African American filmmaker accuses Hollywood of racism and sexism following Oscar Snub

Cinema is a rare art form that transcends all boundaries and brings people together. Nowhere else does a diverse group of people sit together to experience similar emotions simultaneously. Audiences are enthralled together, they laugh together, they cheer together, they jeer together, and if the work is commendable applaud together.

Art should solely be judged on its merit, cinema is no different. The sole criteria should be how well the story was told. The origins or ethnicity of the storyteller are immaterial. 

However, in recent years that has changed.

When award nominations are announced, many in the media look at the demographic groups of the nominees instead of the quality of their work.

A few days back, the same Hollywood that sanctimoniously brands a section of the public as bigots, was accused of bigotry for snubbing some critically acclaimed films by and about Black people.

The film at the center of this controversy is Till.

Till was released last year and is based on the true story of the mother who pursued justice following the murder of her son Emmett Till in 1955.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkQi6GBwmSA

Till received resounding approval from critics. On the review-aggregation website, Rotten Tomatoes  98% of film critics approved of the film. Quite often there is a chasm of difference between the choice of pretentious critics and the public. But 97% of audiences gave Till a nod of approval. 

The film received numerous nominations from various film critics' associations, the NAACP Image Awards, the Black Reel Awards, and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists

The film’s star Danielle Deadwyler received most of the nominations for her portrayal of Mamie Till-Mobley. Deadwyler also received nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards and BAFTA.

All this made Deadwyler a formidable contender at the Oscars. However, when the nominations were announced on Tuesday, Deadwyler’s name was conspicuous by its absence.

The film’s writer and director Chinonye Chukwu was also regarded among the leading contenders for the Best Director category at the Oscars. Alas, she was snubbed.

Chukwu accused Hollywood of racism and sexism

“We live in a world and work in industries that are so aggressively committed to upholding whiteness and perpetuating unabashed misogyny towards Black women.

And yet.

I am forever in gratitude for the greatest lesson of my life - regardless of any challenges or obstacles, I will always have the power to cultivate my own joy, and it is this joy that will continue to be one of my greatest forms of resistance.”

Some were outraged that African American actress Viola Davis didn't clinch a Best Actress nomination for her role for The Woman King.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RDaPV_rJ1Y

It wasn’t all bad news for African American performers.

Angela Bassett is the only black actress to be nominated for an Oscar this year in the best supporting actress category for her performance in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Black actor Bryan Tyree Henry was nominated for his role as an amputee who bonds with a soldier recovering from a traumatic brain injury in Causeway. 

https://twitter.com/812filmreviews/status/1617886924571836416

Asians did well this year.

Everything Everywhere All At Once, about a Chinese woman, who hops through the multiverses as different versions of herself received 11 nominations including nods for stars of Chinese origin, Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, and Ke Huy Quan who once starred alongside Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxN1T1uxQ2g

The Indian film, RRR, was nominated for its song 'Naatu Naatu' in the Best Song category

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsU0CGZoV8E

This isn’t the first time that African Americans were snubbed by the Oscars.

The failure to nominate black or minority actors in 2016 caused a furious backlash, with some black stars boycotting the ceremony and the growth of the #OscarsSoWhite movement.

2016 is the very year, that various self-righteous Hollywood stars teamed up to almost order voters to support Hillary Clinton because Donald Trump was deemed a racist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CECFmEFwn48

The #OscarsSoWhite movement led to a promise from the Academy to double its female and black and ethnic minority members a target it said it met in 2020.

It wasn't just African Americans who were snubbed, there were no women are nominated for best director.

Last year, Jane Campion, a female director won the Oscar.

So were they driven by racism and misogyny?

Before we decide that we must remember that auteurs such as Alfred Hitchcock, and Stanley Kubrick, never won an Oscar for directing. Harrison Ford hasn’t won an Oscar so far despite myriad sterling performances. Al Pacino didn’t win for the first two Godfather pictures or Serpico or Dog Day Afternoon. 

Peter O’Toole didn’t win for Becket, Lion in the Winter, Lawrence of Arabia, or any of his other masterful performances. Ultimately in 2003, O'Toole received an honorary Oscar, during his acceptance speech he quipped "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, my foot," 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt564HJ_Irg

Citizen Kane, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Graduate, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, E.T., Goodfellas, Saving Private Ryan, The Shawshank Redemption, There Will Be Blood, and numerous other films that are considered classics never won the Oscar for best picture.

So how are films nominated?

Nominees for each category are selected by votes from members of these specific branches. For example, actors get to select nominees for the acting categories, and directors get to select the nominees for Best Director. However, everyone gets to vote when it comes to the Best Picture category

When submitting a list of preferred nominees, Academy members rank them according to preference. The nomination ballots are initially sorted based on the voters’ first-place ranking. If a selection reaches enough first-place votes—sometimes called the “magic number”—it becomes a nominee. 

How votes are largely dependent on awareness for which a buzz has to be created by the studio and the agency for the individual. It is quite similar to a politician campaigning.

One of the big surprises was the Best Actress nomination for British Actress Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie. Many of Hollywood’s top actresses hosted screenings for Riseborough’s film and praised her performance. This created the buzz that enabled her the nomination.

The snub for Til may hence not necessarily be driven by racism or misogyny, perhaps due to a lack of awareness about the small film.

But this was bound to happen.

For decades Hollywood has used their power not to entertain but to peddle propaganda. They scoff at and demonize a section of the population merely for their voting choices and baselessly call them bigots.

It was inevitable that this monster would eventually turn on its creator.

Also appears on American Thinker