Black boycott for an Oscar too white – Granma International

The actress Jada Pinkett Smith,” people of color should refrain from participating in mass? “. Photo taken from revistacuore.com

Two consecutive years without a single black actor nominee Oscar every category is too much for an artistic community that knows as much about values ​​as paw lame Hollywood, the Academy consists of 93% white, 76% of men, and an average age of 63 years .

That is why black artists are threatening to boycott the delivery of the statuettes, which will take place on February 28.

The last time a similar situation occurred was in 1997 and 1998, but wins Twelve years of slavery, two classic style -filme years ago, as he likes to academics, did think that a long history of injustice (49 editions with only white actors nominated) far behind.

Now, in the heat of homage to the memory of Martin Luther King, director Spike Lee announced that neither he nor his wife would attend the gala. And ironically he asked: “How is it possible that for the second consecutive year all the nominated actors are white? Not to mention the other categories. Forty white actors in two years and none of ‘taste’? Can we not do anything? “

Actress Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of Will Smith, wrote several messages of protest on Facebook suggesting that the Oscar should be boycotted.

” In Oscars … people of color is always welcome to give awards, including for the show, but we are rarely recognized by our artistic achievements, Should black people refrain from participating in mass? “.

The protests are supported by the fact that there are few black artists who had a year of brilliant performances, including Michael B. Jordan, Will Smith, Idris Elba and Samuel L. Jackson.

Now in 2015, the same situation did arise in social networks OscarsSoWhite label (Oscars as white), a term that now grows. OscarsStillSoWhite (Oscars still as white)

David Oyelowo, star of the magnificent Selma, said last year his dissatisfaction with the lack of black players in the Oscar nominations 2015. The singer of Martin Luther King Jr, who had applauded not just for his performance as the leader of the civil rights, then said that “generally blacks are more celebrated when we are subordinates, when we are not leaders or kings, or the center of our own narrative.”

While it is true that the history of the Academy Award has been fraught with controversy, none has been as real as motivated by racism that since the beginning of the film was present in the most diverse ways. In the latest installment, there were many that gave the director Ava DuVernay
(Selma) as the first black woman to win an Oscar for direction, but the Academy ignored loudly and left the “feat” only hands a white director, Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker, a hymn to the US invasion in Iraq.

In 88 years of the Oscars, only 15 black artists have won the acting award, five of them the best actor-actress and the remaining ten in supporting performances. Three unique black filmmakers were nominated in the category of best director, but none managed to take the statue.

Before the danger of boycott for the Oscar 2016, the president of the Academy of Hollywood, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, He promised “big changes”. He congratulated the nominees, but also said he was distressed and distraught “by the lack of inclusion.”

Isaacs said that “drastic measures to change the composition of our membership” will be taken and said that in the the group extended invitations in coming years will be “a much needed diversity.”

Meanwhile, messages continue to boycott.