Entertainment

Is Hollywood Racist?

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Last week the 88th Academy Awards took place. Unique from other years who won what award did not matter anymore. Every single nominee mattered because they were white and not colored. This caused many people to become angry with Hollywood and the awards resulting in the boycotting of the awards and the hashtag started by April reign, #OscarsSoWhite. Is Hollywood truly racist?

 

Last week the 88th Academy Awards took place. Unique from other years who won what award did not matter anymore. Every single nominee mattered because they were white and not colored. This caused many people to become angry with Hollywood and the awards resulting in the boycotting of the awards and the hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite.

Celebrities reacted in different ways.

Will and Jada Smith was so angry they actually boycotted the awards.

Smith told Good Morning America, “This is so deeply not about me. This is about children who are going to watch the show and they are not going to see themselves represented.”

Mark Ruffalo thinks that the problem in Hollywood is a larger problem in the American criminal justice system, education system and legislative system. Ruffalo invited the people who supported the Oscars boycott to also support the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Ruffalo told The Guardian, “It isn’t just the Academy Awards. It’s the entire American system that is rife with this kind of white privilege racism that goes into our justice system.”[1]

Danny DeVito thinks Hollywood is racist because the entire country is racist.

“We are living in a country that discriminates and has certain racist tendencies,” DeVito told the Associated Press. “So sometimes it manifests itself in something like this, and it’s illuminated.”

According to The National Review, Lena Dunham said,“it’s hard to be a person who is not a white male in the film industry.”

George Clooney said, ““If you think back ten years ago, the Academy was doing a better job. Think about how many more African Americans were nominated.”[2]

Chris Rock hosted the Oscars. As expected amid all of the arguing over the Oscars, his opening monologue addressed the issue.

Rock offered a solution comparing the racism issue to the sexism issue in Hollywood. Make black categories. There are already categories split between men and women when it isn’t necessary, so, adding black categories makes just as much sense.

Rock explained that Hollywood is racist, but it’s the type of racism you get used to- “sorority racism” which basically means that the directors are nice and like said black actor, but will not pick them for a major role.[3]

Conversely, Charlotte Rampling told The Guardian, ““One can never really know, but perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list… Why classify people? These days everyone is more or less accepted … People will always say: ‘Him, he’s less handsome’; ‘Him, he’s too black’; ‘He is too white’ … someone will always be saying ‘You are too’… But do we have to take from this that there should be lots of minorities everywhere?”[4]

Penelope Ann Miller told the Hollywood Reporter, “I don’t want to be lumped into a category of being a racist because I’m certainly not and because I support and benefit from the talent of black people in this business… there were an incredible number of films in 2015 that were primarily about white people. Talk to the studios about changing that, not the Academy.”

Stacey Dash thought ending the BET Awards would be an effective way to force Hollywood into including colored people as nominees.

[5]

Despite all of the disputing the award show, the show went on.  Films, actors and actresses were honored with awards for their talent.

 

References:

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/22/oscars-2016-charlotte-rampling-diversity-row-racist-to-white-people

[2] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430352/oscar-nominations-hollywood-racism

[3] http://oscar.go.com/video/oscar-highlights-2016/academy-president-cheryl-boone-isaacs-addresses-diversity-at-the-oscars-2016

[4] http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/22/oscars-2016-charlotte-rampling-diversity-row-racist-to-white-people

[5] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430352/oscar-nominations-hollywood-racism

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Josey graduated from Malone University with a communication arts degree with an emphasis in public relations and marketing minor. She was the editor in chief of the student newspaper, The Aviso. When she was about 12 years old she read her first magazine and instantly knew she wanted to write for one. She absolutely loves telling a story through her writing.

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