Agree with everything Jonjo and Joe say. Imo it says more about the people boycotting than it does about the academy discriminating. If the first thing you think of when you look at the nominees is their colour that makes you prejudiced yourself. It should always be about the performance first. Two of my favourite actors Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington have been nominated/won multiple awards and deserve them for great performances. If you start making everything about quotas and the colour of people's skin the achievement becomes watered down. What do you think will happen the next time a black actor wins? People will think its a token award and it will be tainted. Not fair on anyone.

Edited January 23, 20169 yr by torresgirl

The people on the Oscars panel should accurately reflect American society, no question, and they don't. Tokenism, however, used to get a hell of a lot of stick back in the day before black actors got lead roles. The first major all-round entertainment superstar who happened to be black is Will Smith, and everything changed when he became huge because his colour wasn't an issue, he was just a great movie star.

 

My point would be, well, if it starts to be a requirement to have a black actor nominated, (black Americans are 12% of the population) then it should also be a requirement for Asian actors to be nominated (5%) Hispanic (16%) and gay (who knows, probably 10%). At which point it all gets a bit silly when you have only 20 actors each year. I would argue the least represented minority in the USA is the Asian community, in everything media and arts related, and would prefer a case being made for ALL non-white minorities being properly represented first, never mind the Oscars, rather than singling out one minority as the cause. That said, on AVERAGE, you should expect around 2 nominations per year for black actors - if it were only American films under consideration (which they aren't) - and I would be interested to know what the rolling average is over the previous ten years.

 

End of the day, most films can be cast to include anyone of any colour, sexual inclination or sex, but they tend go where the money is and steer away from anyone perceived as a risk to the box office. That's Hollywood for you....

yall in this thread need to take a second.

 

obviously there is every right for ppl to be mad at this. it's 2 years in a row where talent is just being ignored (by lack of minority casting AS WELL AS just the oscar noms themselves) ((also let's not forget the only reason there was a significant number of black nominees in 2014 was because of a film about slavery)) so the frustration is clear. there is obviously something wrong when there are 0 people of colour in 20 best actor nominees.

 

 

but also stuff like the oscars is just self entitled people patting themselves on the back anyway so why botherr ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Have you seen any awards worthy performances this year though? I haven't seen Will in 'Concussion', but from what I have seen of it, he seems pretty basic (but I'll hold judgement on that, until I've seen the full film :kink: )? Also, Idris in 'Beasts Of No Nation' was excellent, but again, I can see why he wasn't in the final 5 for "Supporting..." as I don't think he was right for the character, in the sense that he was too "soft" for such a brutal and evil role. He really wasn't as menacing as the role allowed him to be. Although I'm not too sure about where the Academy sit with streaming-only films atm, so there's potentially that too. 'Straight Outta Compton' really didn't strike me as an award winning film, despite what the critics said about it. As for 'Creed', well in terms of "acting" the main focus seems to have been on Stallone in the reviews and things, so idk.

 

This is definitely an issue with Hollywood not giving out the right roles to certain ethnicities, imo. Black actors have been nominated and won awards in the past with non-slavery films. Will Smith lost twice, both to black actors. There should definitely be more award worthy roles for black actors & actresses, that just aren't about slaves or biopics. The Golden Globes showed just how much there is a lack of diversity. They can award double the performances that the Academy can (due to splitting their categories into "Drama" and "Comedy") and Idris & Will were the only two to be nominated.

 

It just doesn't feel right that anybody should be nominated just to show diversity. This year was a strong year for single performances and it could quite easily be the case that they just got out-acted. But from the acting categories from what I have seen, none of them seem particularly undeserved. Matt Damon is the shock and questionable choice for me though (but I'd switch him for Jacob Tremblay from 'Room') but eh, there's always a couple of questionable choices in any awards show. It should be solely on performances. Nothing else.

Yeah, again - people missing the point. I agree 100% that there SHOULD be black, Asian, Latino people nominated, but like I said, the fault it NOT with the oscars. Hollywood needs to do more of what Star Wars has done and start casting non-White actors in mainstream roles, because they generally seem to think that audiences don't want to see Black actors in cinema, which IS NOT TRUE. The majority of people don't give a shit what colour their lead actor is, as long as they can act and they can identify with them.

 

A black actress won 2 years ago (yes it was a film about slavery, but it was fantastic nonetheless), so it goes to show that the oscars WILL award performance WHEN THEY ARE THERE. And they just weren't this year. It's a shame, but it's true.

 

End of the day, most films can be cast to include anyone of any colour, sexual inclination or sex, but they tend go where the money is and steer away from anyone perceived as a risk to the box office. That's Hollywood for you....

 

This is the route of the problem and where people should be directing their attention, not with the Oscars.

But boycotting the Oscars isn't going to do any good in changing this, is it?

 

The nominations are final and I think a boycott is childish to be quite honest.

((also let's not forget the only reason there was a significant number of black nominees in 2014 was because of a film about slavery))

 

I think this is part of the wider, actual issue (not enough opportunities given to minorities at the casting stage etc.). Couple of years before 12 Years you had noms (and a win) for The Help - what were the roles? Maids. Like that can't be helping the frustration here

The people on the Oscars panel should accurately reflect American society, no question, and they don't. Tokenism, however, used to get a hell of a lot of stick back in the day before black actors got lead roles. The first major all-round entertainment superstar who happened to be black is Will Smith, and everything changed when he became huge because his colour wasn't an issue, he was just a great movie star.

 

My point would be, well, if it starts to be a requirement to have a black actor nominated, (black Americans are 12% of the population) then it should also be a requirement for Asian actors to be nominated (5%) Hispanic (16%) and gay (who knows, probably 10%). At which point it all gets a bit silly [/b]when you have only 20 actors each year. I would argue the least represented minority in the USA is the Asian community, in everything media and arts related, and would prefer a case being made for ALL non-white minorities being properly represented first, never mind the Oscars, rather than singling out one minority as the cause. That said, on AVERAGE, you should expect around 2 nominations per year for black actors - if it were only American films under consideration (which they aren't) - and I would be interested to know what the rolling average is over the previous ten years.

 

End of the day, most films can be cast to include anyone of any colour, sexual inclination or sex, but they tend go where the money is and steer away from anyone perceived as a risk to the box office. That's Hollywood for you....

 

This is the problem with all this, it does get silly. Where does it end? Do we stop at the Oscars? Or does this get carried into other professions as well? Will we start saying for example the NBA doesn't reflect US society because the vast majority of top players are Black Americans and there's a lack of opportunity for Asians/Whites and Hispanics? Or do we just accept as I do now that they are there because they are the best athletes? You are never going to be able to make it so every profession is shared out equally among the population and tinkering with it will just cause more resentment and division imo.

 

Re the 12% its actually quite a small percentage. As you say if it reflected the population 1/2 nominations a year. Given that, isn't it quite understandable when there are no nominations? Its basically a 1 in 10 chance of getting nominated in a level playing field (meaning all the performances are of an equal standard - this is subjective obviously but just for sake of argument) So the chances are quite low and if there are no stand out performances, maybe this years list isn't such a surprise or in the least bit discriminatory.

Edited January 24, 20169 yr by torresgirl

no I 100% agree casting is an issue. I just also find things like Michael Caine telling people to be 'patient' and tht 'the roles will come' to ve super patronising and unnecessary, as if in 2015 it makes sense that these characters didnt exist ?

Gotta admit I'm in with the 'we shouldn't be nominating because of the colour of their skin'. It's a real shame that the Oscars this year will be over taken with this debate, and the fault is with Hollywood entirely. I love the Fast & Furious films, surely they're not amazing acting pieces but a large part of the reason the franchise is so successful is because of the diversity of actors. It's amazing.

 

Fact is the best person should win/get nominated - it has not nothing to do with their skin colour. I know the NFL introduced the Rooney rule whereby for every vacant managerial position, a black coach has to be interviewed. I can see through force a similar tactic being introduced here.

This is the problem with all this, it does get silly. Where does it end? Do we stop at the Oscars? Or does this get carried into other professions as well? Will we start saying for example the NBA doesn't reflect US society because the vast majority of top players are Black Americans and there's a lack of opportunity for Asians/Whites and Hispanics? Or do we just accept as I do now that they are there because they are the best athletes? You are never going to be able to make it so every profession is shared out equally among the population and tinkering with it will just cause more resentment and division imo.

But you can't compare film, a storytelling medium that serves as a reflection of our society, to basketball, a sport that isn't meant to reflect much of anything. There's a difference.

 

I've barely watched any movies in the past year so I won't comment on who did or didn't deserve to be nominated, but I agree with everyone who says that a lot of it starts with the films themselves. You can't argue that there isn't a problem in a year when you had Emma f***ing Stone playing someone of Chinese descent.

 

But also, a lot of people here keep talking about how actors should be nominated through sheer merit, which I don't disagree with, but don't forget that the Academy isn't some neutral body but is itself an institution with its own diversity issues. I've never seen anyone seriously suggest there should be a quota for minority nominees in the actual ceremony, but if you're looking for percentages to chew on, I would look at the organization that actually hands out the awards: 93% white, 73% male, average age of 63. (These numbers are from two years ago, but going by what the article says, I highly doubt it's changed much since.) To their credit though, the Academy did announce plans to double their women and minority membership by 2020, so that's something.

I do feel bad for the Oscars at this point, because I feel like they are really taking a huge deal of blame when the problem is a lot bigger than them...

 

The SAGs seem to be now being hailed for "celebrating diversity" and so were the Golden Globes (to a lesser extent), but it isn't really fair both those awards both include TV and the Globes have double the acting nominees.

 

All but 1 of the non-white SAG winners awarded were for TV, and I do confidently think that TV is generally in a better place, in the sense that there seem to be more roles for black/Latino actors. And the SAGS only represented that. Were the academy to include TV, they wouldn't exactly be snubbing the amazing forces of Viola Davis and Uzo Aduba.

 

The actual acting nominees were all the exact same white faces we see everywhere, apart from Idris, who went on to win for his category. But the cynicism inside of me wonders if he would have won had #OscarsSoWhite been such a big thing this year?

There's been a protest at the BAFTAs called #BAFTABlackout.

 

http://digitalspyuk.cdnds.net/16/06/768x384/landscape-1455471142-rexfeatures-5586117j-1.jpg

 

The image shows that they want a quota system but I think that's the completely wrong way to go about it. It makes any diverse nomination look like a token one. Quotas aren't inclusive at all as they don't suggest if they got the nomination because they were good or because of their ethnicity.

 

I think the bigger problem is with Hollywood not putting enough black actors/actresses in major roles.

I think the bigger problem is with Hollywood not putting enough black actors/actresses in major roles.

 

Oh I definitely agree. You can't just award people because of their skin colour. People should be rewarded because of how good they are regardless of their race or gender. The problem is that there aren't enough people from different backgrounds in the big roles, therefore less people to nominate and then less people to award.