Soooo how do people on here feel about the white washing criticism of the Oscars?

[Hockey_Ninja]

As a black man I wanted to get some perspective from the people on here. This year at the Oscars all of the big name nominees are white. A lot of people felt like films such as Creed & Straight Outta Compton and actors such as Idris Elba and Michael B. Jordan where snubbed. This caused an uproar from blacks online with a #OscarsSoWhite hashtag trending on twitter. It's even gone as far as black actors boycotting this years Oscars:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/mo...cars.html?_r=0.

How do I personally feel about it? I never cared for the Oscars all that much but I do agree that the lack of color can be a concern. But at the same time I don't really know why so many black are getting mad over this. They should know that these big award shows are shady and rarely do the right choices get picked to win or nominated.

[Fuzz]

Maybe this will help reduce the prestige of the Oscars from moderately irrelevant to dirty toilet water.

[Finger Cookin]

I think there should be more diversity in the Oscar nominations, and in the Academy who votes on the Oscars. I don't think Straight Outta Compton deserved any nominations, it was merely OK.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

This article does an excellent job summing up my feelings through quotes from anonymous Hollywood sources.

Gist of the article is that it's not racism, academy is just old and put of touch, bad timing, limited release, symptom not the problem (problem is lack of black actors/writers/directors.)

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/01/18...a-compton-snub


My personal opinion is that Jada Smith and Spike Lee are both idiots, and not just because of this. Neither of them understand what the issues are or care about fixing them imo. They both have selfish motivations.

[handgroen]

creed? as in the 6th rocky franchise movie?

there's years where you have oscar bait movies with predominantly black casts ala 12 years a slave, and then there's years where people talk about creed (the movie with action jackson's fictional son) getting snubbed.
I can see a pretty convincing argument made for casting more black actors into critically celebrated films. but i don't see what that has to do with the award show.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Another thing to consider is the racial make up of America. When 80% (total guess) of your audience is white the films are going to skew white. In fact, and I'm sure there's a name for this phenomenon, in an industry like Hollywood movies it will disproportionately skew white because studios market on mass appeal. That is to say most movies are made to have widest appeal possible. It's majority rules. And since the majority is white the minority audiences get fewer movies tailored to them.

Since most movies have white stars, writers, directors, editors etc. And since most of the academy is white, again a symptom of the industry not the problem itself, it follows that they will vote more often for movies they identify with.

Not to mention other factors, like the fact Hollywood is extremely dynastical (is that a word?). It can be a tough industry to crack for this reason.

This all adds up to awards and the overall demographics looking pretty whitewashed. Plus throw in some actual racism that I'm sure exists at some levels to varying degrees and you're left with an all white oscars. but it's not some grand anti black conspiracy.

[Huntingwhale]

Truthfully I don't care much for the Oscars, nor about having a different variety of colored people. If the movie is good and it so happens the nominees are all black, then that's how the cards fall. If all the nominees are all chinese, whooptie doo. I couldn't care less. But America has a history of racial divide, so I can totally understand why the uproar. But IMO it's a non-issue as all I care about is the quality of film.

[GGG]

Creed deserved a best actor nomination in addition to stallones supporting one.

Straight out of Compton was better than other biopic movies and better than Jobs which got some Oscar play for relatively pedestrian work.

[bigtmac19]

http://www.vulture.com/2016/01/micha...itter_vulture#

Great article about Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan in New York Magazine.

"Black art, it's so complicated. Because there is no white art". Coogler said, "because whether people want to admit it or not, you know, in this country, in this culture, white is seen as the norm. Because there's no need to identify it as anything, it's looked at as standard. Which if you compare and contrast that, there's an inherent unfairness to it."

[Mike F]

IMO, if you're going to come out and say an actor or film was snubbed for racial (or other) reasons, you should have to point to a nominated actor or film and say they shouldn't have been. Otherwise it's just too easy - anyone can point to a bunch of performances and films that were good enough to get a nomination, but to say these 5 actors or 8 films were clearly better than the rest, and the nomination of any others would be wrong, is a whole other thing.

[nik-]

I loved Creed, but I don't feel Michael B Jordan deserved an Oscar nod. And I love me some Wallace.


WHERE'S WALLACE STRING?! ... WHERE THE #### IS WALLACE?

[WhiteTiger]

The main problem I find with the Oscars (or any other opinion based award show) is that no matter who or how you pick, people aren't going to be happy about/with it. That's the main crux of it, imo. If I watch something and don't like it, and you watch something and think it's Oscar worthy, but I'm the person on the committee...guess who's opinion is being listened to...and it's only an opinion. It's not right or wrong.

Basically, no matter what is done or how it's done...folks gonna kvetch about it.

[CaptainCrunch]

See I knew Pooty Tang got screwed over by the old whity's in the Oscar committee.

But the relevant argument is there, is there an actor or actress that was nominated that shouldn't have been there and could have been replaced?

And with some exceptions, a movie like Creed which is a franchise movie isn't going to garner nominations in primary categories, that's not about race, its about the perception of the movie itself.

I look at the nominations for best picture and best actor and actress, and I think those are really good lists.

I always did have a problem with Glory not winning the best picture award in its day, I could never figure out why Driving Miss Daisy won.

[Weitz]

I don't really feel bad cause all these movies and actors they say should have had as nominees I didn't like except straight outta Compton

[Hockey_Ninja]

Well this is interesting:

https://twitter.com/TheAcademy/statu...87654492377089

[Itse]

I get it, but then again Oscars are so irrelevant to me that I couldn't care much less.

The acting awards are mostly about rewarding actors for propping up the dubious "troubled genius" myth or romanticizing mental illnessess. The "best films" tend to be overly melodramatic for my taste. The system is ridiculously rigged to support mainstream Hollywood productions.

The political biases are pretty blatant. (Mad Max IMO mostly made the best film list because of the radical feminist cred, which is a stupid reason, even though the film is pretty good. Especially since as a feminist I happen to really dislike that type of extremely sexist "feminism" that's in Mad Max.)

Then again almost all award shows are biased in some ways, I'm not sure if Oscars are any worse than others. Mostly I ignore all of them.

[GGG]

Fassenbender out micheal b Jordon in

[cDnStealth]

I loved Creed but I can't say that Jordan deserved to be on the list over the other people nominated. Stallone was the standout in that movie and he deserved to be recognized.

As for Elba, I thought he was in the running for best supporting actor. Either way, I think he should have made the list as his performance in Beasts of No Nation was excellent. I'd have put him there over Matt Damon or Mark Ruffalo.

I haven't seen Straight Outta Compton so I can't comment on it being snubbed for best picture. Just looking at the nominees I can't say that I'd have put The Martian on there over Sicario or Beasts of No Nation.

[Northendzone]

i have to admit that the only reason i would watch the oscars is too see some copious amounts of cleavage.

while i have no real comment on weatehr or not creed or straight outta compton should ahve been nominated, i was thining that in the past have there not been some african-american nomineees and winners? i am thinking about that woman from 12 yrs a slave?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Well Aunt Viv from Fresh Prince isn't holding back on Jada...



I mean I find the #OscarsSoWhite thing so weird to begin with. They are almost advocating for Tokenism so that at least someone got nominated.