Entertainment

Oscar Spotlight Draws Attention to Industry Diversity Issue

Published

10 years ago

February 19, 2015

In this March 2, 2014 file photo, Lupita Nyong’o accepts the award for best actress in a supporting role for “12 Years a Slave” during the Oscars in Los Angeles. (John Shearer/Invision/AP, File)

JAKE COYLE, AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — It was a year ago that Lupita Nyong’o, shortly before winning the Academy Award for best supporting actress in “12 Years a Slave,” gave a speech about what she called “dark beauty.”

Nyong’o, who so dazzled Hollywood and the Oscar-viewing public through awards season, spoke tenderly of receiving a letter from a girl who had been about to lighten her skin before Nyong’o’s success, she said, “saved me.” The letter struck Nyong’o because she recognized herself in that girl: “I remember a time when I too felt unbeautiful. I put on the TV and only saw pale skin.”

The Mexican-born, Kenyan-raised actress was a central part last year to an Academy Awards flush with faces uncommon to the Oscar podium.

What a difference a year makes.

This year’s Oscars repeat a stubborn pattern that has plagued the Academy Awards throughout its history: Whenever change seems to come, a frustrating hangover follows. “Every 10 years, we have the same conversation,” Spike Lee, a regular witness to the sporadic progress, has said.

Seldom have such fits and starts been starker than this Oscars, coming a year after a richly diverse Oscar crop. In Sunday’s Academy Awards, all 20 acting nominees are white, a result that prompted some to declare that they would boycott this year’s ceremony.

The lack of nominations for “Selma” director Ava DuVernay and star David Oyelowo were a particular flashpoint, viewed by many as unjust oversights not only because they merited honoring, but because their absences furthered an ignoble Oscar history.

“I was surprised but then I wasn’t,” said Darnell Hunt, a UCLA professor and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, who co-authored a 2014 diversity report on the film and TV industries. “What we saw in terms of the nominations this year was business as usual. What we got was more or less an accurate reflection of the way the industry is structured and the way the academy is populated.”

An Associated Press survey of the academy’s voting history since the first Academy Awards in 1929 shows gradual progress but not nearly at a rate to match the ever-increasing diversity of the American public. In those 87 years, 15 black actors have won Oscars, four Latinos and three Asians, a record that doesn’t even speak to other categories like best director, where only one woman (Kathryn Bigelow) has won.

The number of non-whites to be nominated for best actor or best actress has nearly doubled in just the last two decades, but the 9.4 percent of non-white acting nominees over the academy’s history is about four times less than the percentage of the non-white population.

Not all of this can be laid at the film academy’s feet, but some of it can. The 6,000-plus membership of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences was found to be 94 percent white and 77 percent male in a 2012 Los Angeles Times investigation.

Since becoming president of the academy, Cheryl Boone Isaacs has worked to diversify the organization’s ranks, though change comes slowly considering membership is for life.

But the academy is a reflection of the film industry; it can only reward the films that get made. What this year’s all-white acting nominees did was lay bare the enormous, hulking iceberg of the movie business’ diversity problems.

The UCLA diversity report released last year after eight years of research put found underrepresentation of minorities and women throughout film and TV, from board rooms to talent agencies.

“White males have dominated things for so long that it’s been hard to image an alternative that would produce or be open to producing the types of projects that are likely to enlist more people of color or women. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, this vicious cycle that produces the same type of stuff over and over again,” says Hunt.

What’s particularly galling for many of those working to change Hollywood is that minorities are among its most passionate customers.

“They acknowledge the demographic. They understand our participation rate. They continue to market these projects to the community, but never with the community’s identity or building a base of A-lister talent,” says Felix Sanchez, president of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts.

Hunt hopes that by studying diversity objectively, the data will reveal “the bottlenecks” that are stifling advancement. That includes findings that show more diverse projects make more money at the box office and earn better TV ratings. He knows the one thing Hollywood will respond to: the bottom line.

But frustration is mounting. Another year’s worth of research, to be released later this month by UCLA, shows no significant change, says Hunt.

Stacy L. Smith, founder and director of USC Annenberg’s Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative, calls the lack of progress in the industry “egregious.”

“Hollywood does not think diversity is commercial,” Smith said. “The numbers speak loudly and clearly about who is valued and who isn’t.”

With studies finding so little progress, Smith proposes the industry adopt a modified version of the NFL’s Rooney Rule, which stipulates that teams must interview minorities for vacant coaching jobs.

Not everyone agrees. “Enforced ‘diversity’ will undermine the very mission of (the academy),” wrote Lionel Chetwynd, an Oscar-nominated writer and an academy member. “As new filmmakers and craftspeople achieve new levels of excellence, the face of the academy will change as it should, to the meter of its time, the pace of its art.”

Why does all this matter? It isn’t just an issue of equal opportunity, though it is that. It’s because when people aren’t reflected in culture, when they don’t see themselves on screens, behind cameras or on the Oscar stage, they feel invisible and voiceless. Hollywood would do well to remember that young girl who wrote to Nyong’o, and hope to inspire a flood of such letters.

___

AP researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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Related Topics:Academy Awards Ava Duvernay David Oyelowo diversity in film Lupita Nyong'o Oscar's Oscars diversity

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Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

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December 26, 2024

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Black History

Ashleigh Johnson: Pioneering the Way in Water Polo

Ashleigh Johnson attended Princeton University, where she played for the Tigers and dominated collegiate water polo. During her time at Princeton, she became the program’s all-time leader in saves and was recognized for her extraordinary ability to anticipate plays and block shots. She was a three-time All-American and was pivotal in leading her team to multiple victories. Balancing rigorous academics and athletics, she graduated with a degree in Psychology, showcasing her determination both in and out of the pool.

Published

4 days ago

December 24, 2024

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Ashleigh Johnson Photo: collegiatewaterpolo.org

By Tamara Shiloh

Ashleigh Johnson has become a household name in the world of water polo, not only for her incredible athleticism and skill but also for breaking barriers as the first Black woman to represent the United States in the sport at the Olympic level. Her journey begins as a determined young athlete to a record-breaking goalkeeper.

Born on September 12, 1994, in Miami, Florida, Ashleigh grew up in a family that valued sports and academics. She attended Ransom Everglades School, where she was introduced to water polo. Despite water polo being a niche sport in her community, she quickly stood out for her remarkable agility, intelligence, and reflexes. Her unique skill set made her a natural fit for the demanding role of a goalkeeper.

Ashleigh attended Princeton University, where she played for the Tigers and dominated collegiate water polo. During her time at Princeton, she became the program’s all-time leader in saves and was recognized for her extraordinary ability to anticipate plays and block shots. She was a three-time All-American and was pivotal in leading her team to multiple victories. Balancing rigorous academics and athletics, she graduated with a degree in Psychology, showcasing her determination both in and out of the pool.

In 2016, Ashleigh made history as the first Black woman to be selected for the U.S. Olympic Water Polo Team. Representing her country at the Rio Olympics, she played a crucial role in helping Team USA secure the gold medal. Her stellar performances earned her the distinction of being named the tournament’s top goalkeeper, further cementing her status as one of the best players in the sport’s history.

Ashleigh didn’t just stop at one Olympic appearance. She continued her dominance in water polo, playing a key role in Team USA’s gold medal win at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Her ability to remain composed under pressure and deliver outstanding saves in crucial moments made her an irreplaceable member of the team.

At the age of 29, Johnson appeared in her third Olympiad in Paris at the 2024 Summer Olympics. Their first match was against Greece and the US team won easily and Johnson only gave up 4 points. U.S. Olympic head coach Adam Krikorian shared, “She’s an incredible athlete. She’s got great hand-eye coordination, great reflexes and reactions. And then she’s fiercely competitive – fiercely. And you would never know it by her demeanor or by the huge smile on her face. But to us, on the inside, we know how driven she is to be one of the best ever to do it.”

Team USA Women’s Water Polo ended their Olympic season in fourth place after a 10 – 11 loss to the Netherlands. Johnson only allowed 37 percent of the shots from the Netherlands.

Beyond her achievements in the pool, Ashleigh has used her platform to advocate for diversity in water polo and sports in general. As a trailblazer, she recognizes the importance of representation and works to encourage young athletes, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds, to pursue their dreams.

Ashleigh has spoken about the challenges she faced as a Black woman in a predominantly white sport and how she turned those obstacles into opportunities for growth.

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Arts and Culture

In ‘Affrilachia: Testimonies,’ Puts Blacks in Appalacia on the Map

Published

6 days ago

December 22, 2024

Oakland Post

Author Chris Aluka. Photo courtesy of Chris Aluka.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez

An average oak tree is bigger around than two people together can reach.

That mighty tree starts out with an acorn the size of a nickel, ultimately growing to some 80 feet tall, with a canopy of a hundred feet or more across.

And like the new book, “Affrilachia” by Chris Aluka Berry (with Kelly Elaine Navies and Maia A. Surdam), its roots spread wide and wider.

Affriclachia is a term a Kentucky poet coined in the 1990s referring to the Black communities in Appalachia who are similarly referred to as Affrilachians.

In 2016, “on a foggy Sunday morning in March,” Berry visited Affrilachia for the first time by going the Mount Zion AME Zion Church in Cullowhee, North Carolina. The congregation was tiny; just a handful of people were there that day, but a pair of siblings stood out to him.

According to Berry, Ann Rogers and Mae Louise Allen lived on opposite sides of town, and neither had a driver’s license. He surmised that church was the only time the elderly sisters were together then, but their devotion to one another was clear.

As the service ended, he asked Allen if he could visit her. Was she willing to talk about her life in the Appalachians, her parents, her town?

She was, and arrangements were made, but before Barry could get back to Cullowhee, he learned that Allen had died. Saddened, he wondered how many stories are lost each day in mountain communities where African Americans have lived for more than a century.

“I couldn’t make photographs of the past,” he says, “but I could document the people and places living now.”

In doing so he also offers photographs that he collected from people he met in ‘Affrilachia,’ in North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, at a rustic “camp” that was likely created by enslaved people, at churches, and in modest houses along highways.

The people he interviewed recalled family tales and community stories of support, hardship, and home.

Says coauthor Navies, “These images shout without making a sound.”

If it’s true what they say about a picture being worth 1,000 words, then “Affrilachia,” as packed with photos as it is, is worth a million.

With that in mind, there’s not a lot of narrative inside this book, just a few poems, a small number of very brief interviews, a handful of memories passed down, and some background stories from author Berry and his co-authors. The tales are interesting but scant.

For most readers, though, that lack of narrative isn’t going to matter much. The photographs are the reason why you’d have this book.

Here are pictures of life as it was 50 years or a century ago: group photos, pictures taken of proud moments, worn pews, and happy children. Some of the modern pictures may make you wonder why they’re included, but they set a tone and tell a tale.

This is the kind of book you’ll take off the shelf, and notice something different every time you do. “Affrilachia” doesn’t contain a lot of words, but it’s a good choice when it’s time to branch out in your reading.

“Affrilachia: Testimonies,” by Chris Aluka Berry with Kelly Elaine Navies and Maia A. Surdam

c.2024, University of Kentucky Press, $50.00.