One Solution to the #OscarsSoWhite Problem

[Skywalker4eva]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfN_u9iDc10

He made some interesting points. The solution would seem to solve problems although maybe casting more minorities in roles would help.

[biostem]

I would tackle things from a different perspective - Hollywood, in general, may be too hesitant to take a chance on minority actors/actresses/directors/etc for movies, so let's have some of the richest, most powerful/influential people of color come together, form a movie studio, and put their money where their mouth is - put out some groundbreaking, popular, and lucrative films, starring and directed by minorities, and Hollywood will follow suit.

The various movie studios are for-profit companies - they will produce a product that will sell. Demonstrate that you can create a product that will provide a significant return on investment, and Hollywood will be quick to adopt such practices.

[Joun_Lord]

I would tackle things from a different perspective - Hollywood, in general, may be too hesitant to take a chance on minority actors/actresses/directors/etc for movies, so let's have some of the richest, most powerful/influential people of color come together, form a movie studio, and put their money where their mouth is - put out some groundbreaking, popular, and lucrative films, starring and directed by minorities, and Hollywood will follow suit.

The various movie studios are for-profit companies - they will produce a product that will sell. Demonstrate that you can create a product that will provide a significant return on investment, and Hollywood will be quick to adopt such practices.

The problem isn't the fact there are no movies/actor/directors/movies/whatevers with minorities. There are plenty that make money, are popular, and might even be considered groundbreaking. Tyler Perry makes a career of making popular and financially successful movies (which my mom loves for some reason, we are part black supposedly) where he as a black man dresses like a black woman, movies like Selma last year and Creed and Straight Outta Compton this year were critical successes and presumably financial successes and were directed by and stared black people. Ildris Elba starred in Beast of No Nation with a asian director and Ildris Elba is always awesome and I totally don't have a man-crush on him shut up. There were minority and female actors and actresses who had acclaimed roles in movies that were "whiter" like Woll Smith in Concussion (and his son in nothing which deserves a award in itself) or Oscar Issac in The Force Sleeps In or Ex Machina (which was said to be good despite not being about the comic book).

There were people who could have been nominated but weren't for whatever reason. You could say it was because they weren't good enough, which would certainly be a valid point if they for some of those movies they didn't actually go out of their way to find the white dudes in them to nom. Creed they nominated Steroid American Sly Stallone, Compton they nominated the white writers. So clearly something about those movies were worthy enough for attention, its just they decided it was only the white people.

And I could see were people say some of those other movies or actors might not be worthy of nomination and they shouldn't just give the nomination to them to fill a quota. Some historical sticklers had problems with last years Selma's portrayal of LBJ or "black washing" the movement to take out any of the white or jewish contributions (can't comment on either's accuracy as I haven't seen the movie, just repeating some of the controversy surrounding it) or Chi-raq's usage of real world deaths for entertainment (not even getting into the problems people have with the director) and other movies just might not have been considered good enough to make the cut.

But again clearly some of the movies WERE worthy, its just they ignored the minorities (are whites supposed to be called a minority in the future when white people are supposed to no longer be a majority or what, racial terminology is probably going to be confusing pretty soon) in favor of the white people. Which I guess is why people are so pissed. It seems like a deliberate exclusion of non-whites.

[Balrog]

There were people who could have been nominated but weren't for whatever reason. You could say it was because they weren't good enough, which would certainly be a valid point if they for some of those movies they didn't actually go out of their way to find the white dudes in them to nom. Creed they nominated Steroid American Sly Stallone, Compton they nominated the white writers. So clearly something about those movies were worthy enough for attention, its just they decided it was only the white people.

Perhaps the most obvious answer is the limited number of spaces? I mean, except for Best Picture (which is still fairly restrictive), the other categories have a pretty hard limit on the number of nominees that are allowed and (for now at least) none of them are reserved for 'positive discrimination' purposes. Depending on how the voting went, Michael B Jordan might well have been the "sixth" nominee for Best Actor had such a space been open; he also might have gotten into the top five had it been a different year.

As for Stallone he seems to be raking in the Best Supporting awards from the other contests, so either everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid or there was something to his performance.

[Lord Revan]

I wonder how much this has to do with the Academy membership as well IIRC the members of different motion picture guilds are the ones who nominate and vote on the categories relevant for their guild.

[Civil War Man]

I wonder how much this has to do with the Academy membership as well IIRC the members of different motion picture guilds are the ones who nominate and vote on the categories relevant for their guild.

Apparently one rule change that's being made is that an Academy member has to have been active in the industry within the past 10 years in order for their Oscar vote to count. That kind of change won't fix actively racist members who don't vote for minorities as a way of excluding them, but it has the chance of shaking things up by forcing voting members to keep up with the changes in the industry.

One of the reasons that Oscar Bait is such a cliche is that there are a bunch of dinosaurs in the Academy who haven't worked on a movie in decades and keep voting for the Oscar Bait because those are the only movies they ever bother watching. If those members are forced to either get involved in the industry again (and as a result experiencing how it has changed over time) or stop voting in the Oscars, then that could at least be a step in the right direction.

[Benny the Ball]

Another major factor is Hollywood whitewashing, which John Oliver's show asks How Is This Still A Thing:

Even when there are potentially academy award-winning nonwhite roles, they're still sometimes given to white actors because, as the video succinctly puts it, "fuck you."

[The Romulan Republic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfN_u9iDc10

He made some interesting points. The solution would seem to solve problems although maybe casting more minorities in roles would help.

Casting/hiring more minorities would help.

What would also help is increasing the number of nominees in each category, I think, like they did for Best Picture a while back.

Why not make it a straight ten nominees per category, for example?

[JLTucker]

Ildris Elba starred in Beast of No Nation with a asian director and Ildris Elba is always awesome and I totally don't have a man-crush on him shut up.

He was just Stringer Bell in Africa. Deserved no accolades.

[Grumman]

Ildris Elba starred in Beast of No Nation with a asian director and Ildris Elba is always awesome and I totally don't have a man-crush on him shut up.

He was just Stringer Bell in Africa. Deserved no accolades.

I don't know whether that's true or not but even if he did, is it really that surprising if people don't properly appreciate an actor's role as a child rapist?

[Skywalker4eva]

One more thing came to mind. If they had more roles for minorities, the nomination field would be more evenly distributed but that's up to the screenwriters/directors I guess.

[Broomstick]

It's up to whomever is doing the actual actor hiring.

There are a lot of parts where the race of the character is a moot point, irrelevant to the storyline, and could be played by anyone, even by either gender (Ripley in Alien was originally written as a man, for example). The public is ready for it - you get characters like Nick Fury, with a couple of decades of being portrayed as a white man, and Heimdall, a Norse god, being played by black men and being well received by the fan base. When they cast the revised Battlestar Galactica they clearly didn't give a fuck about the prior race (or even gender) of various characters. A lot of contemporary drama/action/comedy could likewise be played by people of any race. A lot of hiring decisions are, frankly, made out of habit, a habit that harkens back to the days when minorities where openly and systematically excluded from roles.

Until minorities get the roles where they can compete on an equal footing the Oscars will continue to be "The White Peoples' Choice Awards" (Thank you for that line, Chris Rock).

[Elheru Aran]

How under-represented are minorities in film, versus how they're under-represented at the actual awards?

It does strike me that, while there aren't as many as there should be, there are still plenty of film roles with minority actors. You have token minorities in all the horror movies, the cliche 'black best friend' in chick-flicks, and half the Disney family films these days (like that Kevin Costner movie a few years ago about cross-country runners) have a fairly decent to significant minority presence.

Obviously it's highly offensive to basically completely ignore minority roles in films when it comes to giving out awards, but is their actual presence in film catching up to how they're present in society as well, is the question I'm asking, I guess...

[Broomstick]

It's not just being background actors or minor characters - if you want a Best Actor Oscar you have to be in a leading role. If black actors aren't even considered for such roles they will be very, very much a minority in the awards ceremonies.

[biostem]

It's not just being background actors or minor characters - if you want a Best Actor Oscar you have to be in a leading role. If black actors aren't even considered for such roles they will be very, very much a minority in the awards ceremonies.

So how do you address this? Surely you wouldn't be in favor of lead actor/actress quotas.

[Broomstick]

No, not quotas.

But you can really tell the difference between enterprises that hire based on ability vs. those hiring strictly on looks or names.

Marvel Studios is actually a great example of this: prior superhero movies tended to rely on the draw of a "big name" star, which often didn't work out so well. Marvel has been casting lesser known, or nearly-unknown, people in lead roles and relying on the story, and they have also had no problem with hiring non-white people for major roles, such as Samuel L. Jackson for Nick Fury (which actually occurred first in the printed comics). Or making some effort to cast appropriately where race does matter - Skye/Daisy in Agents of Shield, for example is half Caucasian, half Chinese and Chloe Bennet (nee Chloe Wang) actually is half white and half Chinese - as opposed to the Kung Fu franchise that used a white guy of primarily Irish descent in the title role, playing someone half-Chinese. Seriously, other than Hawaii, if you're going to find half-Chinese people in the US it will be California and I have no doubt that there were many capable half-Chinese actors who could have played that role at the time who were passed over. Marvel hired Idris Elba to play Heimdall, as noted in a prior post which was extremely non-traditional but it worked. Claire Temple in Daredevil (Netflix version) is loosely based on "The Night Nurse", originally a blond white girl, but Rosario Dawson who plays her is clearly multi-racial (Cuban/Puerto Rican/white - and the first two could be quite a mix all on their own). For that matter, Kingpin went from white (and sometimes ambiguously brown) in the comics to black in the movie version of Daredevil to unequivocally white in the TV series - an instance where a white actor was a good fit for a character which didn't have to be white, and hasn't always been white. Not quotas but ability and flexibility in casting. Which is not to say Marvel Studios is perfect, but they're certainly making casts that are more reflective of modern diversity. A lot of it is not being fixated on race as an absolute because of X numbers of years in a different medium, or a prior version in the same medium.

Or, as I noted, the new Battlestar Galactica clearly wasn't tied to the old version's racial make-up of the characters. Or gender for that matter (Starbuck went from male to female, and Boomer went from black male to Asian female). That's an example of the flexibility that's needed.

That's not achieved through quotas, it requires a mindset where the casting person/agency can see past skin color. That's not going to be achieved overnight (honestly, it will probably be another generation or two) but it can change.

[biostem]

Broomstick, you provide several good examples, but my question is mainly *how* do you get mainstream Hollywood to that point. Let's assume, just for a moment, that there won't be any sort of law or quota imposed, so if their current practices are still profitable, how or why should/would these studios change their behaviors?

[Gandalf]

It's not just being background actors or minor characters - if you want a Best Actor Oscar you have to be in a leading role. If black actors aren't even considered for such roles they will be very, very much a minority in the awards ceremonies.

So how do you address this? Surely you wouldn't be in favor of lead actor/actress quotas.

That comes down to the makeup of the selection committee. As of 2014, it is 94% white, 76% male, and on average 63 years old, and it shows. That's why the awards that have gone to African Americans have tended to be for "black" roles that couldn't be cast with a white guy, such as Jamie Foxx's performance in Ray or Denzel Washington in Glory. It's quite reflective of a voting body who were born in the early fifties. If the academy wants to not have this all happen again next year, they should presumably change the rules as to how they choose who gets to vote.

Casting is another matter entirely, best not get into that now.

[TheFeniX]

Samuel L. Jackson for Nick Fury (which actually occurred first in the printed comics).

I can't give Marvel too much credit considering Jackson had enough draw to merely mention wanting to be a Jedi in the new Star Wars movie during an interview and got a phone call almost immediately. He could probably give a mean enough look to retroactively change all references to Nick Fury into a black man. But even though the man can sell tickets and is one of the best actors I've seen on screen: how many leads does he get? How many black actors with huge names, but don't happen to be Will Smith, get lead roles? You know, unless it's a biopic about a black man or a movie designed specifically to target African-Americans?

For that matter, Kingpin went from white (and sometimes ambiguously brown) in the comics to black in the movie version of Daredevil to unequivocally white in the TV series - an instance where a white actor was a good fit for a character which didn't have to be white, and hasn't always been white.

Probably helped a lot they cast the late Michael Clarke Duncan in that role.

I don't want to beat up on Marvel here, but they seem more than willing to cast relatively unknown actors, such as Hugh Jackman and James Marsden in X-Men for just one example, for predominately white roles. At the time, I don't recall either actor being on anyone's radar, but it's been almost 15 years, so correct me if I'm wrong.

But when it comes to minority actors, they tend to stick with the big names. They went with (ugh) Halle Berry for Storm: obviously on name power alone. Not exactly going out on a limb there and they relegated Storm to almost a background character.

Lucasarts/Disney seem to be willing to take more risks on minority actors for a fuck-huge IP than other studios. Who is John Boyega? He's done what? What other studio would do something like that with a billion dollar IP? Who would do something like even on a big name minority actor? Maybe my age is showing because I don't get out to movies that often anymore, but I can still only come up with Will Smith.

[Broomstick]

Broomstick, you provide several good examples, but my question is mainly *how* do you get mainstream Hollywood to that point. Let's assume, just for a moment, that there won't be any sort of law or quota imposed, so if their current practices are still profitable, how or why should/would these studios change their behaviors?

That comes down to the makeup of the selection committee. As of 2014, it is 94% white, 76% male, and on average 63 years old, and it shows. That's why the awards that have gone to African Americans have tended to be for "black" roles that couldn't be cast with a white guy, such as Jamie Foxx's performance in Ray or Denzel Washington in Glory. It's quite reflective of a voting body who were born in the early fifties. If the academy wants to not have this all happen again next year, they should presumably change the rules as to how they choose who gets to vote.

Casting is another matter entirely, best not get into that now.

^ There's the other half of the problem – the selections committee. That composition is also why women middle-aged and up either can't get work or feel pressured to get surgery to try to keep the illusion of youth. It's why you get 20-30 year differences in the ages of leading men vs. women. As currently composed, the committee identifies with white leads and wants the guy to get a young girl to fuck.

And it does affect casting – if you're hoping for professional awards and recognition and you know there's no way in hell you'd get one if cast 50 year old half black half Maori Shaniqua Jones as your leading lady Ms. Jones is operating at a severe disadvantage in regards to other actress auditioning for the role.

How you get it to change is by pointing to endeavors that ARE profitable, productions that engage in non-traditional casting and make money. By pointing to TV shows with black leads that have been popular with all demographics (all the way back to the Flip Wilson show, 1970-74, which most of you are too young to remember) and profitable for studios. By pointing to advertising, for Og's sake, where more and more minorities are cast to sell things to everyone, and for damn sure they wouldn't be doing that if there wasn't money being made.

And yes, by changing the make-up of the nominating committee. How you go about that in an equitable manner I'm not sure.

Samuel L. Jackson for Nick Fury (which actually occurred first in the printed comics).

I can't give Marvel too much credit considering Jackson had enough draw to merely mention wanting to be a Jedi in the new Star Wars movie during an interview and got a phone call almost immediately. He could probably give a mean enough look to retroactively change all references to Nick Fury into a black man. But even though the man can sell tickets and is one of the best actors I've seen on screen: how many leads does he get? How many black actors with huge names, but don't happen to be Will Smith, get lead roles? You know, unless it's a biopic about a black man or a movie designed specifically to target African-Americans?

Whoopi Goldberg had quite a bit to say about that – she's won an Oscar, has a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, and finds it's very, very hard to get roles despite all that. Yesterday I caught a bit of her on TV and she emphasized that black actors don't want quota, they want equal opportunities and a level playing field.

Jackson is an outlier – and really, he's a good thing because 75 years ago NO black man would have been in his position. It's time to move from token black superstars to, outside of productions where race is a crucial plot point, to a situation where black actors like Jackson and Goldberg get as many lead role offers as their white counterparts. That's not going to happen overnight and can't happen by decree. One thing the general public can do is speak up, on social media, in what they purchase or pay to see. Money talks.

For that matter, Kingpin went from white (and sometimes ambiguously brown) in the comics to black in the movie version of Daredevil to unequivocally white in the TV series - an instance where a white actor was a good fit for a character which didn't have to be white, and hasn't always been white.

Probably helped a lot they cast the late Michael Clarke Duncan in that role.

Duncan didn't gain prominence and household-name recognition until The Green Mile (for which he deserved the Oscar and not just the nomination, but that's just my opinion). Both roles required a Big Scary Guy, and in the case of The Green Mile that Big Scary Guy had to be black because race factored into the narrative. Prior to that, he was a minor actor. At the time of Daredevil!movie there was some controversy at casting Duncan in that role given the long history of the character being white in the comics (although originally the writer wrote him as black, but changed his race before it went to press – it was, after all, 1967). MUCH different than today when people have more of a tendency to go “oh, you cast a guy of X race/ethnicity for that? Huh, yeah, that could work...” Duncan was cast for The Green Mile over 17 years ago, for Daredevil!movie more than 13 years ago... there has been some progress since then. You have to keep the timeline in mind when discussing these things.

I don't want to beat up on Marvel here, but they seem more than willing to cast relatively unknown actors, such as Hugh Jackman and James Marsden in X-Men for just one example, for predominately white roles. At the time, I don't recall either actor being on anyone's radar, but it's been almost 15 years, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Jackman and Marsden weren't big stars at the time. Wolverine was Jackman's break-out role, it was what gained him sufficient recognition to become an international star. Marsden... not quite so much, he's still a B-list actor. Patrick Stewart and Halle Berry were the big-name stars for that movie, and again, that was 16 years ago the movie was released, meaning the decisions about those things were made more than 17 years ago, in an era when studios were still uncertain there was money in these comic book-based ventures and there was still a notion that you needed big names stars to bring people in to the movies.

But when it comes to minority actors, they tend to stick with the big names. They went with (ugh) Halle Berry for Storm: obviously on name power alone. Not exactly going out on a limb there and they relegated Storm to almost a background character.

Executive meddling, which is well known to have happened on the first trio of X-movies. They could have given Storm a more prominent role but chose not to, and by the third movie Berry was almost written out due to combination of ExMed and Berry's own dissatisfaction – they would have been better off casting a less known black woman for the role but, again, there was a notion that you needed big name stars for those roles. I recently re-watched those movies (like, last week recent) and while they were break-through blockbusters for the time they don't compare well to the current crop of Marvel movies like Iron Man, Thor, Avengers, and Guardians of the Galaxy where the multi-lead ensembles are written/handled much better and casting choices less “Hollywood”. As I said, things have changed over time. You can really tell the difference between the X-movies, where Fox Studios has major control and the executives (mostly older white men) meddle and the MCU where Marvel calls more of the shots and certain choices are much less traditional Hollywood.

(For X-men, as just an example, they could have easily cast a black women in the role of Mystique - for goodness sakes, the character is blue and a shapeshifter, any race could play her. I could see Zoe Saldana in the role, for example - heck, she's played a blue character in Avatar and a green one in Guardians of the Galaxy in addition to just being her brown self in Pirates of the Carribean and other movies. For that matter, I could also see Zoe Saldana as Storm)

I'm not pointing to MCU as a paragon of virtue, it's an example of change in the right direction. I'm hoping in 20 years the choices made there look like the choices made 20 years ago.

Two generations ago the only roles for blacks and minorities were as extras, background, and very, very rarely as a sidekick to a white lead. Now, we do have minorities in, if not leads, at least significant roles other than sidekicks and the occasional lead. This is all part of the progression that needs to occur. If you don't have those secondary minority characters you won't have actors in the pipeline for leading roles. Now, we really do have minority actors capable of being leads that appel across demographics and it's time for them to be considered for roles and for the white-washing to stop.

[K. A. Pital]

The Academy is a private organization. Its attitude can be regrettable, but I am not sure it can or should be fixed.

In general, I suppose if something is to be done it is the spread of non-American, non-white cinematic production beyond the Academy's scope of activities. Give it time and popularity, and it will mean money. Once it means money, even the Academy will no longer be able to ignore it.

[Broomstick]

Frankly, part of the problem is that Oscars are so very prominent when there are other, competeing awards like Golden Globes. It wouldn't hurt if they became less important.

[General Zod]

The Oscars aren't going to change unless enough A-listers start boycotting them to pressure them into doing so. Unfortunately most A-Listers don't have any incentive to boycott.

[The Romulan Republic]

I imagine they'll change gradually as demographics and the overall culture do.

Or enough bad press and people boycotting them can push them.

[General Zod]

I imagine they'll change gradually as demographics and the overall culture do.

Or enough bad press and people boycotting them can push them.

Since they're a private organization the people in charge is tightly controlled with an iron grip, so the demographics won't have much effect aside from the occasional pity-fuck of an Oscar award.