Fixing #OscarSoWhite Can’t Be on the Academy Alone

I’m not one of those who defends Academy voters — there is nothing more irritating than that, even though Idris Elba getting shut out for Beasts of No Nation probably did have more to do with their resistance to a Netflix movie than anything to do with his skin color. In terms of the power players in Hollywood, most of them clearly weren’t ready for Netflix to join their ranks in any major way, despite how close they got.

Still, when it comes to filling up the room, the room on Sunday night will be filled with white actors and filmmakers before anyone else. It’s a little frustrating to be someone who has been writing about this for going on about ten years and to see the issue cycle up and down, and up and down. The media ridicules the Academy; the voters and critics push back. When the outrage is loud enough, things change the next year (maybe) to show they’re listening. But the big picture never really changes, does it? What will happen from here is that next year person of color will get nominated, and then resentment will abound, aggrieved questions about “worthiness” will bubble up.

I remember seeing the same cycle going all the way back to Halle Berry, who remains the only black woman to have won Best Actress. That indignant question always arises: “Are you picking her just because she’s black?” What I always say in response to that is that there are far worse reasons to pick someone. That they’re fuckable or likable or the “it” girl of the moment; that they’re “overdue;” or that they just won the Oscar publicity game by jumping all over the furniture. People win for a lot of incidental reasons and very few of those reason have to do with “deserves.” Why? Because most people vote for whom they like.

When Sideways took the critics by storm, there were four principle actors featured in the film: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh. To my mind, Oh was among the film’s standouts — a really great and vibrant, funny, character but the one everyone fell for was Madsen, who was pretty great, but more than great she’d built up that kind of “overdue cred” only afforded white actors. Madsen, once a hot young sexy rising star had withstood a career somewhat in decline. This role was seen as a bit of a “comeback” for her and that narrative stuck. Meanwhile, Oh, who is and was great, was not even considered — neither as a nominee nor as someone deserving a comeback bump. Why not?

The reason is one that none of us wants to face: from the beginning of movies, and throughout our lives, we have been primed to build our icons in the mold of white gods. It’s really as simple as that. Thus, we carry with us this need to see one of those gods rewarded at some point. Although a few (like Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton) never were, most (like Paul Newman and John Wayne) will always get their crown. Glenn Close is still waiting, as is Michelle Pfeiffer, but Julianne Moore has finally be awarded. We are caught up in this drama continually, year after year. When Viola Davis faced Meryl Streep for Best Actress in 2011, the drama that emerged was not that Viola Davis had never won an Oscar (though some people did seem to care a bit about that), but that Meryl Streep hadn’t won a third one, hadn’t won one in nearly 30 years. No knock against Streep, of course, she is the greatest of the great, but my point here is this: when those opportunities arise for actors of color, they are almost always passed over, even when someone like me nearly ruins their reputation championing their achievement.

And now, the whole world waits to see if Leonardo DiCaprio or Sylvester Stallone will finally win an Oscar. By rights, shouldn’t it matter just as much than Will Smith has never won one? It isn’t that the actors placed at the top of the waiting list aren’t deserving, it’s just that we should all think about how we build celebrities and why we have expectations for some and not others. Look at how different the careers of Alicia Vikander and Jennifer Lawrence’s will be compared to Lupita Nyong’o or Gugu Mbatha Raw. Why are some ushered on through while others told to wait their turn?

I have to roll my eyes at so much of this year’s controversy bubbling up in the media and with critics, because it’s become clickbait. Let’s knock the Oscars because the Oscars are so white — that’s an easy bell to ring, but the next steps are never taken. Thousands upon thousands of words will be written on the subject — as I’m doing right now — and nothing will be done the next time a worthy performance is up for nominations. Because, when push comes to shove, many white voters feel resentful if they sense they’re being forced to vote for someone they don’t feel an affinity with. Yes, it’s a kind of low-frequency racism. It’s a casual, white liberal racial bias that is deeply embedded in society and never acknowledged. It’s just simply there — and it’s one of the major reasons that films about black characters, or Asian characters, or Mexican characters, or Native American characters so rarely get written and honored at all: we have put them in that box and in that box they shall remain. It was a miracle of miracles that 12 Years a Slave, told from the perspective of a slave, won Best Picture. But just a year later, and again this year — the status quo snapped right back to movies with all-white casts (Birdman) and “the one white guy who…” (The Revenant).

At some point, we are all going to have to let go of the whole color-of-the-skin thing — something The Martian did this year with ease, but no one noticed because the film’s central character is white. But the scientists, the NASA nerds — all the prominent and intelligent characters — were people of color, and women. Perhaps that’s because The Martian took place in a more idealized future, where there really is no excuse for all white characters to dominate. But look at the play on Broadway, Hamilton, which has just simply erased color lines, to see how the barriers can be torn down for any story. Why do people with African American heritage have to carry the burden of their past continually, so that period films (the favorite of Academy voters, just look at this year) won’t feature them unless it’s “historically correct”?

Nothing will change until we start erasing those lines, breaking open those boxes that say black characters have to fit the perceptions of white writers to be believable in the role — and I’m not talking a token judge but a real character who happens to be black. Or Asian. Like Sandra Oh in Sideways, whose ethnicity is never addressed nor is there any reason for it to be. It will be on the directors to bypass this artificial obstacle because they and only they have the power to do it. Diversity was written into the novel, The Martian. But there is no reason anymore, in 2016, why these boundaries have to exist anywhere. Free them up, free up the actors, no matter their racial background, and consider all of them for ALL ROLES, not just the ones the narrow-minded, insular, inwardly-focused, self-aggrandizing white writers and directors envision for themselves.

The Academy is held behind the times for one reason and one reason only: It’s members are served the meal that studios think they want. Their supposed tastes are sussed out and catered to (The Danish Girl). Subject matter is softened in order to make it more palatable for “them.” And yes — just like magazines routinely put white actors on the cover, just like prime time television mostly stars white actors, and just like all of the international hits tend to be anchored about a singular white male — it always comes down to economics.

Very few people are willing to risk losing money to take a chance. Kathleen Kennedy and JJ Abrams took that risk this year, but since they had so many millions of hardcore pre-sold ticket buyers they knew they could. One of the best Oscar consultants around was handling Beasts of No Nation. Despite that movie being championed by many, namely me and a few others, despite Hollywood coming out with parties and high-profile big-name supporters – at the end of the day, there was no way Netflix was breaking through on that kind of grand scale. Maybe they will someday but it wasn’t going to be this year.

Would Beasts of No Nation gotten in if it had been backed by a major studio? Probably. Would any major studio take it on? Nope. Why? Because of the money concerns. Our star system is mostly built around white gods who seem to be the ones who sell best internationally. This will require some brave revolutionary tactics to fix. I can promise you, next year the same barriers are going to hit – they are already beginning to be with Birth of a Nation. The pushback, the guilt, the baggage.

Halle Berry won Best Actress in 2001. Fifteen years ago. How many black actresses have been nominated since then?

Gabourey Sidibe in Precious (impoverished, abused)
Viola Davis in The Help (a maid in Jim Crow south)
Quvenzhané Wallis (homeless hurricane survivor after Katrina)

What ordinarily builds a best actress winner is fuckability, likability, admiration — they are usually the prom queen for the season. Somehow, Halle Berry managed to “pass” and subvert that image for one brief moment, beating out Sissy Spacek (who had already won an Oscar).  What are we really talking about here? We’re talking about an entire system of celebrities, of fans, of money, of Oscars that is rigged against black actors from the outset. Or you could say, rigged in favor of the white actors from the outset because the same neglect stands in the way of Asian and Hispanic actresses.

I have a feeling that the Spirit Awards later today might offer a respite, just as the SAG awards have done when they awarded The Help, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer wins on the same night. These things only happen when people make a fuss about them. Sadly, once that fuss dies down, things go back to “normal.”