The 88th Annual Academy Awards - In Black and White
Here are the nominees for Best Actor in a Lead Role:
Bryan Cranston for Trumbo
Matt Damon for The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant
Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl
The nominees for Best Actress in a Lead Role are:
Cate Blanchett for Carol
Brie Larson for Room
Jennifer Lawrence for Joy
Charlotte Rampling for 45 Years
Saorise Ronan for Brooklyn
The nominees for Best Actor in a Supporting Role are:
Christian Bale in The Big Short
Tom Hardy for The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight
Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone for Creed
And finally, the nominees for Best Actress in a Supporting Role are:
Jennifer Jason Leigh for The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara for Carol
Rachel McAdams for Spotlight
Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet for Steve Jobs
We all know the one thing every single one of these 20 actors have in common. They are all Caucasian. 12 of the 20 have something else in common. They have been nominated for an Academy Award for portraying a real life person.
Now does that explain why there isn't a single non-White actor or actress among the list of the nominees? Of course not. The explanation is a confluence of factors. First and foremost is that the people who have the power to greenlight movies in Hollywood appear to believe that for the most part that White actors will results in higher box office receipts than non-White actors will.
Some will say that the recent success of Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens disproves this notion. One movie that would have done boffo box office with little regard to who was cast in the key roles anyway doesn't disprove a thing. Bear in mind that we're talking about people who really don't give a damn about who is cast in the films they fund as long as those films make money. Directors care. People whose focus is the art of movie making care. People whose focus is on the bottom line don't see black and white. They see ink. Black ink and red ink. And too much red ink means your career in Hollywood is on the fast track to Nowheresville.
There are limits as to who you can cast in films when you're telling the stories of real people. Denzel Washington and Will Smith are outstanding talents, but they couldn't play the role of Hugh Glass in The Revenant. I think Ken Watanabe is a genius but you couldn't cast him as the lead in Steve Jobs.
Now when it comes to fictional characters, there is no good reason that roles can't be cast without focusing on the racial origins of such characters. I'd love to see Idris Elba as James Bond. I think he'd do a great job. When fans of the Marvel Comic Books that are the origins of the character of Nick Fury heard that Samuel L. Jackson had been cast in this role, they cried foul. Too damn bad. It's a fictional character. Stan Lee created the character and he apparently he did not have a problem with it. I would have much preferred to see a man cast as Jack Reacher who had the physical presence of the character from the novels, even if that meant casting a non-white actor.
But I don't make those decisions about greenlighting movies. The people that do have this apparent bigotry in making such decisions and we can accurately label it as systemic racism all we like. It won't change a thing.
No one has a constitutional right to be a movie star. If a producer wants to cast Jennifer Lawrence instead of a non-white actress in a role in a movie he or she is putting up $150 million to make, that's his right. The EEOC can't tell him that person they must cast a person of color in the lead role. It might well be a good business decision to do so, but it's more akin to leading a horse to water and trying to make it don a thong bikini.
Acting, writing and directing aren't jobs like bank teller, automobile mechanic and so on. We can have discussions about which performers can do roles that were done by others but the bottom line is we just don't have the right to force the money people to treat everyone fairly. Nor can we force an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences that still remains primarily a "good old boy's club" for older boys when all is said and done; to recognize and extol the virtues of fine acting, writing and directing by people of color. No matter that their doing so would mean they would finally be doing the right thing.
Bryan Cranston for Trumbo
Matt Damon for The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant
Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl
The nominees for Best Actress in a Lead Role are:
Cate Blanchett for Carol
Brie Larson for Room
Jennifer Lawrence for Joy
Charlotte Rampling for 45 Years
Saorise Ronan for Brooklyn
The nominees for Best Actor in a Supporting Role are:
Christian Bale in The Big Short
Tom Hardy for The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight
Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone for Creed
And finally, the nominees for Best Actress in a Supporting Role are:
Jennifer Jason Leigh for The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara for Carol
Rachel McAdams for Spotlight
Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet for Steve Jobs
We all know the one thing every single one of these 20 actors have in common. They are all Caucasian. 12 of the 20 have something else in common. They have been nominated for an Academy Award for portraying a real life person.
Now does that explain why there isn't a single non-White actor or actress among the list of the nominees? Of course not. The explanation is a confluence of factors. First and foremost is that the people who have the power to greenlight movies in Hollywood appear to believe that for the most part that White actors will results in higher box office receipts than non-White actors will.
Some will say that the recent success of Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens disproves this notion. One movie that would have done boffo box office with little regard to who was cast in the key roles anyway doesn't disprove a thing. Bear in mind that we're talking about people who really don't give a damn about who is cast in the films they fund as long as those films make money. Directors care. People whose focus is the art of movie making care. People whose focus is on the bottom line don't see black and white. They see ink. Black ink and red ink. And too much red ink means your career in Hollywood is on the fast track to Nowheresville.
There are limits as to who you can cast in films when you're telling the stories of real people. Denzel Washington and Will Smith are outstanding talents, but they couldn't play the role of Hugh Glass in The Revenant. I think Ken Watanabe is a genius but you couldn't cast him as the lead in Steve Jobs.
Now when it comes to fictional characters, there is no good reason that roles can't be cast without focusing on the racial origins of such characters. I'd love to see Idris Elba as James Bond. I think he'd do a great job. When fans of the Marvel Comic Books that are the origins of the character of Nick Fury heard that Samuel L. Jackson had been cast in this role, they cried foul. Too damn bad. It's a fictional character. Stan Lee created the character and he apparently he did not have a problem with it. I would have much preferred to see a man cast as Jack Reacher who had the physical presence of the character from the novels, even if that meant casting a non-white actor.
But I don't make those decisions about greenlighting movies. The people that do have this apparent bigotry in making such decisions and we can accurately label it as systemic racism all we like. It won't change a thing.
No one has a constitutional right to be a movie star. If a producer wants to cast Jennifer Lawrence instead of a non-white actress in a role in a movie he or she is putting up $150 million to make, that's his right. The EEOC can't tell him that person they must cast a person of color in the lead role. It might well be a good business decision to do so, but it's more akin to leading a horse to water and trying to make it don a thong bikini.
Acting, writing and directing aren't jobs like bank teller, automobile mechanic and so on. We can have discussions about which performers can do roles that were done by others but the bottom line is we just don't have the right to force the money people to treat everyone fairly. Nor can we force an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences that still remains primarily a "good old boy's club" for older boys when all is said and done; to recognize and extol the virtues of fine acting, writing and directing by people of color. No matter that their doing so would mean they would finally be doing the right thing.
posted by me at 2:52 PM
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