newspaper editorial:
“Oscars should reflect America’s diversity”
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article55929260.html
Is it time to set diversity quotas for Academy Awards?
Yes, it matters. No, we don’t need quotas.
I don’t think that’s the issue. I think that all races should be represented in the movies. Let’s use blacks in a movie even when the plot has nothing to do with race. For Selma, the stars need to be black. For lots of other movies, the stars don’t need to be white.
Why couldn’t one of the characters in The Big Short have been black? Or Asian?? That way more diversity is presented the way it happens in the real world. And from there, more blacks have the opportunity to be nominated for a great performance.
Sometimes, television and movie demographics are unreflective of what they attempt to depict. For example, shows like Silicon Valley and many shows or episodes set in Hawaii tend to have a cast that is whiter than what one may expect in real life.
Gender demographics in movies are also skewed, according to http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/government-jobs-data-agrees-hollywood-is-even-more-sexist-than-the-real-workforce/ .
Yes it matters.
In the real world, black Wall Street bankers are scarce:
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/wall-streets-young-bankers-are-still-mostly-white-and-male/
Black actors have indeed landed prominent roles in high profile “non ethnic” movies lately. In The Martian, a black actor was cast to play the NASA team lead Kapoor and also cast to play the brainy whiz kid whose calculations saved the day. In Star Wars, we have black storm trooper as the leading man.
If y’all haven’t seen Master of None on Netfix, it has an episode about the lack of Indian roles in Hollywood and how, when there are Indian characters cast, they have been played by Anglos – Fisher Stevens, Ashton Kutcher. Brilliant. The whole 10-episode series is fabulous and hits on important issues in a non-preachy way. Can’t recommend it enough.
It’s not the Academy Awards, it’s the industry, which seems to be focused on making making movies for adolescent boys and/or with lots of commercial tie-ins. The industry seems convinced that women, people of color, and more mature characters can’t interest customers.
If the categories didn’t demand that some awards go to women, they probably wouldn’t be represented much either. Certainly not older women.
@GMTplus7 I believe it is time for diversity quotas ensuring all groups their fair share. Since 1990, 18 percent of all best/supporting actor/actress Oscars have gone to blacks. Since blacks only make up 12 percent of the population, blacks should not be allowed to be nominated for any further awards until their share is reduced to 12 percent.
A recent example of a movie role which had an explicit race that was intrinsic to the movie plot was “Aloha”-- a Hawaiian-Chinese mixed race character Allison Ng. So Emma Stone was cast for the part…
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jul/17/emma-stone-admits-her-casting-in-aloha-was-misguided
I think the problem is that unless a black actor/actress act in certain roles (slave, person living in ghettos, stories set in Africa etc.) they have a small chance being nominated and an even smaller chance of winning (with few exceptions). I agree with @Consolation, it’s the industry. People who site Leo Di Caprio as “proof” that there is no discrimination need to remember that 82 Awards went to white people, and that ** 94 % ** of the Academy is white.
13% of population in the US identify as black. 17% identify as Hispanic.
https://thedissolve.com/news/847-new-study-finds-minority-representation-lacking-in/
From above link.
This study finds 11% speaking roles are black actors. 4% speaking roles are Hispanic.
According to above link: 11% of movie tx are sold to those who identify as black. 26% sold to those who identify as Hispanics.
People make movies to tell stories. Movies are expensive to make. People need to make money to continue to make movies and tell stories.
http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/why-whites-avoid-movies-with-black-actors-30890
And from above link. In general white people prefer to go to movies in which the majority of actors are white.
My conclusion. If enough people bought tickets to movies with a higher percentage of black actors more movies like this would be made. More black actors increase the chances of getting great performances and therefor awards.
I don’t think any black actor wants to win an Oscar to meet a quota.
“My conclusion. If enough people bought tickets to movies with a higher percentage of black actors more movies like this would be made. More black actors increase the chances of getting great performances and therefor awards.”
Well, I certainly wasn’t going to go see “Straight Outta Compton,” a movie glorifying a group that (IMO) has very little talent and isn’t worth glorifying, just so I could rack up diversity points.
And you know, if there were so much intrinsic white prejudice against blacks, I wonder how Kanye West, Snoop Dog, Jay-Z, Ice Cube, Dr Dre and all of those other black rappers, hip hoppers and producers got to be so big, rich, and influential? There certainly doesn’t seem to be any uphill battle in the music world.
I haven’t seen the nominated movies, so I don’t have enough background knowledge to know if anyone this year was cheated out of nominations. I think it’s weird that the only nomination for Creed went to Stallone. Was that racism? Or was that because the movie sucked but they wanted to honor Stallone for the iconic role of Rocky Balboa?
I agree with @consolation that the real issue is industry wide rather than the awards themselves. More movies need to include more diverse casts playing a variety of diverse (i.e. Not stereotypical) roles.
Will Smith, in an interview with Robin Roberts, said that 94% of actors are white, and 77% of actors are male. I assumed he meant that’s the percentages for roles in movies.
“More movies need to include more diverse casts playing a variety of diverse (i.e. Not stereotypical) roles.”
My favorite movie this year was Love and Mercy, the story of Brian Wilson. It’s based on a true story, based on a white band, with white supporting musicians, white people around them, etc. You couldn’t just hire a black guy to play Mike Love or Murry Wilson or Phil Spector! You would have had to have made something up out of whole cloth to have stuck a black person in a major role when it just wasn’t true. Or you could have done something really fake - like have Brian Wilson listen to a Motown group and exclaim how wonderful they were - which wasn’t part of the narrative.
Yes it matters, because it is a sign of room for progress. Progress in what, you ask? Progress in getting people who are unaware of their bias and prejudice to face up to what diversity can mean. So many of us take our biases for granted, for normal, for universal. By seeing many more people of many more “types” (color, gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc.) in settings where that “type” is not the pivotal point of the script, we are able to expand our view of the world ,and therefore what is normative. What is expected. What is profitable.
The Big Short is a great example – you could make those roles just about anything, but the industry defaults to white male. But, the Straight Outta Compton example is also true – you can’t just arbitrarily change history to make it diverse or represent what you wish it had done. So, room for greenlighting more kinds of stories. Room for movie fans to get over it already, it’s okay if the superhero is black, or hispanic, or east indian, or purple. Room for all ethnicities to not jump to offended as the first line of conversation.
I listen to the music I like regardless of the color / background of the artist. I’ll listen to Michael Jackson, or Stevie Wonder, or John Legend, or most of the classic Motown artists, and appreciate their musicality. But I just plain don’t like rap and hip hop, which is the bulk of black music today, and I don’t see any reason I need to “get over it.” I’m not stopping anyone else from listening to, buying, or awarding music awards to those artists, just because they aren’t my personal cup of tea.
I don’t see why movies should be any different.
"Progress in getting people who are unaware of their bias and prejudice to face up to what diversity can mean. So many of us take our biases for granted, for normal, for universal. "
When practically every white suburban kid listens to rap and hip-hop, it’s kind of hard to argue that they’re “seeing white as the normal.”