“The Oscars Don’t Change” by Michael R.
It seems like every year, the Oscars get more controversial. This year, Chris Rock and Steve Martin started it all off. Their opening monologue included several one-liners that seemed like jabs at the Academy Awards - or more like the people in charge of them. Their first dig was about the fact that there are no hosts anymore. Rock said “Twitter. Everybody’s got an embarrassing tweet somewhere. I know I do.” This was about last year's controversy about Kevin Hart, who decided not to host the Oscars after some homophoic tweets of his emerged. They then talked about “how much the Oscars have changed in the past 92 years.” They qualified this by pointing out that in 1929, there were no black actors nominees, and now, in 2020, there was one (Dep)!
Chris Rock and Steve Martin at the Oscars (Smith)
This year, eight of the nine movies, excluding Parasite. Are about white people, and except for Little Women and Marriage Story, all about white men, and the Little Women was the only nominated movie directed by a woman (Morris). Some people have argued that the Oscars are turning into twitter hissy fits each year. This year, the hissy fits were about only 1 in 20 best acting nominees being black and no women nominated for best director (Smith).
Bong Joon Ho, director of Parasite, holding the four Oscars he won (oscars.org)
However, not everyone has seen it this way. 5 percent of the best acting nominees this year were black. Last year, 2 out of 20 or 10 percent were black and two years ago, 4 out of the 20 actors nominated were black. So over the past three years, the percentage of black nominees has been 11.7 percent, a little bit less than the percentage of the US that is black (12.3%). When you consider the 2017 Academy Awards, at which there were 6 black actors nominated (30%), it shows that some of the drama about the Oscars seeming racist is unfounded (Smith). It doesn’t explain why women aren’t represented as much though.
There is another theory. Nat Towsen of Pop Dust talks about how this controversy is all planned. He says that the Awards go through a cycle. There are two to five years of the normal awards, with mostly white nominees and then some smaller films from different ethnic groups that win a few things. The big movies with white nominees make a lot of money, and people are happy because it seems like at least some people that aren’t white are winning things. Then there are a few years where the Oscars seem to change in which smaller movies with messages and diverse casts are recognized. The public sees this and approves, and the Oscars get better reviews, leading the way to repeat the cycle. Towsen thinks that if the Academy Awards have changed, it has been almost imperceptible. Only one woman of color has won the Best Actress, only one woman has won Best Director, and only three actors of Asian descent and one of Arabian descent have won an award for acting, while zero indigenous people have won awards.
Do you think the Oscars are racist and/or sexist? If so, do you think it is deliberate? How could they change? Do you think the Academy Awards will exist in a few years?
Works Cited
“92nd Oscars Winner Portraits.” Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences, 13 Feb. 2020, www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/winner-portraits/.
Barnes, Brooks. “Minorities Make Up Nearly a Third of New Oscar Voters.” The
New York Times, The New York Times, 1 July 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/business/media/oscars-academy-voters.html?auth=login-google.
Deb, Sopan. “Steve Martin and Chris Rock's Oscars Non-Monologue
Monologue.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Feb. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/movies/oscars-opening-monologue.html.
Morris, Wesley. “Dear Oscars, I Love You. But We Need to Talk.” The New York
Times, The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/movies/oscars-best-picture.html.
Smith, Kyle. “Oscar's Diversity Panic.” National Review, National Review, 10
Feb. 2020, www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/academy-awards-oscar-diversity-panic/.
Smith, Kyle. “Why Oscar Ratings Just Hit an All-Time Low.” National Review,
National Review, 10 Feb. 2020, www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-oscar-ratings-just-hit-an-all-time-low/.
Towsen, Nat. “The Oscars Are Bad, Even When They're Good.” Popdust,
Popdust, 9 Feb. 2020, www.popdust.com/the-oscars-are-bad-even-when-theyre-good-2645081794.html.
I do not think the Academy Awards are racist or trying to be. I think they try to not be racist. Most of the people that would run these awards would strongly fear being labeled as racist or sexist. Some people think that’s these award shows are just that, shows. Many awards shows are just people awarding their friends things. This conversation will never go away because every single person views art in a different way than the other. People will always have disagreements on who should win what, but at the end of the day it doesn’t truly matter unless they get more movie tickets sold from it.
ReplyDeleteI do not think these awards are purposely racist or sexist. I am not very familiar with the way the movies and films are chosen but it seems that it isn't unfair to those in contention. I believe that directors choose directors, actors choose actors, and etc. This would be hard for the results and winners to be chosen through racist decisions. For the most part, I do not know any movies that are in these awards and just a few of the actors i know, so i have no ability to judge the people and films themselves on if they deserve the awards. I think these awards will continue to go on for a very long time because they are so old already and a staple in the film community.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe the awards are racist or trying to create unnecessary problems. Though I believe they are more biased than most, the same 6,000 people vote for the select people who get an Oscar. Im sure they vote off of who they've seen win in the past or who they're familiar with. More people are familiar with Clint Eastwood or Steven Spielberg rather than Spike Lee. They all have amazing talent, but the votes are based off familiarity and who's made Oscar worthy films before. Now that more and more African Americans, Asians, and others that are generally Caucasian are making themselves know, and are producing films that are racking up rating, they'll most likely start being acknowledged more. Out with the old and in with the new. Everything changes eventually.
ReplyDeleteI honestly would not be surprised if the awards are doing this on purpose. As they say in the business world, "any publicity is good publicity". There have been many cases when companies would do something controversial just so people could hear their name, and this could be a very similar thing. Do I think that this is the case, no; however, it is often times useful to see things through a different lens to see other points of view.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that it is intentional that these awards are not given to people of color or women. I feel as if they wouldn't want to deal with this backlash purposefully. I think it was taken the wrong way and it is just another thing that people can complain about. I personally don't understand how they pick the nominees but I don't think they would chose people that would hurt their ratings. The people picked seems in no way to diminish any other sex or race.
ReplyDeleteIt's the same exact controversy that plagues the award season every year. Every year I watch the Academy Awards, and every year I see news articles the following day complaining about how there wasn't enough diversity in the nominees or that certain movies were snubbed of a win due to one reason or another. The simple answer is that its not possible to make everyone happy with the movies nominated or the ones that receive an Academy Award. If people were to blame anyone for the lack of diversity, they would need to blame Hollywood. People typically turn towards the Academy and blame then for being inherently racist or sexist in their nominee picks, but no one ever turns towards Hollywood and blames them for a lack of diversity in movies. The idea of there being a "cycle" to the awards is an interesting concept that I never really considered, but wouldn't find unlikely. Despite this, the Academy Awards have changed in recent years. This year, South Korean film director Bong Joon Ho won big with his picture "Parasite", which won him four Oscars. His film became the first foreign language film to win "Best Picture" in the history of the awards. In addition, we saw major pictures such as Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman" walk away empty handed, which came as a shock to most. This goes to show that changes are happening to the awards show. I feel that they will still be around for a few more years, but i'm not sure they will survive in the long run.
ReplyDelete