Recently, right after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences released their nominations for this upcoming Academy Awards, the trend #OscarsSoWhite began. The trend is self-explanatory as it complains about this year’s Oscar nominees being “so white.” Basically, people are complaining about the lack of diversity and minority nominations, mainly amongst black actors, actresses, directors, etc.
While there is some point to be made about the lack of diversity at this prestigious award ceremony, there is also another point to be made about competition. The Academy Awards is an event organized solely to celebrate the most outstanding achievements of film from cinematography to editing and acting throughout the year. Competition is fierce and it is an honor to even be nominated.
According to CNN, the 7,000 members of the Academy who make the Oscar nominations are mainly older white males who are “out of touch.” It may seem unfair, but those people are there for a reason, and they have a hard job whether people agree with their nominations or not. Their job is to determine what films deserve to be recognized as an achievement in certain aspects, not to be fair in award nominations.
Now, there were some movies this past year that could have been nominated like “Straight Outta Compton,” which would have probably prevented the hashtag from ever being created. So, this makes it the second year in a row that minorities were not voted by the Academy for any nominations. There was hysteria for “Selma” not being nominated last year and this year the hysteria is over Idris Elba in “Beasts of No Nation” and “Straight Outta Compton.” “12 Years A Slave” in 2013 was the last film to win “Best Picture” which included a lead role by a minority (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
While it is easy to understand there might be some inequality on behalf of the Academy, I do not believe it was intentional. It sounds a little preposterous for nearly 7,000 members to purposefully exclude minorities in their nominations. With this said, it is unfortunate there has been a lack of diversity in the nominations in recent years; however, business is business and everyone knows there is no tougher business than Hollywood.
Everyone knows the film industry is tough business and sometimes unforgiving. The business is extremely critical and people have to learn to accept that. At the end of the day, the members of the Academy were just doing their job and this year, a majority of the films featuring minorities fell short. It may seem unfair, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.
