The 2016 nominees for the Oscars have just been released on Thursday, January 14, and the #OscarsSoWhite hashtags – created by April Reign (@ReignOfApril) – have returned, as people on social media criticize and question the list of nominees. This year, there are absolutely no actors or actresses of color that were nominated for their performances in 2015.
Do you see anyone missing from the 20 acting noms at this year’s Oscars? #OscarsSoWhite https://t.co/12Q76d2qei pic.twitter.com/OkwG7ZrQD7
— Mic (@mic) January 14, 2016
Bridge of Spies , Brooklyn , Mad Max: Fury Road , Room , Spotlight , The Big Short , The Martian, and The Revenant have all been nominated for Oscars for Best Picture this year. These are all films that are led by white male actors, with Brooklyn , Mad Max: Fury Road and Room having strong female leads — who are also all white. This takes nothing away from their performances, it’s simply a fact. Looking at the Best Picture Academy Award nominees, many were upset, frustrated and angry to not see films like Creed , Dope , Straight Outta Compton , Beasts of No Nation and Tangerine being nominated. Every single one of the aforementioned films received high critical praise — with one of them in particular being one of the biggest financial successes of 2015 — and had a cast full of black actors.
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Seeing Mad Max: Fury Road being nominated for Best Picture, while also not seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens on that list, is a bit baffling. Both were great, popcorn blockbusters — both featuring strong female leads. However, The Force Awakens has Fury Road beat on the diversity front, with John Boyega and Oscar Isaac also being in the film. No matter how much one may love Mad Max: Fury Road , the fact that it is still, at its core, is a popcorn flick — super fun, adventurous and entertaining. To call it Best Picture material, while ignoring The Force Awakens , is odd. George Miller’s legacy seems to be a factor in why the movie is such an Academy darling. And if it is simply the character of Furiosa and the film’s strong feminist viewpoint that carries it to Best Picture status, then Sean Baker’s Tangerine deserves recognition, as well. That Sundance Film Festival hit was inventively shot all on an iPhone and stars two black, transgender women — Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor — and that is ridiculously feminist.
This is an issue that women of color have always head to struggle with. The assertion that recognizing women of color is more important makes some who call themselves feminists upset or even offended. “Why does their race matter,” they may say, “they’re women!” What they fail to realize is that white women and women of color do not share the same experiences of being a woman, which is also true of LGBT women of color. When the topic of feminism is brought up, women of color and women within the LGBT community are almost always left out of the conversation.
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People jumping directly to Straight Outta Compton for not being nominated for the Best Director, Best Actor, or Best Picture Oscars, though somewhat understandable, is still a tiny bit predictable and problematic. It is the one black movie of 2015 which features black men being misogynistic and stereotypical, no matter how true any of that actually was. Dope and Creed , however, avoided those pitfalls, presenting more layered, original, and nuanced black characters. Creed was a film about a young black man, the son of Apollo Creed, written and directed by a black man (Ryan Coogler), and the only nomination the film received was Sylvester Stallone’s performance as Rocky. Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, and Tessa Thompson did not receive nominations, and for those who do not understand why people were upset with Sly for not thanking them during his Golden Globes speech — this is why that was so important.
Beasts of No Nation , one of the best reviewed films of 2015, is another Oscars snub that is deeply confusing. Starring Idris Elba, Abraham Attah, and written/directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, whose father is Japanese, and not one of these artists received any recognition for their amazing work. And while nominating Straight Outta Compton for Best Original Screenplay is nice, it would certainly mean more if the writers weren’t white.
https://twitter.com/MLDavies/status/687635151724113920
Last September, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, tried to convince studio executives that they need to be more inclusive when it comes to diversity.
“The Academy has no power over Hollywood. We have nothing to do with hiring,” Isaacs said. “What we can do, however, is to get them to widen their normal stream of thought.”
https://twitter.com/ScottFeinberg/status/687007266415841280
Well, it appears as if the Academy has more work to do in terms of widening the normal stream of thought. The Los Angeles Times ran a survey of the 6,028 Academy Award voters , and discovered that 94 percent of them are white, 76 percent of them are men, and they are an average of 63-years-old. And while plenty of big publications and websites are asking these same kinds of questions, most of them have an all white staff of writers.
The media and Hollywood are accomplices in the lack of diversity then at award time they point the finger at each other
— Darth Kriss (@insanityreport) January 14, 2016
Hollywood whiteness eats its own tail: Trade mags that featured almost all white “contenders” criticize Oscars for lack of diversity.
— Bilge Ebiri (@BilgeEbiri) January 14, 2016
One bright spot in this Oscars debacle is Alejandro González Iñárritu being nominated for The Revenant , after winning the Golden Globe. He certainly deserves the recognition, but Ryan Coogler, F. Gary Gray, Idris Elba, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Abraham Attah, Benicio Del Toro and many, many others do, as well.
The full nominee list for the 2016 Oscars can be read below.
Best Picture: Bridge of Spies Brooklyn Mad Max: Fury Road Room Spotlight The Big Short The Martian The Revenant
Actor in a Leading Role: Bryan Cranston – Trumbo Eddie Redmayne – The Danish Girl Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant Matt Damon – The Martian Michael Fassbender – Steve Jobs
Actor in a Supporting Role: Christian Bale – The Big Short Mark Ruffalo – Spotlight Mark Rylance – Bridge of Spies Tom Hardy – The Revenant Sylvester Stallone – Creed
Actress in a Leading Role: Brie Larson – Room Cate Blanchett – Carol Charlotte Rampling – 45 Years Jennifer Lawrence – Joy Saoirse Ronan – Brooklyn
Actress in a Supporting Role: Alicia Vikander – The Danish Girl Jennifer Jason Leigh – The Hateful Eight Kate Winslet – Steve Jobs Rachel McAdams – Spotlight Rooney Mara – Carol
Animated Feature Film: Anomalisa Boy and the World Inside Out Shaun the Sheep Movie When Marnie Was There
Cinematography: Ed Lachman – Carol John Seale – Mad Max: Fury Road Roger Deakins – Sicario Robert Richardson – The Hateful Eight Emmanuel Lubezki – The Revenant
Costume Design: Sandy Powell – Carol Sandy Powell – Cinderella Jenny Beavan – Mad Max: Fury Road Paco Delgado – The Danish Girl Jacqueline West – The Revenant
Directing: George Miller – Mad Max: Fury Road Lenny Abrahamson – Room Tom McCarthy – Spotlight Adam McKay – The Big Short Alejandro G. Inarritu – The Revenant
Documentary Feature: Amy Cartel Land The Look of Silence What Happened, Miss Simone? Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom
Documentary Short: A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness Body Team 12 Chau, Beyond the Lines Claude Lanzmamn: Spectres of the Shoah Last Day of Freeman
Film Editing: Margaret Sixel – Mad Max: Fury Road Tom McArdle – Spotlight Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey – Star Wars: The Force Awakens Hank Corwin – The Big Short Stephen Mirrione – The Revenant
Foreign Language Film: A War Embrace of the Serpent Mustang Son of Saul Theeb
Makeup and Hairstyling: Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin – Mad Max: Fury Road Love Larson and Eva von Bahr – The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared Sian Grigg, Duncan Jarman and Robert Pandini – The Revenant
Best Music – Original Song: “Earned It” – Fifty Shades of Grey / Music and lyrics by Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville and Stephan Moccio “Manta Ray” – Racing Extinction / Music by J. Ralph and lyrics by Antony Hegarty “Simple Song #3” – Youth / Music and lyrics by David Lang “Til It Happens to You” – The Hunting Ground / Music and lyric by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga “Writing’s on the Wall” – Spectre / Music and lyrics by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith
Music – Original Score: Thomas Newman – Bridge of Spies Cartel Burwell – Carol Johan Johannsson – Sicario John Williams – Star Wars: The Force Awakens Ennio Morricone – The Hateful Eight
Production Design: Bridge of Spies – production design: Adam Stockhausen; set decoration: Rena DeAngelo and Bernhard Henrich The Danish Girl – production design: Eve Stewart; set decoration: Michael Standish Mad Max: Fury Road – production design: Colin Gibson; set decoration: Lisa Thompson The Martian – production design: Arthur Max; set decoration: Celia Bobak The Revenant – production design: Jack Fisk; set decoration: Hamish Purdy
Short Film (Animated): Bear Story Prologue Sanjay’s Super Team We Can’t Live Without Cosmos World of Tomorrow
Short Film (Live Action): Ave Maria Day One Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut) Shok Stutterer
Sound Editing: Mark Mangini and David White – Mad Max: Fury Road Oliver Tarney – The Martian Martin Hernandez and Lon Bender – The Revenant Alan Robert Murray – Sicario Matthew Wood and David Acord – Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Sound Mixing: Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Drew Kunin – Bridge of Spies Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo – Mad Max: Fury Road Paul Massey, Mark Taylor and Mac Ruth – The Martian Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montano, Randy Thom and Chris Duesterdiek – The Revenant Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson – Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Visual Effects: Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett – Ex Machina Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams – Mad Max: Fury Road Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence and Steven Warner – The Martian Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith and Cameron Waldbauer – The Revenant Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould – Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) Nick Hornby – Brooklyn Phyllis Nagy – Carol Emma Donoghue – Room Charles Randolph and Adam McKay – The Big Short Drew Goddard – The Martian
Writing (Original Screenplay) Matt Charman, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen – Bridge of Spies Alex Garland – Ex Machina Pete Doctor, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley / story by Pete Doctor and Ronnie del Carmen – Inside Out Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy – Spotlight Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff / story by S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff – Straight Outta Compton
[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]