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#OscarsSoWhite, in Part Because #EverythingsAProblem

Me, laughing at the Oscar Fantasy Draft picks of JVL and Vic.
January 19, 2016

For the second year in a row, no actors of color have been nominated for an Academy Award. As a result of this travesty, the Academy Awards—an organization that has awarded the following men

(From l. to r.) Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro G. Inarritu, and Ang Lee
(From l. to r.) Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro G. Inarritu, and Ang Lee

the last three Oscars for best directing, by the way—has again been slammed with the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag. People are very upset! There are so many strong movies with heavily black* casts, films like Chi-Raq and Beasts of No Nation. Why weren't they rewarded?

Of course, we haven't considered the fact that many of these films were also deemed extremely problematic, both before and after their release. Can you solve one problem (lack of Oscar diversity) by appealing to problematic art?

Let's go through some of the snubbed pictures and see how socially conscious types addressed them during their release:

Chi-Raq

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Chi-Raq is the latest Spike Lee joint; I reviewed it here. It's a modern retelling of Lysistrata set on the streets of Chicago, where the gal pals of gang leaders refuse to give it up for their men whilst bodies are still dropping. Many people are rallying to Spike Lee's side after he called out the Academy for its problematic lack of "flava" (his word, not mine). Of course, Chi-Raq itself was deeply problematic, as was a song tied to the film's release:

Titled "WGDB"—We Gotta Do Better—it’s an ode to black pathology, anchored by two opinions. The first is that black-on-black gun violence is something that occurs because blacks widely approve of or ignore it, which means it still needs repudiating. The second is that maybe if black people just had more self-respect, the cops whose salaries black people pay would treat them nicer, shoot and/or jail them less, and so on. These are both bad and dumb opinions.

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So let's say Spike Lee's film gets a bunch of nominations in the acting categories. What do the think pieces look like then? "Oh, sure, the Academy loves rewarding films that blame black people for all their own problems! #smdh #outrage"

Beasts of No Nation

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One of the films touted by the #OscarsSoWhite folks is Beasts of No Nation. Idris Elba could've very easily gotten an Oscar nomination. He should've, the Academy's detractors cry! Of course, Beasts of No Nation is decidedly problematic:

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Here's a passage from a review titled "'Beasts of No Nation,' Violence of No Value":

But leaving the theatre after that premiere in Toronto (for most it will be turning off their iPads or TV screens), what stuck me most was the lack of discomfort, was just how comfortable we all in fact seemed to be with the violence we had just witnessed, more specifically the violence we all seemed to expect of these specifically African men. The film was, indeed, so consistent with deeply rooted imperial imaginations of the nature of conflict in Africa that it did little more than confirm our unspoken beliefs, allow us to feel communally horrified, and then walk out (or switch off) and forget.

In a similar vein, here's a review tying the film to past, similar productions:

But the film evokes the type of Tarzanism by which Western cultural producers perpetually seek to gain artistic legitimacy, proffering a cinematic vision of reflexive violence (couched as inherently, ahistorically "African") as well as an especially aggrandizing, extratextual portrait of an American male director who made a "risky," malarial, downright Conradian trek into the darkness of the global South. ... Beasts is, like Blood Diamond (2006) and The Last King of Scotland (2006) before it, the type of film that seemingly satisfies so many requirements of the Western imagination.

So let's say Elba garners a nom. What do the think pieces look like now? "Oh, so black people can only be nominated when they play vicious warlords, like Forrest Whitaker in Last King of Scotland? AYFKM with this, Hollywood?"

Straight Outta Compton

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Of all the supposed Oscar snubs in the acting categories, the claim that this film should have been noticed in acting categories is the one I find most baffling—and I nominated Compton's cast for best ensemble in the Washington Area Film Critics Association's annual awards. The trouble is finding one particular actor to single out. Ice Cube's kid definitely did the best "Young Ice Cube impression" of the year, but I'm not sure that's an Oscar category yet.

Needless to say, Straight Outta Compton was also very problematic.

The trouble started before the film even began shooting:

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And, of course, the film's treatment of women was v troubling:

What’s interesting is that Straight Outta Compton already tells the story of a marginalized group at a point during which they were fighting against institutionalized oppression both in the streets and with music. However, as we all know (or should know) intersectionality is really important. As black men were fighting for their lives in the streets and protesting via their art, as is depicted in the film, black women were doing double-duty dodging violence at the hands of both white police officers and black men. And that’s a side of things that the film doesn’t touch. I guess no one wants the legacies of hip-hop pioneers like N.W.A. complicated by things like too much truth.

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So let's say that the actors portraying N.W.A. got some accolades. What do the think pieces look like now? "Wow, shocker, looks like Hollywood is only into glorifying ex-cons and drug dealers who abuse women and are super-racist in their casting. FFS."

Hateful Eight

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Personally, I would've loved to see Samuel L. Jackson win a nomination for his turn as Major Marquis Warren. That doesn't change the fact that it's deeply problematic:

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No one writes dialogue like Tarantino (or rather, everyone does, now), but snappy lines are no substitute for a contrived plot and a dearth of action. The violence feels glib: Heads explode and genitals are decimated, but with no dramatic or emotional impact. Tarantino’s liberal use of a racial slur — so daringly employed in his "Django Unchained" — here feels gratuitous. The film’s misogynist streak is also a grave error in judgment.

Plus, Jackson's signature scene in this film involves his lurid description of the rape and murder of a white man.

"Oh sure," the #takers will #take. "The Academy has no problem rewarding a film that traffics on stereotypes of black male sexuality and violence. And in a movie where Tarantino uses the n-word SO MUCH. Ugh. I just cannot even with this right now."

Anyway. Maybe you're starting to see my point. As best as I can tell, the only heavily African-American film that wasn't #problematic in some way was Creed. But there was no way that Michael B. Jordan was getting a nomination for that film; the Academy almost never recognizes a male actor for portraying a successful athlete (as opposed to a broken down one).**

Then there's Will Smith in Concussion. And, honestly, this is the sort of stuff that the Academy eats up. He plays a character with an accent! It's about a socially conscious subject! I'm kind of surprised it didn't get a nod. But whose spot would he take? The guy playing the transgendered barrier-breaker? The guy playing the Hollywood writer oppressed by the government for the crime of being a liberal? The guy who ate raw liver on set and is "due"? Matt Damon? The guy playing the symbol of all that is good and holy in modernity, a true Christ figure if we've seen one in recent years?

Surely you see the dilemma.

*These things always come up when no black actors are nominated; oddly, no one ever seems upset that no Asian or Hispanic actors are nominated.

**The most recent example is Will Smith in Ali (2001); before that, you have to go all the way back to the original Rocky, and that film came out 40 years ago.