But let's not let Hollywood off the hook: The number of Oscar nominations that minorities received Tuesday for acting remains off-kilter.
True, "Roma" stars Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira saw love from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the lead and supporting actress categories, respectively. And Mahershala Ali ("Green Book") and Regina King ("If Beale Street Could Talk") were nominated in supporting categories.
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When the Oscar nominations were released, I saw several movies that I had enjoyed over the past year which initially made me happy, but once you read the list a couple of times you realize how many movies (or directors, or actors, etc.) were not included. Because the article specifically brings up the lack of Crazy Rich Asians I'll pitch in my two cents about that. By now we can see that the Academy likes a very specific type of movie when it comes to making the choices for nominees. I went to see Crazy Rich Asians while it was in theaters, and even me, a white female was utterly moved by the story, was in awe of the visuals and saw many of the aspects that make an Oscar-worthy film. I think it's a very bold decision to omit CRA from the Best Picture list because of how it created such a large positive response from viewers, similar in the way that Black Panther or Bohemian Rhapsody did. It not only featured a cast of Asian actors, but the story itself is filled with strong female leads. It's utterly inspiring. This isn't the first or the last time that a big, mainstream, successful picture will be left out from Oscar night. In my opinion it's important to make sure that each category has a range of nominees - it's no fun to win when all the other nominees are making film in a very like way to you.
My initial – and incorrect – assumption when reading the title of this article was that I would probably talk about the casting choices and lack of minority leads in film this year, but after taking a step back and thinking about the films that were released this year, that is certainly not the problem. It was quite a diverse year in film relative to past years, which makes the lack of minority representation in the Oscar lineup frustrating and unjustifiable. You cannot argue that there weren’t any Asian actors to nominate, or female directors to nominate. I’ll agree with Elizabeth in saying that the most frustrating exclusion in my opinion was Crazy Rich Asians. The film’s cast was phenomenal, which many strong female characters and amazing visual appeal as well. It has also very quickly entered “the zeitgeist” as one would say. I probably reference the film twice in any given week. Essentially, Oscars, do better. We need to be rewarding work that is not only impactful on screen but promoting minority representation. We should be “rewarding,” for lack of better terms, productions that consider those things and do it well. We will never normalize representation if we only ever recognize male directors and white performers.
Why does this article start off with saying they're clear of #Oscarssowhite ? It only confuses me because this article is all about how the Academy is continuing to play their same tricks and give the same dogs another treat (Oscar). Needless to say, when I saw the Oscar nominations this morning, I was actually pretty disappointed. I think that this article is far too nice to the Academy and doesn't say it how it is, the article hides behind statistics that somehow prove that female directors were at a low- just because "there wasn't as many" doesn't mean they weren't there and don't deserve nominations. The Academy has proven that they are a sucker for a story about a white man, hence the nominations for Bohemian Rhapsody and Vice, but they fail to see the beauty in films like Crazy Rich Asians and If Beale Street Could Talk which have revolutionized the film industry in simply its existence. The Academy, you're not out of the doghouse just yet.
Every year I keep seeing more and more articles about racism and discrimination across the entertainment business, and especially award shows. To me, it’s very confusing how a show that is so public and watched worldwide, can continue to make these kind of mistakes. Award shows should be a time where people are celebrated for their talent and efforts and not ignored or shut out by the world. I think it is the duty of the show to be inclusive and spread that kind of message to millions of people watching. Asian actors not only didn’t win a single award, but weren’t even nominated once throughout the entire acting category. In 2018, the movie Crazy Rich Asians came out, and the amount of love, attention, and publicity that this movie received from views made it hard to believe that the movie or any of the actors were not being considered, but why weren’t they awarded? I think it just a little too coincidental and there is a track record of this happening before.
This article is hitting an important and current issue not only in the industry as a whole and in its operation but also in the organizations that nominate the films for categories as well. The article is talking about the Asian population representation being less than it should but it quickly gets derailed with other similar and important issues. It quickly starts talking about women which isn’t what the article says it will talk about. This gives me an impression that the article doesn’t know what it wants to say or what to say about the issue other saying fix it. It doesn’t really offer anything constructive which is helping the problem. Instead it just offers a complaint. While this is also useful as it can represent a majority voice, it doesn’t really do anything else and it divulges into a completely different subject on the same issue. Nothing is really cohesive here. The very first line sets up the mood of this article which is where the problem really stems from and it essentially hates on a movement trying to make progress, calling it a “catastrophe.” This could be justified if the article was actually constructively criticizing but it doesn’t do that.
This article pointed out a problem I’ve been witnessing for a while: the lack of recognition and representation of Asians in American media. The Oscars this year almost completely blocked Asians out of the picture, with no nominations going to Asian actors or Asian-centered films. I recently saw ‘Crazy Rich Asians,’ and while I can admit that the film itself isn’t without flaws, as no movie is, it definitely deserved some nominations. Michelle Yeoh’s performance should have earned her a nomination at the very least. The only Asian nomination there that wasn’t for a foreign film was for the short ‘Bao’ by Domee Shi. It’s incredibly tiring seeing the media and other places claim they strive for diversity, or that they talk about other races and people, yet it is almost never about Asians. I’ve grown up with barely representation as it is, and this just continues to add to it. The article itself, also, didn’t seem that centered on this issue, because it very quickly delved into the lack of women director nominations. It would’ve been more successful had it maybe just stuck to covering the Asian representation, and perhaps taking statistics from the past as well to exemplify the problem.
I think it is interesting that this article liked to start off entirely by saying “we are officially clear of 2015’s kickoff #OscarsSoWhite catastrophe”, because we still aren’t entirely clear of that hashtag since there still isn’t true equality and diverse representation in the film industry. With that being said, I also don’t think the word catastrophe is the best one to use for that trending hashtag, since the #OscarsSoWhite campaign circulated a lot of attention on issues that people may have been ignoring or just didn’t fully see to begin with. I think that there are a lot of issues surrounding lack of representation, and this article highlights just two- the Asian population and the female director population- of many within the television and film industry that are underrepresented and not fully acknowledged in the way they should be. This article highlights these as problems, and I think it leaves it up to us- the future of the entertainment industry- to come up with a solution.
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