The 88th Academy Awards
It's that time of year: time for spectators to enjoy looking at beautiful and outrageous outfits, time for tears and laughter to be mingled in grateful acceptance speeches, and time for people who are used to getting a lot of attention to get even more attention. It's time for the Oscars! The 88th Academy Awards is coming to you live on Thursday, February 28th. This famous awards show has been around since 1929, and was started by Louis B. Mayer, the head of the powerful MGM Film studio. The non-profit organization was created solely for the advancement and improvement of the film industry. Rumors have it that the nickname "Oscars" came from executive director Margaret Herrick, who observed that the small golden man statue looked like her Uncle Oscar. While there is some doubt of the veracity of this story, there is no doubt that this year's Academy Awards will be an entertaining event.
Part of the anticipation for the 88th Academy Awards stems from the usual reasons. Many incredibly talented people are nominated for awards this year, making it seem wrong to exclude any of them. There are also several people who might make movie industry history. If The Revenant wins best picture, it will be the third year in a row that a film from Arnon Milchan New Regency has won best picture, following 12 Years a Slave and Birdman. Steven Spielberg has his ninth nomination for best picture with Bridge of Spies, which is the most of all time. Jennifer Lawrence's nomination for Joy sets a record for the youngest person to have four acting nominations. Lastly, John Williams, composer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, extends his record for most Oscar nominations ever from 49 to 50.
The 88th Academy Awards is also receiving a large and unusual amount of negative attention this year. This negative attention is centered around the fact that all twenty of the people nominated for acting awards are white. The main spark of the outrage is the lack of acknowledgment to Will Smith's excellent performance in the movie Concussion. Other black actors that weren't nominated include The Hateful Eight's Samuel L. Jackson, Creed's Michael B. Jordan, and Beasts of No Nation's Idris Elba, but Will Smith is the most popular. His nonexistent nomination is at the center of the controversy, especially since his wife posted a video urging people to "reject the Academy as much as it has rejected black actors...." Many people are now up in arms about the issue, and they are encouraging an Oscar boycott. Their anger at the Oscars seems largely misplaced though.
By accusing the Academy of choosing actors based on race, protesters are making race even more of a issue, when they claim to want the opposite. There is a good chance that the Academy was solely focusing on acting skill and didn't think Will Smith acted as well as other actors this year. They are being fair if they don't just give him a spot every year for the sake of appearing diverse. If the Academy wasn't looking at race at all and tried to make the competition fair, then all the protestors are being racist for expecting the few black actors to get nominations no matter how their performances are. There have been forty four African Americans nominated for acting awards to date, and while that number is small, it shows that it's not impossible. It seems that instead of targeting the Oscars over the white nominees, people should be targeting Hollywood for apparently favoring white actors in their distribution of acting careers. There are simply far fewer black people getting great parts in movies. The Academy, however, does not appear to be racist, and ironically hired an African American comedian, Chris Rock, to be the host of the all-white Oscars. The protests will hopefully calm down soon, and all the boycott publicity will probably increase the fame of this Academy Awards instead of detracting from it.
