The 88th Annual Academy Awards in Black and White - Part II
I shared to my FB page a news story on how Jada Pinkett Smith and her husband Will Smith would be boycotting the Academy Awards ceremony next month. One of my friends posted the following comment:
"If African Americans only make up 13.2% of the population shouldn't they get on average 13.2% of roles in Hollywood and in turn 13.2% of the nominations? Seems to me they are exceeding that number already. Am I missing something? Seems JPS might be a little bitter that her husband wasn't nominated for Best Actor in Concussion."
This fallacy is worthy of a blog post. Yes my friend, you are indeed missing something. The reality of the situation. The Ralph J. Bunche Center for African-American Studies at UCLA published a study in 2014. The study examined a number of factors, including the share of lead roles in theatrically released films that went to minorities. Using 2010 Census data which showed that 36.3% of the population of the U. S. is "minorities." Since minority actors were cast in only 10.5% of lead roles in the 172 films reviewed in 2011, it can be concluded that minority actors are grossly underrepresented in terms of their percentage of our population. Women, who make up a much larger slice of the population were also underrepresented, as they received only 25.6% of the lead roles in those films.
I did my own study of the last 20 years of Oscar nominations. If we apply the 2010 Census data to this study, since there were 100 nominations in each of the 4 acting categories over the past two decades, there should be roughly 36 nominations of minority actors during that period in each category; using my friend's "logic" (and I use the term very loosely). Here is how the numbers came out:
Best Lead Actor - 14 minority nominations, 2 wins
Best Lead Actress - 9 minority nominations, 1 win
Best Supporting Actor - 10 minority nominations, 4 wins
Best Supporting Actress - 14 minority nominations, 5 wins
Again, following my friends logic, 36% of each of the 20 years of wins should have gone to a minority. That's 7+ wins per category over two decades and only one of the four categories came anywhere near 7+. In terms of nominations, the number of minority nominations isn't even in the same zip code as the population demographics my friend cited.
The truth is that only one thing matters in the minds of those who make the decisions about which movies get made. It's a three letter acronym that I will share in the third and final part of my look at the Oscars in Black and White.
"If African Americans only make up 13.2% of the population shouldn't they get on average 13.2% of roles in Hollywood and in turn 13.2% of the nominations? Seems to me they are exceeding that number already. Am I missing something? Seems JPS might be a little bitter that her husband wasn't nominated for Best Actor in Concussion."
This fallacy is worthy of a blog post. Yes my friend, you are indeed missing something. The reality of the situation. The Ralph J. Bunche Center for African-American Studies at UCLA published a study in 2014. The study examined a number of factors, including the share of lead roles in theatrically released films that went to minorities. Using 2010 Census data which showed that 36.3% of the population of the U. S. is "minorities." Since minority actors were cast in only 10.5% of lead roles in the 172 films reviewed in 2011, it can be concluded that minority actors are grossly underrepresented in terms of their percentage of our population. Women, who make up a much larger slice of the population were also underrepresented, as they received only 25.6% of the lead roles in those films.
I did my own study of the last 20 years of Oscar nominations. If we apply the 2010 Census data to this study, since there were 100 nominations in each of the 4 acting categories over the past two decades, there should be roughly 36 nominations of minority actors during that period in each category; using my friend's "logic" (and I use the term very loosely). Here is how the numbers came out:
Best Lead Actor - 14 minority nominations, 2 wins
Best Lead Actress - 9 minority nominations, 1 win
Best Supporting Actor - 10 minority nominations, 4 wins
Best Supporting Actress - 14 minority nominations, 5 wins
Again, following my friends logic, 36% of each of the 20 years of wins should have gone to a minority. That's 7+ wins per category over two decades and only one of the four categories came anywhere near 7+. In terms of nominations, the number of minority nominations isn't even in the same zip code as the population demographics my friend cited.
The truth is that only one thing matters in the minds of those who make the decisions about which movies get made. It's a three letter acronym that I will share in the third and final part of my look at the Oscars in Black and White.
posted by me at 2:04 PM
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