Minority quorum for the Oscars?

[Obama Llama Glama]

Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee are about to boycott the Oscars ceremony due to the all-white slate of major nominees for the second year in a row.
Will you admit that their criticism is correct?

edition.cnn.com/2016/01/18/entertainment/oscars-boycott-spike-lee-jada-pinkett-smith-feat/index.html

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

This thread will doubtless go bad ...

[Mr. Reactionary]

Wouldn't put it past Hollywood.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

No. A better solution would be to expand the size of the Academy and add more diverse voters.

Or, ideally, we could stop paying attention to this joke of an awards show.

[ingemann]

While Black people have been underrepresented over the entire time the Academy Award have been given out, it's interesting to see the newer statistics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_Academy_Award_winners_and_nominees

If we look at African American getting Oscars since 2000, we will see that in that period they have been overrepresented compared how big their percentage of the population are.

[DavidB.]

No (other), and this focus on people's race as opposed to people's prestations is becoming incredibly racist.

[Hillary pays minimum wage]

Obama would win everything.

[Enduro]

No (other), and this focus on people's race as opposed to people's prestations is becoming incredibly racist.

[Slander and/or Libel]

The problem is at the level of casting and writing. I think it's worth pointing out, but it's worth understanding that by the time we get to awards consideration, we're already in a place where white people are systemically overrepresented at every one of many steps along the way.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Relegating the Academy Awards to irrelevancy would be far better for all involved.

[Maxwell]

I'm not sure Spike Lee would be bitching if his exploitive trash film Chi-Raq were nominated (as actually Chicago natives who have seen what "Chi-Raq" is like have said).

[RI]

The Economist: How racially skewed are the Oscars?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[tallguy23]

No one is entitled to an award nomination. Period. Besides, cultural/arts awards are based on personal opinion as opposed to who scored the most goals. There really is no "right or wrong" in art.

Diversity starts in drama schools, casting offices, and agencies. The Academy is simply judging what's put in front of them......and the selection isn't very diverse unfortunately. If you want more diversity in film, demand it by using your pocketbook. It's a business after all, and they'll respond to consumer demands.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Yeah.. nothing kills your chances at an acting career in this country like happening to be east Asian.  Unless you wanna be a bucktoothed gong banging chinese restaurant owner who serrs noodres and dumprings or an angry old lady that owns a dry cleaner.  OOOOR... a personality-less code cruncher.

And lots of snarky white people will actually say "that's because that's how Asians are!"...

[Mr. Reactionary]

I wonder if the BET Awards should have a similar quorum.

[Obama Llama Glama]

No. A better solution would be to expand the size of the Academy and add more diverse voters.

That's exactly what the Academy has just recently decided:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/22/media/academy-awards-oscars-voting-changes

[pho]

All awards should be given on the basis of merit. Do black actors and actresses, who I assume take great pride in their work, really want a bunch of old white people's sympathy trophies?

Black lives matter, this BS doesn't.

[Figueira]

I'd have to watch all of this year's nominated movies, as well as some good ones with black actors, to know for sure, but it does seem kind of suspicious.

[Bigby]

No. These same people would cry racism if we tried to make the NFL reduce its numbers from being 70% black.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This would create the same sorts of questions and resentments that affirmative action has, and they'd be more legitimate than they are with affirmative action. The problem needs to be solved on the level of writing and casting.

[youngohioan216]

Did any of these people care when the NBA all star game this year had no white players on either team?

[Famous Mortimer]

A racial quota for the arts is the ultimate example of metaphorically trimming weeds but ignoring the root.

Black people are absent in the arts not because of White racism but because Black people don't go into the arts as often as White people. Black people are more likely to be poor and thus less likely to go to college and thus more likely to have kids at an extremely young age. All of those factors make them much less likely to go to LA or New York at 21 and try to write a screenplay. It's basically the same reason there aren't a lot of White conservatives in entertainment.

The solution to this problem is to improve Black people's standard of living, so that more of them have the ability to choose artistic expression.

The solution should not be to give mandatory rewards to the tiny number of (mostly wealthy, privileged) Black people who are already in entertainment, regardless of the quality of their work.