"I guess we’re not free at last.
Ha! That’s the quote right there...
“Guess we’re not free at last, not free at last,
we’re not — according to the Academy — free at last!” - Spike Lee (In response to the question "What did you think of the Oscar voters’ snub of Selma director Ava DuVernay and star David Oyelowo?”)
I’m still trying to understand what all the hues and cries are all about in regard to the Oscar voters’ snub of the movie, Selma. Where is the surprise? In a 2012 survey, the Los Angeles Times found out that the “Academy” was 94% white, overwhelmingly male and with a median age of 62. The problem now therefore is this: with about 7,000 members, and no mandatory retirement, diversity among the Oscar-voters is going to take a very long time to manifest.
Let’s face it. This is America. The same good, old America. Everything in God’s own country always have something to do with race. It’s only worse in certain socio-economic sectors of the nation. And one of those sectors is the movie industry. That’s where an individual makes bundles of money by pretending to be someone else. As for the product of each endeavor though, considerations for rewards are based more on race than the actual creativity invested.
In the world of make-believe, whenever a movie is produced or directed by a black person, it’s automatically at the mercy of the cynical, nose-thumbing mainstream media that is dominated and controlled by the whites. The first objective of a majority of media “reviewers” is to promptly brand the artistic work a “black movie”. And this is done with a red, hot iron. With this negative branding as a foundation, the “black movie” will now be subjected to every bit of ignorance the “reviewers” can muster. Ask Tyler Perry.
Therefore, whatever the white-male-dominated Oscars’ voters come up with will merely be a follow-up to the earlier “hatchet man job” of the mainstream media. That’s how it’s been done and that’s how it will be done for a long time. Those Oscar-voting guys are especially allergic to any movie that is historically-rich and those that celebrate anything positive about the black cultures. Otherwise, movies such as Malcolm X, Red Tails, Hurricane, Akeelah and the Bee and several others would have picked up several Oscars.
It’s however “a different kettle of fish” where a movie is based on the holocaust or “mainstream” American history. No matter how silly it appears, such a movie will have all the “reviewers” and Oscar voters falling all over themselves in adoration. The same goes for any movie produced or directed by Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and a host of other “anointed guys” of Hollywood. The club is not only elitist but also controlled by white men. Therefore, what better way to prevent the director of Selma from rubbing shoulders with these elites in Hollywood than to deprive her of an Oscar nod? If only Ms. DuVernay was white, a man and possibly named Spielberg or Eastwood, Selma would have been drowned in Oscar nominations.
There is one major consolation though. Selma will remain a great movie.
