In search of this week's topic, I first turned to social media. The following clip has been circulating my feed for a few days and I thought it summed up some of my feelings about the recent Oscars controversy.
I'd like to pose the question... are the Oscars about race or eligibility? If it's about the former, then it would seem all past nominees and recipients who are minorities would be offended for being considered. If this were the case, then how would someone ever know if their accomplishments were based on merit or the color of their skin.
I believe the biggest mistake the academy made in regard to this controversy was responding to it so quickly. By promising more women and minority nominees, they gave validity to an otherwise fallacious argument. Voting based on gender or race does a great disservice to the nominees.
This video also raises the question that perhaps there are not enough roles for those of color or for women in Hollywood. I defintely believe this to be true. While writing an outline for a script with some friends we switched the gender of our lead character to female, so now a woman was meant to be playing a role initially imagined as a man. This made for an interesting concept and we had a lot more fun creating a non-traditional character.Or really just a character we didn't default to. Perhaps its not te fault of the Acedemy but of the creators themselves. Maybe they are defaulting to certain characters and creating them on repeat without any reach as to what they could be.
Either way it will be interesting to see some of the changes that happen over the next few years. I am interested to see if we move closer to integration or further into segregation.
Hey Lacey!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post and sharing this video, I hadn't seen it yet. Very interesting this has so quickly become a "controversy". It seems that anything and everything these days becomes a controversy. Why is everything someone does or say have to be scrutinized and placed under the frame of racism? I agree that it would be an absolute mistake and disheartening if votes for nominees(or anything for that matter like a job or the president) were based on race or gender. I realize many are claiming that the votes this time around were bias towards white actors however I just don't believe that is the case. I do appreciate that many industries are making efforts to be more fair and diverse but I strongly believe that no one (whites included) should get any special "tokens" or rights, we are all equal aren't we? I really like the story you shared of film class and switching the roles in your script. I do think there are many strides being taken in the film industry by women and race minorities to become the "big stars" we already have so many right now! I enjoyed reading your post, thanks again!
Lacey,
ReplyDeleteI think that you nailed the view about the oscars when you said "By promising more women and minority nominees, they gave validity to an otherwise fallacious argument." When they came out and said this I completely agree with you that they are basically verifying truth, or partial truth to the notion that their is a racial biased in the academy. Had they explained the details of the voting and nomination process it may have cleared up the notion that the academy has racial bias.