By Jason Apuzzo. Our old friend Patrick Goldstein at the LA Times noted yesterday that we’re apparently headed for another all-white Oscar ceremony, with nary an honoree-of-color in sight. As Patrick writes:
Setting aside the more obscure, technical categories, when it comes to the best picture award along with the major nominations for acting, writing and directing, there are, ahem, zero people of color in the Oscar race this year. …
It’s hard not to notice how few minorities had any visible roles in this year’s most lauded films. “The Social Network” offers us a virtually lilywhite Harvard; “The Fighter” is set in a oh-so-white, blue-collar Boston neighborhood; “The King’s Speech” depicts an all-white, upper-crust, 1930s-era London; “Toy Story 3,” like most Pixar films, is set in a fantasy suburbia without any obvious references to minorities; while “True Grit” takes us back to the Old West, where the only black faces I can remember seeing are that of a manservant and a stable boy.
Ouch! I would also add here that many ethnicities are notably absent among this year’s Oscar nominations. Patrick continues:
There are no studio chairmen or heads of production who are black or Latino. In fact, there are barely any people of color in any high-level positions at any major studio, talent agency or management firm. When I asked a couple of reporter pals to name the most powerful black executive in town, a lot of head-scratching ensued before we decided that the person with the most clout was probably James Lassiter, Will Smith’s longtime business partner and production company chief. …
Hollywood is usually impervious to embarrassment, but perhaps this is one of those signal moments when the industry should engage in a little soul-searching about the image it projects to the outside world. At Oscar time, the spotlight is on show business, which in an increasingly multicultural country turns out to be a business that is just as white on the outside as it is on the inside.
Oh, my! How did this happen in an industry dominated by liberals? I don’t understand.
Since Patrick has just uttered an exceedingly inconvenient truth about the industry, and is probably taking a lot of heat at the moment, I’d like to publicly offer him refuge here in the Libertas Witness Protection Program™. In the Libertas Witness Protection Program™ he can feel free to post here at Libertas anonymously (perhaps as ‘Rafe Templeton III,’ or some other suitably Anglo name). We’ve done this sort of thing before, and are happy to do it again for a friend in need.
[UPDATE: Patrick has since updated his article; he is, indeed, currently taking a lot of heat for his observations. Our offer of putting him in the Libertas Witness Protection Program™ stands.]
Posted on January 26th, 2011 at 3:47pm.
Hollywood stopped representing the country a long time ago when they decided they would ignore/demonize/abuse the 50% to 60% of the country that is conservative/patriotic/Republican. Now Goldstein is noticing there is no racial diversity. The even bigger problem to me is that there is no political diversity. Everyone who gets up there on awards night has the same set of liberal opinions.
Perhaps having elected Obama, Hollywood does not feel they have to do any more for minorities.
Believe me, there’s a lot of racism in the industry – my wife has experienced it first hand. The thing that people have a hard time grasping is how frequently it comes from liberals. Patrick is touching on a very real problem here.
According to Wiki, there were 8 black nominees in 2009, of which 4 won the oscar. In 2006 there were also 8 black nominees and 3 won. In 2008 and 2007 2 were nominated each year with no winners.
Given that there are 24 awards each year, in the last 4 years prior to 2010, there were 96 awards with 7 black winners, which is 7.3 percent. While this under represents the overall US proportion of blacks which is presently about 12.4 percent nationally, it is actually larger than the American community survey number which puts blacks at 6.7 percent in California – where the movie industry mainly resides. (Demographics of California Wiki)
Now this in no way proves anything about if or if not the movie industry is racist – but does, at least, make
it awkward for Patrick to hang his piece on the Oscar awards.
Thanks for the research K. I think the numbers would be even more telling if one took account of Latinos and Asians as well, who are practically invisible on the awards podiums of any of the major film industry events.
And how about women? They get only 36% of the roles in Hollywood according to SAG and get even fewer of the nominations, even though they make up more than 50% of the population.
It is certainly an odd fact that Hollywood is so unrepresentative of the general population.
Specifics would help make his case. Which films and actors would he specifically nominate to redress the imbalance? Also, which films and actors would he remove from the announced list of oscar contenders? In his opinion do any of the films/actors not deserve to be there? Are any there simply because they focus on white people? Were any films featuring minorities purposely snubbed because of the color of the actors? He doesn’t tell us but he has implicitly labeled all of the nominees as illegitimate.
It is very easy to make a general statement announcing your moral superiority. If women and minorities are underrepresented in the film making industry it is right and proper to point this out and consider the reasons why this disparity exists. But unless he thinks great films with minorities were purposely excluded in favor of inferior films with white actors I think his column is lazy and off target.
If you read his entire article, what it says is that blacks in particular have almost no internal power in the industry running studios or agencies – and as a result very few films made by/for blacks get made; so, as a result, the Academy nominations are reflective, sadly, of what’s actually going on in the industry.
I happen to agree with Patrick on this point. The Academy itself perhaps is not so much to blame, but as he says, “… perhaps this is one of those signal moments when the industry should engage in a little soul-searching about the image it projects to the outside world. At Oscar time, the spotlight is on show business, which in an increasingly multicultural country turns out to be a business that is just as white on the outside as it is on the inside.”
Dear Mr. Goldstein,
Regarding your article about people of color — you say that there are barely any people of color in any high-level positions at studios or talent agencies.
We have an agent, Paul Williams, who has been with us for several years. He started as an assistant, he is now an Executive Vice President and is a vital to every decision that my company makes.
Here’s to many more people of color playing significant roles in Hollywood.
Sincerely,
Sonjia Warren Brandon
President
Commercials Unlimited
Sonjia, thanks so much for writing in and telling us this. Best wishes to you, your firm and Mr. Williams.
NPR fires Juan Williams, their only Af-Am commentator, MSNBC is all white…what’s with these liberals, huh? 🙂
TV, though, is filled with characters of various races–detectives, judges, doctors, not to mention presidents (when was the last time you saw a Caucasian male president?) I don’t know what he’s advocating for film. And since when would a guard at WB stop someone all dressed up just because of their skin color? That seems unfair.
I just watched the Zoetrope doc on the THX DVD, and all I can say is: young filmmakers, do it on your own. It’s the only way to tell your story.
That’s a good point about TV, Pat. There seems to be much more variety in that world.
That’s a good doc on the THX disk, isn’t it? The Zoetrope dream should really be every filmmaker’s dream: being genuinely independent, and doing high-quality work.