The Academy Awards have been notorious for acknowledging the elite in the film industry since the late 1920’s (History.com Staff, 2009). Whether they are actors, actresses, costume designers or directors, each nominee is commended for their strenuous work. As a devout Academy Awards fan, I feel as though I have witnessed history being made through my viewings. Meryl Streep becoming the most nominated actor/actress in Academy Award history and Jennifer Lawrence being the youngest actress to have three nominations, are just a few of these history making examples. These pivotal moments, amongst others, have also made me aware of the not so bright side of things, which has sparked a controversy in the world we live in today. In 2016, the Academy …show more content…
For two consecutive years, the movie industry has failed to fulfill that definition. In 2015 and 2016, all twenty Academy Award nominations in the lead and supporting actor/actress categories have been white (Patrick Ryan, 2016). Although this lack of diversity may seem shocking to some, it is nothing new to the Academy. In fact, over the 88-year history of the Academy Awards only fourteen black actors/actress have won an Oscar for acting (Patrick Ryan, 2016). There is a key piece of information missing to this controversy, who is to blame for the lack of diversity? According to CNN, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, says she has urged studio executives to “expand their thinking in terms of diversity but there is, little her members could do to address the issue” (Brandon Griggs, 2016). In short, the Academy has no say in who is hired/casted in the movie industry therefore the committee has limited options while selecting nominees. Regardless of who is at fault, the lack of diversity needs to be addressed as a …show more content…
One may argue that a movie has nothing to do with racial discrimination or some roles in a film are meant for a certain person. There are also many films and television shows that represent more diversity than one may think, they are just not nominated for awards (Mary McNamara 2016). Wesley Morris from the New York Times says, “some of this is a matter of there not being enough movies in the pool” and “some of it is the studios’ misunderstanding the worth of the movies they have” (Dargis, Morris, Scott,
African American representation in the film industry has always been a topic for discussion. Whether talking about character types and roles, the actors being cast or not cast, and the lack of diversity in front of and behind the camera. ‘The contemporary status of race in mainstream American culture is intimately bound to the process of representation within and through the mass media.’ (Rocchio, 2000, p. 4). Any role that was to be played by an African American kept in with the dominant stereotypes of the time of production; incompetent, child like, hyper-sexualised or criminal.
Tangled was an entertaining eye opening illustration that included action, romance, comedy, that would be enough to keep the whole family entertained. Time and time again, Disney films are being criticized by the public because of the lack of ethnic diversity; this lack of ethnic diversity can be illustrated through the film titled Tangled. In 1995, Disney gave us Pocahontas and in the year of 1998 Disney had released Mulan. This showed the public that, Disney was in fact capable of creating films in which the lead protagonist was not white, however it wasn’t till more recently that racial diversity truly had taken stand when The Princess and the Frog (2009) was released. While, I applaud the efforts of Disney in attempting
Since many of the roles are given to white actresses, actresses of color are underrepresented in the industry. Only six out of the top 500 box office films feature a woman of color as their protagonist, none which are at the top 200. This only leaves it to around 1% of the protagonist to be a woman of color. As we head towards a better society, more and more examples of media that challenge these statements are being created.
The two-time Oscar nominee, 50, took the opportunity to make a statement about racial inequality in Hollywood. She also thank the people who helped get her into a leading role.
“And in a very Disney way, we are including everybody. I think this is for everybody, and on the screen we’ll see everybody. And that was important to me” (Petit). This quote is from the director of the movie, Bill Condon, who thinks that diversity is a definitively “Disney” quality. In recent years, I would agree, that there are beginning to have more
...ue to the fact that she is so concerned with the gender aspect that she overlooks the reasons for keeping the categories separate. By having separate categories a male and female staring in the same film are both eligible to win an award, something that would be impossible if the categories were merged. She also disregards the fact that merging the two categories would lead to fewer nominees, which would force both male and female actors to be left out of the nominations. Her background in Women’s studies further impacts the overall effectiveness of this argument. Many readers may disregard the entire article because they feel that she is just using it as a means to promote Women’s rights. On the other hand, people who firmly believe in gender equality may be more inclined to accept her argument, even if they could care less about having separate categories.
Diversity has always been one of Hollywood’s greatest weaknesses. For the most part, the industry absolutely strives with its rich narratives, beautiful cinematography, and moving performances but it fails when it comes to diversity. The representation of both women and people of colour have been lacklustre, often with poor characterisations and distasteful stereotypes and character tropes.
...ent from the silent era of film, overt racism of ethnic minorities was blatantly apparent within the film medium. However, presently this overt racism however has shifted into a more subtle segregation of casting and racial politics within the film medium. It seems that both the problem and the solution lies in the Eurocentric domination within the Hollywood film industry – and it seems that it still remains challenged to this day.
We do not live in a post-racial America. Racism is a huge factor of which most careers are being affected in. There is a new way of casting actors now, which is colorblind casting. It is a practice of casting a role without considering an individuals ethnicity. However, that does not always work and can sometimes be looked in a bad way. It has plenty of controversy leading towards whether it work for people of color or not. A solution to this problem is obviously to make television media more diverse but, how so? Producers as well as directors need to consider color conscious casting and make an effort to have each individual ethnic group feel it is a diver and non-biased casting. This will not only make casting more equal but also, make the
According to the article “African American Representation In Hollywood”, the first person of color to win an Oscar was Hattie McDaniel in 1940 for Best Supporting Role, however it took 61 years later for another woman of color to receive an Oscar and in 2001 Halle Berry took home an Oscar for Best Actress in a Lead Role in ‘Monster 's Ball’ and the same night Denzel Washington also went home with a Best Lead Actor award in ‘Training Day’. Though many more people were nominated, less than a handful of minorities walked away with an award throughout the years. We wonder why, but according to the “2016 Hollywood Diversity Report”, studies show that “minorities accounted for 37.9 percent of the U.S Population in 2014, yet they were underrepresented by nearly 3 to 1 among lead roles for that year.” (p.10
The lack of significance that minority cultures in general have been given in American cinema is distasteful. This neg...
Hollywood has long been the symbolic centre of the American film industry - It also dominates the world’s film industry. This essay will specifically
The Hurst book discusses in Chapter 8, that “whiteness is invisible to most whites,” this could be a reason that there is not a lot of diversity in Hollywood, but it could also be racism, and discrimination toward people of different ethnicities as well (Hurst, 183). According, to Hurst racism is “embedded in the structure and institutions, and defining racism individualistically rather than in structural terms, has allowed our attention to be defected from White privilege” (Hurst, 184). White privilege is present in Hollywood, everything is ran by white people, and it is the white writers and directors, they decided who they will cast in the show or movie. Racial and ethnic diversity in TV programming should not be a problem in the 21st century, this is a problem of the past and should not still be going on. The NPR article discusses the shift of more series with “non-white actors, and a more non-white cast, but that still is on 30% of all TV shows” that is a major improvement but there still needs to be more
Ethnicity and appearance has become a tremendous problem in the media due to the fact that they try to use it as a power to control creativity of abstaining the truth in media. According to journalist Nishijima, A, she refers to the Oscars and explains that it is very absurd how the media is slowly progression in lacking diversity. This was recognized when watching the Oscars and seeing that based off predominantly white nominees. Nishijima quotes “Boone Isaacs decl...
Feminism is a movement that supports women equality within society. In relation to film, feminism is what pushes the equal representation of females in mainstream films. Laura Mulvey is a feminist theorist that is famous for touching on this particular issue of how men and women are represented in movies. Through her studies, she discovered that many films were portraying men and women very differently from reality. She came up with a theory that best described why there is such as huge misrepresentation of the social status quos of male and female characters. She believed that mainstream film is used to maintain the status quo and prevent the realization of gender equality. This is why films are continuously following the old tradition that males are dominant and females are submissive. This is the ideology that is always present when we watch a movie. This is evident in the films from the past but also currently. It is as if the film industry is still catering to the male viewers of each generation in the same way. Laura Mulvey points out that women are constantly being seen as sexual objects, whether it is the outfits they wear or do not wear or the way they behave, or secondary characters with no symbolic cause. She states that, “in traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote it-be-looked-at-ness.”(Mulvey pg. 715). Thus, women are nevertheless displayed as nothing more than passive objects for the viewing pleasure of the audience. Mulvey also points out through her research that in every mainstream movie, there is ...