As with “Selma,” “One Night in Miami” and “Mudbound” before it, Tuesday’s Oscar nominations were a time of euphoria for many, but some disappointment for black women. brought about.
This isn’t the first time the Academy Awards have come under scrutiny for their diversity shortcomings. The Academy Awards are said to have undergone a collective soul-searching since 2015, when April Reign made #OscarsSoWhite a cultural touchstone. Years of efforts to diversify the Academy’s voting body resulted in dramatic victories, with “Moonlight” and “Parasite” winning Best Picture. For black women, little has changed. She is the only black woman to win Best Actress in Oscar history. still Halle Berry. still No black woman has ever been named director. (Six black men have been nominated. still no one wins).and still Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” is the only film directed by a black woman to be nominated for Best Picture.
This year, that dark track record has become even clearer. Alice Diop’s hugely popular film “Saint Omer,” which was submitted by France as an international film, failed to cross the finish line. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “The Queen” did not appear in any category, nor did it appear in the technical category, where many experts expected the historical blockbuster to do well. Viola Davis (The Woman King) and Danielle Deadwyler (Til) were shut out of lead roles after months on the front lines. (Angela Bassett was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.)
Meanwhile, Andrea Riseborough scored a surprise lead actress nomination for her little-released indie film To Leslie, boosted by a last-minute grassroots campaign that saw celebrities publicly support her cause. I received it.
Gaslagy Maranda in Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer.”
(neon)
It’s easy to blame Riseborough for taking away slots from black women, but focusing anger on individuals leaves us with a broken system. Rather than interrogating Riseborough’s specific campaign (about his disastrous performance, I might add), we should be asking a different question: lavish dinners, private academy screenings, meet-and-greets, everything the organization demands. What do the black women who performed it say? – Greetings, flashy TV spots, magazine profiles, etc., ignored when those who do everything outside the system get paid?
Before #OscarsSoWhite, the prevailing (flawed) logic was that there simply weren’t enough black women making movies. In the field of directors, the Canadian has disappeared with the rise of DuVernay, Regina King, Dee Rees, Nia DaCosta, Chinonye Chukwu, Janika Bravo, Mati Diop and others. In addition to Davis and Deadwyler, the likes of KiKi Palmer, Zendaya, Dominique Fishback and Taylor Russell contributed to the explosion of black female actresses in modern cinema. Black women have always created. However, their increased visibility in today’s Hollywood means that excuses for not highlighting them are especially false.
Why does inequality persist? Perhaps voters aren’t prioritizing these films in a crowded field of screenings. Or maybe they don’t understand the cultural specificity of the work.Even with changes, the Academy It remains a white-majority organization.in the end.
Then there’s a very important precursor to Oscar. For example, the Directors Guild of America has never nominated a black female director in the major feature category, and failure in the major feature category can be nearly fatal to a director’s chances at the Academy. Mati Diop, Alice Diop, Melina Matsoukas, Radha Blank and Regina King are nominated for Best Feature for the first time, but they are the first nominees for the award in its entire history, which was created in 2015. Jordan Peele is the only one. Oscar director.
Although black actresses have been successful in getting nominated for trailblazing awards such as the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, and BAFTAs, winning awards has proven difficult. In the past 20 years, only one Black woman has won Best Actress at the Globes (Andra Day), only one at the SAGs (Viola Davis, twice), and none at the BAFTAs.
Even major critics organizations have had a hard time dealing with black women, with the National Society of Film Critics and the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics Associations never recognizing a black woman as a director. The last time the National Society of Film Critics awarded Best Actress to a Black woman was in 1972 (Cicely Tyson for Sounder). It happened twice at the NYFCC (Regina Hall in “Support the Girls” and Lupita Nyong’o in “Us”). That never happened at LAFCA.
So the problem is not just with the academy. Nor does it trace back to an award campaign for a white actress. No, such prejudices have deeper roots and extend beyond cinema. Black women are often stereotyped as aggressive, loud, and unprofessional. They are criticized for their hair, nails, and fashion. They are overly sexualized. You’re less likely to get hired, and even less likely to get promoted.
Directors like Prince-Bythewood are creators of critically acclaimed work over the decades, but the Academy has given them no credit for past award-winning films like The Woman King. , can’t break through with studio-backed crowd-pleasing productions. “Gladiator” and “Braveheart” – so what hope does that leave for others? If Davis, the Meryl Streep of her generation, can only win Oscar honors if she plays a supporting role rather than a leading role, as she did in Fences, then who will break out? Why are black women’s work constantly marginalized?
Daniel Deadwyler in Chinonye Chukwu’s “Till.”
(Lindsay Weatherspoon/Orion Pictures)
As a critic, I’ve noticed that many well-meaning white people think racists are the reason for the continued problems. But if the problem is systemic, then those who think they are on the “right” side are certainly not as well-intentioned as they believe. In the summer of 2020, many white people in the entertainment industry vowed to be better, like #OscarsSoWhite. As normalcy returned, those promises quickly faded.
Hollywood continues to choose the bare minimum when it comes to diversity. In other words, it’s about covering up your blind spots. And unsurprisingly, these efforts have led to little sustainable change. Few people have a vested interest in remaking the systems they call home, the systems that give them an advantage, and the systems they themselves invented.
“Because how can we overthrow, change, and even challenge the systems we’ve been taught to admire, love, and believe in?” asks bell hooks.
In the wake of the loss of a black woman in the Oscar nominations this morning, the organization that awards this award is the least likely to learn from its mistakes and deserves an award of its own.
