Does Racial Diversity at the Oscars Really Matter?
SAN DIEGO -- #OscarsSoWhite. #TrueButSoWhat?
Now that our society has dealt with the trivial matters -- Latino kids being shortchanged by public schools, and African-American families being poisoned by drinking water in Michigan, and people of color having to contend with police violence, unemployment, mass incarceration, decaying infrastructure and neglect by political parties -- it's time to turn our attention to more important issues.
Like whether there is sufficient racial diversity among the 2016 Oscar nominations.
I'll spare you the suspense. The answer is "no." Check the math. For the second year in a row, all 20 nominations in the acting categories went to white people.
That's a massive blind spot by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. But what, if anything, should its members do to improve their vision?
Does it matter? Latino undocumented immigrants worry about being deported by an administration that pretends it has stopped deportations. African-Americans did not see their lives improved significantly despite the election of an African-American president. Does anyone really think that either of these groups cares even a little bit that filmmaker Spike Lee and actors Will and Jada Pinkett Smith have vowed to sit out the Oscar ceremony on Feb. 28?
Clearly the academy missed the big picture. Still, this is an argument among elites. If you work in Hollywood, you might care about it. But few others do.
It is also a drama shot in black and white. Critics don't seem to care that, apart from the acting categories, the directors nominated for Oscars this year include Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. The Mexican filmmaker, who is nominated for "The Revenant," took home a statue last year. Even so, Latinos have been overlooked far more than African-Americans over the 88-year history of the Oscar ceremony, and no one complained much about it -- including African-Americans.
This is not to say that Hollywood studios shouldn't write and produce, on a regular basis, more films and television shows that reflect the life experiences of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and other groups that are often ignored.
To be authentic and relevant, art must be at least somewhat rooted in the real world.
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Copyright 2016 Washington Post Writers Group
