I want to start by saying that I’m a big film fan and my opinion is based off the side mostly as a film fan not from a political standpoint. Also I’ve seen lots of films with minorities that would be eligible for a nomination including but not limited to creed, Ex-Machina, Straight Outta Compton, Sicario, Antman, The Martian, The Force Awakens, Mad Max Fury Road, Furius 7 and various others. Put of the films I’ve seen I believe the nominations are justifiable and that the academy got it right even though no minorities happen to have been nominated for acting categories.
1. The job of the academy is not to be political advocates it is to celebrate the best in movies.
Most nominations aren’t blockbusters but instead independent films or just films that didn’t get the amount of attention or box office results as blockbusters so fewer people have seen it. So before you judge the academy watch the films that they were nominated for then decide whether they got it right. It is ok to just take the political standpoint but I think films should be based off their own merits. The job of the academy is to take the best of films for a year and celebrate it by making nominations categories deciding who was best in those areas not making a political statement.
2. Have you seen the movies the nominees were nominated for?
In order be fair you have to actually see the films you’re criticizing for the merits of the entire film or just the performances. It’s ok to not have seen all of them or even most of them but in order to say one actor to be nominated over another actor you should have seen both movies or admit when stating your opinion that you haven’t seen both film and take that into account when giving your answer. I think many people who judge have seen a film were they think an actor or actress of color should have been nominated and taking a blind eye to the others.
3. The selections should be made based off who deserves the nomination not the color of the actors/actresses skin.
It would be an insult to nominate someone like Idris Elba for his role in beast of no nation and say he should be nominated over Brian Cranston for Trumbo then say well it’s not due to your ability as an actor but instead because of your skin color. It goes both ways equality means putting race aside and not judging people based off of the color of their skin. The award for best actor is supposed to be given to the best actor so the nominations should be selected to represent that.
4. The larger issue is the opportunity’s being given to minorities in the film industry.
The reason why this is happening is because the opportunities being given, yes it’s nice to see john Boyega get a lead role in star wars (yes there can be multiple leading characters in a movie) but the reason why he got it was because he was in attack the block a smaller film that gave him a chance to prove himself as an actor. Let’s face it huge blockbusters don’t get a ton of attention by the academy at least not as much as smaller films and as long as minories keep getting looked over for white actors in those roles those larger films and the Oscars will reflect that.
Note: the Oscars have given awards to multiple minories so it’s not as if they are excluding them from the Oscars every year.
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