is arguing for that any ways? You just don't get it with this one. No one says there should be a quota but more opportunities. Those are different things. You missed the point, as you did when you quoted me. Being a successful artist means having a lot of fans AND/OR getting critical acclaim. He's getting recognition from the people and he doesn't make movies for critical acclaim, I mean that much is obvious with most of his resume. It is what it is. Also that doing a good job in an artistic field is subjective, so it doesn't automatically equal him selling tickets.
