ChatterBank0 min ago
Colour Or Performance.
Basically what Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith want are black actors and actresses to be nominated and awarded just because they are black, surely this would lower the worth of the Oscar awarded.
would they need to change the wording.?
The award for the best actor in a leading role goes to ?..... to
The award for the best black person in a leading role goes to
http://
Dave.
would they need to change the wording.?
The award for the best actor in a leading role goes to ?..... to
The award for the best black person in a leading role goes to
http://
Dave.
Answers
What! the oscars without Jada Pinkett Smith! I bet they call it all off ;-))
12:00 Tue 19th Jan 2016
There are several black playwrights, one Charles Fuller said when interviewed; “I write plays for black people and my plays are about people, not just black-white confrontations. I am concerned about history and about human beings. I also believe in the heroic. My heroes are those black people, most of them without big names, who have been deeply involved with moving our people ahead in the ways they know best.”
So, no room for white actors then. This PC stuff sure gets complicated!
So, no room for white actors then. This PC stuff sure gets complicated!
One of the biggest problems about this issue is how everyone seems to respond by -- well, by the title of the thread, or some such, ie by this idea that, "clearly", the Oscar Nominations are entirely meritocratic, and so "clearly" adding a black actor would be mere tokenism, and clearly therefore it's their own fault for not being good enough.
I find this suggestion fairly troubling. It seems fairly naive, for one thing. Pretty much nowhere in the world is ever truly meritocratic. Personal connections, for example, may come into play, ie often who you know is just as important as how talented you are (if not more so); or even personal assessments about character, likability etc. Character judgements are often based on very quick, even subconscious processes, and certainly are not meritocratic in nature.
More importantly it is, or rather should be, seen as an utterly false dichotomy. Skin colour is absolutely no indicator on its own of talent, be it acting or any other skill. From which, it follows that the number of black actors capable of winning, or being nominated for, an Oscar should be roughly in proportion to the relative population. And, if year-on-year this is not the case, then you should start to wonder why. Your first stopping point on this journey should certainly *not* be "well, they must all be useless then". I wouldn't necessarily want to stop at the "the nominating committee are a bunch of racists" station either. The issue is complicated by other concerns. For example, John Boyega turning in a fine performance in Star Wars 7, but that entire franchise is clearly looked down on from anything other than a technical viewpoint by the Academy (the seven films have picked up 30 nominations but only one of these was for acting) -- so his being overlooked is almost certainly nothing to do with racism but to not being in the right role to start with to pick up an award. Similarly Samuel L Jackson, another fine actor, has received exactly one nomination ever from his 100+ films spread over 30+ years. On the other hand, a lot of these films aren't going to attract much attention either -- as Nick Fury in the Marvel Comics films he's going to be overlooked primarily because of that. (Will Smith is the same -- I can only think of one film of his that I might expect him to have a reasonable shout of an acting award.) So it could be that Black actors aren't being given the roles they need to do themselves enough justice in terms of awards recognition.
On the other hand, you look at films like Django Unchained, a critically-acclaimed film about life in the Deep South of the USA before the Civil War, starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L Jackson and written by Quentin Tarantino. Various acting nominations, ignoring those from the NAACP and Black Reel awards that are specific for black actors, were divided up as follows: Waltz 18 (winning 8 including an Oscar), DiCaprio 6 (winning one), Foxx 2 (winning none) and Jackson 1. Kerry Washington, the lead actress, got no nominations other than from the NAACP and Black Reel. It will probably surprise nobody based on that information alone that Kerry Washington and Jamie Foxx are black actors, while Christoph Waltz and DiCaprio are white. This is not to disparage the undoubted talents of Waltz and DiCaprio. But one does wonder why so few accolades went to the (black) leads in the film. (I haven't seen the film, so it could also be that Jamie Foxx was genuinely rubbish in it.)
There are certainly plenty of talented Black actors out there, but for a host of reasons they seem to struggle to get much mainstream awards recognition. It isn't necessarily deliberate, bona fide, "black people are useless" racism -- more, a system that ends up making it that much harder for the genuine talent to get as much recognition.
I find this suggestion fairly troubling. It seems fairly naive, for one thing. Pretty much nowhere in the world is ever truly meritocratic. Personal connections, for example, may come into play, ie often who you know is just as important as how talented you are (if not more so); or even personal assessments about character, likability etc. Character judgements are often based on very quick, even subconscious processes, and certainly are not meritocratic in nature.
More importantly it is, or rather should be, seen as an utterly false dichotomy. Skin colour is absolutely no indicator on its own of talent, be it acting or any other skill. From which, it follows that the number of black actors capable of winning, or being nominated for, an Oscar should be roughly in proportion to the relative population. And, if year-on-year this is not the case, then you should start to wonder why. Your first stopping point on this journey should certainly *not* be "well, they must all be useless then". I wouldn't necessarily want to stop at the "the nominating committee are a bunch of racists" station either. The issue is complicated by other concerns. For example, John Boyega turning in a fine performance in Star Wars 7, but that entire franchise is clearly looked down on from anything other than a technical viewpoint by the Academy (the seven films have picked up 30 nominations but only one of these was for acting) -- so his being overlooked is almost certainly nothing to do with racism but to not being in the right role to start with to pick up an award. Similarly Samuel L Jackson, another fine actor, has received exactly one nomination ever from his 100+ films spread over 30+ years. On the other hand, a lot of these films aren't going to attract much attention either -- as Nick Fury in the Marvel Comics films he's going to be overlooked primarily because of that. (Will Smith is the same -- I can only think of one film of his that I might expect him to have a reasonable shout of an acting award.) So it could be that Black actors aren't being given the roles they need to do themselves enough justice in terms of awards recognition.
On the other hand, you look at films like Django Unchained, a critically-acclaimed film about life in the Deep South of the USA before the Civil War, starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L Jackson and written by Quentin Tarantino. Various acting nominations, ignoring those from the NAACP and Black Reel awards that are specific for black actors, were divided up as follows: Waltz 18 (winning 8 including an Oscar), DiCaprio 6 (winning one), Foxx 2 (winning none) and Jackson 1. Kerry Washington, the lead actress, got no nominations other than from the NAACP and Black Reel. It will probably surprise nobody based on that information alone that Kerry Washington and Jamie Foxx are black actors, while Christoph Waltz and DiCaprio are white. This is not to disparage the undoubted talents of Waltz and DiCaprio. But one does wonder why so few accolades went to the (black) leads in the film. (I haven't seen the film, so it could also be that Jamie Foxx was genuinely rubbish in it.)
There are certainly plenty of talented Black actors out there, but for a host of reasons they seem to struggle to get much mainstream awards recognition. It isn't necessarily deliberate, bona fide, "black people are useless" racism -- more, a system that ends up making it that much harder for the genuine talent to get as much recognition.
I don't see how I was overlooking that at all, but never mind.
The point is that there are far too many competing factors at the Academy Awards and other ceremonies for skin colour to be undeniably the over-riding factor in determining who wins or who is nominated. But there does appear to be an unfortunate under-representation of black actors at the most prestigious awards ceremony in the last couple of years. Certainly I would agree that we should be wary of inflating the representation by artificial means (eg one nomination a year reserved for a black actor/ actress); but the best way of being sure that the award is genuinely meritocratic is if the nominations generally end up reflecting the diversity of the population. And they aren't, at least in the last couple of years (the situation is relatively better in the male actor category, where since 2000 three of the Best Actor awards have gone to black actors (including Jamie Foxx, who featured in my earlier post as someone who was (I argued) surprisingly overlooked in Django), and Morgan Freeman won a Best Supporting Actor gong in 2004; by my approximate representation argument I would probably call this "about right". In the same period, there have been just three nominations and one win out of 70 slots in the Best leading actress category, although in the supporting actress role black actresses have picked up three wins (in 2009, 2011, 2013) and a fair few further nominations.
I think my impression in doing the research that's led to these posts is that the last couple of years have been something of an anomaly from the point of view of representation of black actors at the Oscars. When given the right roles, these days black actors can and certainly do excel, and can generally expect to receive recognition for their performance. Any problem, then, seems to start from the bottom (ie a lack of the "right" roles in the last few years, particularly leading female roles) rather than the top.
The point is that there are far too many competing factors at the Academy Awards and other ceremonies for skin colour to be undeniably the over-riding factor in determining who wins or who is nominated. But there does appear to be an unfortunate under-representation of black actors at the most prestigious awards ceremony in the last couple of years. Certainly I would agree that we should be wary of inflating the representation by artificial means (eg one nomination a year reserved for a black actor/ actress); but the best way of being sure that the award is genuinely meritocratic is if the nominations generally end up reflecting the diversity of the population. And they aren't, at least in the last couple of years (the situation is relatively better in the male actor category, where since 2000 three of the Best Actor awards have gone to black actors (including Jamie Foxx, who featured in my earlier post as someone who was (I argued) surprisingly overlooked in Django), and Morgan Freeman won a Best Supporting Actor gong in 2004; by my approximate representation argument I would probably call this "about right". In the same period, there have been just three nominations and one win out of 70 slots in the Best leading actress category, although in the supporting actress role black actresses have picked up three wins (in 2009, 2011, 2013) and a fair few further nominations.
I think my impression in doing the research that's led to these posts is that the last couple of years have been something of an anomaly from the point of view of representation of black actors at the Oscars. When given the right roles, these days black actors can and certainly do excel, and can generally expect to receive recognition for their performance. Any problem, then, seems to start from the bottom (ie a lack of the "right" roles in the last few years, particularly leading female roles) rather than the top.
Never see any Whites at the MOBO Awards
possibly because you've never actually watched them.
http://
possibly because you've never actually watched them.
http://
I've never understood why Thespians feel the need to dish out prizes to each other. Heart surgeons produce some fine performances, day in,day out. When did you last hear of nominations for the best quadruple by-pass of the year?
To settle this problem raised by Messrs Lee and Smith simply introduce a "FOBO" ceremony each year.
To settle this problem raised by Messrs Lee and Smith simply introduce a "FOBO" ceremony each year.
Bazile
/// no no New Judge . ///
/// We have enough complaining from AOG about the MOBO's each year ///
There would be no complaint from me, if we operated a level playing field in this country.
By the way, what has happened to sp1814, couldn't be his employer has cracked down on the time he spends on AB?
/// no no New Judge . ///
/// We have enough complaining from AOG about the MOBO's each year ///
There would be no complaint from me, if we operated a level playing field in this country.
By the way, what has happened to sp1814, couldn't be his employer has cracked down on the time he spends on AB?
mushroom - //Eddie Redmayne has been nominated. He's a non-trans actor playing a transgender role. isn't that as bad as a white actor blacking up to play a black role? //
The two don't really compare.
If you see a white actor 'blacked up', then you are seeing someone who is made to appear to be from another ethnicity than their own.
It's impossible to know if someone is transgender simply from their outward appearance, which in our modern culture, is all you are ever going to see in a mainstream film.
The two don't really compare.
If you see a white actor 'blacked up', then you are seeing someone who is made to appear to be from another ethnicity than their own.
It's impossible to know if someone is transgender simply from their outward appearance, which in our modern culture, is all you are ever going to see in a mainstream film.
//It's impossible to know if someone is transgender simply from their outward appearance,//
that's a massive generalisation Andy; sadly for some trans people their origins will always be obvious. and even if they're not, the physiological differences invariably give them away; the difference in pelvic width mean that males and females walk differently.
that's a massive generalisation Andy; sadly for some trans people their origins will always be obvious. and even if they're not, the physiological differences invariably give them away; the difference in pelvic width mean that males and females walk differently.
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