Oscars 2016 slammed for being ‘too white’ again

Jason Mitchell, O’Shea Jackson, Jr. and Corey Hawkins in a scene from the film, “Straight Outta Compton”.

“But Alejandro González Iñárritu!” some people might be saying right now. “He acted the shit out of that movie in scene after scene”.

Jokes aside, many fans and industry insiders are deeply concerned a year after host Neil Patrick Harris quipped that the Oscars were honoring Hollywood’s “best and whitest”.

Once again, the year’s batch of Academy Awards nominees are white almost across the board in all the key categories, including acting, directing and writing.

CP: Your father Ice Cube was doing publicity for “Ride Along 2” and responded to reporter’s question about “Compton” scoring only one nomination. “It’s the Oscars – they do what they do”, he levelled.

If this was the Academy’s way of addressing controversy around the film’s omission of violence against women, then they still didn’t make up for it by nominating any Black actors, actresses or directors. Last year’s popular hashtag, #Oscarssowhite, has been resurrected, along with the inevitable new tag, #Oscarsstillsowhite. It’s revealing that when the Irish and the Canadians got together to make movies in 2015, they wound up telling a classic American immigration story (Brooklyn) and choosing to set a harrowing contemporary drama (Room) in the United States. The general consensus apparently being that these types of awards shows aren’t for “us” and “our kind” anyway, so it’s best not to keep complaining about them.

Will Smith for “Concussion”, Idris Elba for “Beasts of No Nation” and Michael B. Jordan for “Creed” were among those expected to be nominated but noticeably left off the list. “The reason the rest of the world looks at us like we have no clue is because in 2016 it’s a complete embarrassment to say that the heights of cinematic achievement have only been reached by white people”.

If a diverse show achieves success, Brown says, other networks’ reactions will be, “Get me the next one”.

“The people loved the movie, the people supported the movie”, he stressed. (It went on to win the Oscar for best song.) DuVernay would have been the first African-American woman ever to be nominated for best director.

Instead, the Oscar nominations went nearly exclusively to white actors and directors.

Actors and actresses of colour were kept out of the 20 award slots available in the best actor, best actress, best supporting actor and best supporting actress categories. For the last two years, viewership for the Oscars have dropped. In an age where traffic, likes and ad revenue are king, I am grudgingly coming to the conclusion that the only effective response to yet another whitewashed Oscars may be to stage a “blackout” and stop supporting it all together.