An LA Times piece titled “It’s not just the Oscars that fail Black women. It’s the entire awards ecosystem,” written by Robert Daniels, caught some attention this week.
Before I tackle the article, I learned today that Daniels, whom I’ve never spoken to or known of, has me blocked on Twitter — what gives? I guess he’s not a WoR subscriber, or maybe he hate-reads me. Who knows!
Back to his piece, here’s an interesting quote from it:
Before #OscarsSoWhite, the (flawed) prevailing logic held that there simply weren’t enough Black women making movies. In the director field, the rise of DuVernay, Regina King, Dee Rees, Nia DaCosta, Chinonye Chukwu, Janicza Bravo, Mati Diop and many more has obliterated that canard […] Black women have always created. But their heightened prominence in today’s Hollywood means the excuses for not highlighting them ring especially false.
Daniels name-drops a bunch of black female directors and then says “ha! You see, no excuse to not nominate a black director.” Except, have any of the filmmakers he mentioned actually ever deserved a Directing Oscar nod. Not really.
Daniels goes on to moan about how no black actress made it into the Lead Actress category this year. He doesn’t even mention merit — you know, if Viola Davis actually deserved a nomination for her hammy performance. No, what matters to most of the moaners, groaners and complainers isn’t quality of performance, but, rather, quotas.
Of course the entire awards “ecosystem” sucks, but you’d think that there would be more write-ups about how Michelle Yeoh became the the first Asian woman to be nominated for an Oscar in the best actress category. Asian-Americans are one of the most poorly represented groups at the movies.
It’s quite ironic how no one cares about the fact that there has barely been any Asian representation In the Academy’s 95-year history and now you have Yeoh, Hong Chau, Ke Huy Quan, Daniel Kwan and Stephanie Hsu all nominated in the top categories. But, don’t mind me, continue your complaints about the lack of representation with this year’s Oscar nominees.