The Verge: Every Oscar season, The Hollywood Reporter, one of the most powerful trade magazines in entertainment, runs a series of roundtables featuring the stars poised to win it all at the Academy Awards. And, with some notable exceptions, those roundtables are almost always exclusively white. It's a tradition as hallowed as the awards themselves, but it’s getting harder to get away with.
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7 comments:
This is certainly a hot topic after all the talk there has been about lack of diversity in the entertainment industry--therefore, we can't blame the photo on the Hollywood Reporter! Quite honestly, the television industry, having roots during times of great racial divide when segregation was very real, African American were never the star or center of the debate. Only now are screenwriters writing roles for diverse actors that really cater to their experiences in powerful and meaningful ways that are Oscar-worthy so to speak. To be honest I was startled by the lack of diversity in the photo, and looking back at other years, it appears that diversity has been quite visible in the past--the article challenges the notion of inter-racial normalcy in Hollywood, that diverse actors need to work for all the "big breaks" that they receive along the way, much more than white actors.
Like Stefan, I was shocked to see that the cover was completely made up of white women. This completely erases the accomplishments of so many women working in the entertainment industry. I think that one of the most important points we can pull out of this article is that the African-American women who were in the picture tended to be in movies that directly handled issues of race. These roles are definitely Oscar worthy, but I think it's really sad that any other type of movie that they're in won't get them a nomination. Women of color always have to work twice as hard to get noticed in the entertainment industry as men, and this is something that needs to change. The Hollywood Reporter isn't entirely to blame for this, but I think it's important to consider their role in this issue. An increase in representation is essential to fixing this problem, and popular media outlets like this one need to help in this way.
At this point of exposition, the Oscars just seem so in favor of white actors and actresses that I’m not surprised at Stephen Galloway’s response at all. “The awful truth is that there are no minority actresses in genuine contention for an Oscar this year” just perpetuates the ideology that this issue is purely systemic and that equal opportunity is not at all present in today’s films. The article addresses the popular films from this year and even mentions how “Straight Outta Compton” one of the most groundbreaking and attention-grabbing films this year reserved no spots for female leads. The hierarchy perpetuated by Hollywood writers is so clear cut by gender and race it’s in disguisable and especially inexcusable after watching more and more white actors and actresses win awards. I would even be bold enough to say that if they hadn’t established categories for actresses at these events, women would trail far behind men anyway.
Sounds like the Hollywood Reporter needs to own up to some shit. They could be making a difference in an industry that needs to change and they are seemingly doing nothing. At least in the case of entities like Netflix their stats as far as including people of color are getting better with each year. The Hollywood Reporter on the other hand is throwing up their hands in defeat. It’s like they are saying “Don’t look at us! It’s not our fault the system is messed up.” They are completely ignoring the fact that they have power in the industry that they think is messed up. Somebody needs to start taking responsibility for the state of Hollywood and it might as well be the Hollywood Reporter. There really isn’t any better way to handle it. If one powerful entity starts putting their foot down others will follow. If you aren’t doing anything to solve the problem you are part of the problem.
There are a lot of articles in this two-week period talking about representation in the entertainment industry, and it is interesting to see just how many different components there are to getting more diverse representation in mainstream media. This article pointed out that in order to secure Oscar nominations, stars have to have the resources and the ability to build up buzz through publications like the Hollywood Reporter, which is not something I knew about the awards season, though it makes perfect sense. Lesser-known actors and actresses that cannot do this kind of PR buzz are often minority actors and actresses, and thus it would make sense that they would not be able to generate as much buzz for an award. This is a dangerous trap that the Hollywood Reporter has clearly fallen into and clearly does not want to make the effort to address the issue, which is an absolute shame. As Sharon said, the Hollywood Reporter definitely has a lot of power in the entertainment industry and awards season, and could definitely be using their influence to create change in the industry that they want to blame.
I think the Hollywood Reporter is largely full of bullshit. This article makes a very good point that Oscar voters look to Hollywood Reporter to see what's what in Hollywood, so, if they were really as disgusted with the whitewash of Hollywood as they claim to be, they could absolutely use their very respected, widely read print publication to devote space to "non-contenders that should be" or something like that. It's pretty widely accepted that the movies that are Oscar contenders are not necessarily the best movies of the year, merely what the Academy wants to reward. I think the article is correct in saying that The Hollywood Reporter is copping out because it isn't financially incentivized to do so, because the people who have the most PR clout and money to throw at campaigns are the actors who have won before, which compounds the problem.
I understand the argument that the round table is what shows the world who to look out for, who to be excited for, and who is being represented, but at the same time, their argument about how all their round tables is true. White people dominate virtually every Oscar ceremony, every year. There is a serious problem that cannot be simply ignored: white people sell. It is not a problem with the Hollywood Reporter, it is a larger problem with the film industry. While the media should then be facilitating the acceptance of black or other POC actors or actresses, their main concern is to put hot faces on a magazine cover to move product. In a capitalist world where whatever makes you the most money is key, white people are at the top.
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