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The 87th Academy Awards


Jimmy

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I think there are some legitimate complaints when it's the first movie since 1932 to only get nominated for Best Picture and none of the other major categories. Let's also keep in mind that The Academy being "usually pretty good" is really just "hey, we gave Denzel and Halle an award a few years ago." I saw a stat yesterday, something like out of the almost 200 women who have been nominated for Best Actress, only six black women have won and all of them played a slave, maid or abusive mother.

I don't think there's some massive conspiracy, but I do think The Academy is a bunch of dusty old white dudes whose experiences don't necessarily reflect America in 2014. I think you'd be genuinely hard-pressed to find a more relevant movie to America in 2014 than Selma, but relevance doesn't necessarily reflect quality either.

Also, Tyler Perry was totally snubbed for supporting actor.

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The composition of the Academy plays a factor, of course, but they are making strides to become more diverse.(or so I have read) It takes time, but their president being a black woman certainly is promising in that regard. I realize that's not a solution at all, but it's a step in the right direction. And my pretty good comment extended a bit further than Denzel and Halle Berry ten years ago. Just last year we had 12 Years and Lupita getting major recognition. Octavia Spencer a few years ago, and Mo'Nique a few years before that. That's as far as winners go in the major categories in the past 5 years,and that doesn't include those nominated like Barkhad Abdi, Viola Davis, that that cute little girl with the ridiculous name for Beasts of the Southern Wild, etc. You can question the quality of the roles, which, once again, would fall on the industry itself, but the recognition has been there as of late. I'm just uncomfortable with the idea that there needs to be a conscious quota counted. I feel that if Hollywood would put more effort in to quality minority projects, this wouldn't be an issue like this Selma debacle. They're 30% of your ticket sales statistically, yet the movies are 95% white, and the Oscar quality ones are 99%. That's not the Academy's fault so much as it is an industry-wide issue.

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Fair point zero. I don't think the Academy is being blatantly racist, it might just be that the significance of a movie like Selma is lost on them a bit, which is unfortunate.

Actually I can't help but wonder...would the Academy actually make itself look worse if Selma won best picture at this point? Evidently no top 5 actors/actresses/director yet still the best film of the year.

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I think a lot can be said for the voting of the Oscars. Less than 20% is under the age of 50 and of those people over 50 something like 70% are white, male. That hardly reflects a fair voting pattern. Of more note is that minority racial representation is in single-digits. So that reflects in the voting, obviously. The experiences and perspectives of the voters are skewed a very certain way.

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I think it looks bad that they even nominated Selma. It's like "well, we have to at least do that" while shutting it out of every other major category. If it wins, which I suspect it will, it's gonna look like a half-assed apology rather than an actual accomplishment.

As for the quality of roles and that being the fault of the industry itself, I totally agree, but let's not act like the industry and The Academy aren't inextricably linked. It's my guess why Nightcrawler didn't get nominated for much because it's a giant "fuck you" to LA. And Hollywood does have a huge problem with casting minorities in major films. Name the last theatrically-released movie starring an Asian guy that's not about martial arts? Harold & Kumar?

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Yeah, Asians get almost nothing except for maybe token comic relief or a sidekick here or there. Look at the Kevin Spacey movie 21. The actual real-life students were all Asian. Not in the movie, though, of course.

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I mean, even if Hollywood's idea of diversity was "well, minorities are 37% of the population, so they should have 37% of the acting roles" it'd be a staggering change. Only 11% of films have minority leads and more than half of films released theatrically have casts that are 10% minority or less. It's not an accurate portrayal of America at all, but historical accuracy suddenly becomes a HUGE concern for white people when you let a black guy play a Norse god in a movie featuring frost giants.

Don't get me wrong, I think Al Sharpton's "emergency meeting" he called over the Oscars is ridiculous, but I can totally see why people are getting pissed off. It was a banner year for racism in America and not celebrating black achievements in the arts is just salt in the wound.

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Having just watched Birdman, I hope Keaton wins Best Oscar, and it's a shame Norton's basically out of the running cos the award is as good as JK Simmons'. Two absolutely fantastic performances in a movie which lives up to the hype for me. The long takes were incredible.

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It's a stylish English period piece about a famous gay man starring a golden boy actor. It's Milk mixed with The King's Speech. It checks all the Oscar boxes. :P

That said, Theory of Everything somehow manages to look even more Oscar Bait-ey.

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