Cue a picture of Rampling in her Night Porter gear...

I know I'm late to the discussion, but want to throw my two cents in. I get why some people are complaining about the lack of diversity. But I also think it's somewhat misguided. It's not like people really thought there were iron-clad minority performances that simply didn't get nominated. Instead they seems to want to see some minority nominated for the sake of it. Which doesn't really seem to help anything. And when I see people try to talk about it, they usually thrown out films like Straight Outta Compton or maybe Creed. And both films did get some nominations, just not major ones. But I don't think that really shocked anyone. While both were well made, well reviewed, and well received by audiences, you could same the same thing about a dozen or so other movies that also did not get nominated in those categories. For example, when the Best Pictures noms came out. People weren't really wondering where was Straight Outta Compton. They were more surprised that Carol didn't get any nominations.

Now its certainly true that people of minority have been discriminated against. And I'm not limiting that to the Oscars, but pretty much anywhere in society. For many, many years. Up until 2000, only one African-American won for Best Actor. And none for Best Actress. But if you look at the last 15 years you've seen Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, and Halle Berry win. And in the supporting categories you've had Benicio Del Toro, Morgan Freeman, Javier Bardem (not sure he counts since he's from Spain. Although European, he's technically hispanic), Jennifer Hudson, Penélope Cruz (same as Bardem, she's Spanish), Mo'Nique, Octavia Spencer, and Lupita Nyong'o win as minorities. So it's not like minorities cannot win. And that's not counting many other nominations.

So I don't think the problem is really recognizing quality work. It sounds like the complaint is more the roles and movies offered to minorities. Which is a problem. But it's not the Academy's problem. The Academy doesn't make the movies. It just rewards the movies that get made. I think what you are really trying to fight is how movies get made and how they are cast. And that's a whole separate discussion.

I still feel like the only one truly snubbed was Beasts of No Nation

Hopefully Marlon Wayans gets nominated for Fifty Shades of Black.

(On a side note, he had one of the most level headed responses to this whole situation: http://www.ew.com/article/2016/01/22...is-rock-oscars )

He continued: “But you have to place the onus on yourself to understand that in Hollywood you don’t knock on the door and ask to get in. My brother taught me you kick that door off the hinges and you make your way in.”

So, what will happen if it's a whiteout again next year?

It depends if Spike Lee and Will Smith have movies out this year.

I can almost guarantee that it won't happen again next year. Even if it means there'll be some very unworthy nominations - they're going to force it through.

Given that the Oscar nominees are based on voting by Academy members, maybe they should count votes by white members as only three-fifths the vote of black members.


(Yes, I'm being satirical )

But that has a lot to do with that. Would Straight Outta Newport a Biopic about a well known 50/60/70s White Band with the same Metacritic Score and Box Office be dismissed and not even watched by some Academy members because it's not "important" enough. It's certainly not just racial things but films with Women or Minorities Leads an Animated Films or ones of a certain genre continuously lose nom's to lesser reviewed/culturally relvant films due to gender,generation and race bias. I am not saying Straight Outta Compton should have been nominated but it should have at least been watched by Oscar voters which a lot of people have gone on record saying they won't vote for "something like that".

They should make a movie together! Super Win!

How will they force it through? Will a certain movie be tagged "this is the one to vote for" or will they "miscount" the votes?

If for some reason every actor was black that was nominated, would anybody be bitching there weren't any white people nominated? I'm betting nope. Probably be celebrated.

I doubt that a bunch of closed minded old white dudes who don't even watch all the films eligible for nominations would do that.

They same way they "force" some other wins that were really based on career work, etc. For example, everyone knew that the 3rd Lord of the Rings movie was going to win Best Picture before the film was actually released - because it was an award granted for the whole trilogy. There's obviously some system in place that urges Academy members to vote a certain way - which can be used to vote for Black actors/films.

This is exactly the problem. It is NOT the Academy's fault. More quality roles need to written for and given to all races. It's funny, the only three black performances mentioned have been Michael B. Jordan for "Creed", Smith for "Concussion" and Idris Elba for "Beasts of No Nation". And let's get real here. The only performance of those three that deserved a nomination was Elba. Jordan was great in "Creed". No doubt about it. But it was not award worthy. Neither was Smith. I've yet to see or hear anyone talking about one female performance that was snubbed.

It partially is the academy's fault for being a bunch of out of touch old farts. Race isn't the only problem, try getting an NC-17 film nominated.
Killer Joe & Shame deserved some nominations.

And Samuel L. Jackson deserved a nomination for TH8.

I didn't think Sam Jackson was particularly good in The Hateful Eight at all, let alone deserving of a nomination. Opinions seem mixed enough on his performance that it would be a poor example of a snub, in my opinion.

IMO he was better than Leonardo "I suffered through harsh conditions so I deserve an Oscar" DiCaprio in The Revenant. He also deserved one for Django Unchained but instead they went with the safer choice of Christoph "the only nice white guy in the whole movie" Waltz, who was good (even though he was basically doing a rehash of Colonel Hans Landa) but IMO not better than SLJ.

These are opinions of course..............

Right, all a matter of opinion. But like I said, as far as general discussion or praise for his performance in Hateful Eight I don't really see a lot of buzz in general from "critics" and regular viewers alike if you're championing his cause as an example of minorities being ignored this year.

I think an article from The Verge web site may have nailed the very reason for the lack of African-American acting nominees:

Nomineering, Week 3: How the Academy fixed being out of touch 45 years ago
Bryan Bishop
The Verge website
January 22, 2016

Read the full article here

Like a similar situation in the late 1960's, the voting membership demographic at AMPAS skews too old, lacks non-white voters, and won't vote for anything from more "edgy" films. By purging many older voters and bring in younger members into the voting bloc at the Academy, maybe we'll get a lot more diverse group of nominees in almost every category one year from now. After all, when then-AMPAS President Gregory Peck did a similar purge of AMPAS voting membership in 1970, it heralded in the age of many historically important films that garnered in Oscar nominations and wins for almost a decade.

1. Yes.

2. Consider the Critics Choice Awards, decided upon by the members of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, men and women paid to watch and review films, including Straight Outta Compton.

How many black actors got nominated this year in the four major acting categories by the BFCA? Zero.

How about last year? One (David Oyelowo for Selma).

So either the BFCA is also mired in racism or maybe, just maybe, the Oscar nominations are within the margin of reason and fairness.

I guess I meant more chicks except Melissa McCarthy.

No he did NOT. He was essentially playing a hyped up version of his own persona that was created by some good performances and his overall charisma. but his performance in TH8 was borderline parody.

I'm not really sure what you are arguing here. One one hand, you seem to be arguing Straight Outta Compton should have been nominated. But they you follow it up by specifically saying you're not saying that. You are implying that the generally white, older Academy is overlooking minorities and females. And maybe that's true. But is there specific evidence of that? Cause films like Brooklyn or Room or even Mad Max: Fury Road have strong female leads and garnered best picture noms this year. Selma was nominated last year. There's always a subjectivity to movies, but it seems quality work does get recognized.

It just seems like when you have a borderline candidate for a particular category and they don't get nominated, it's easy to play the race card. But it doesn't make it true. Doesn't mean the system won't favor certain types of movie or certain types of actors. There's always bias. But in this case I think the outrage is misguided. As has been mentioned, the minority acting performances this year were limited. It seems more about opportunity than recognition.

He had some great moments, but also some over the top moments, too. I can see the Academy NOT nominating him for that reason.


There wasn't an issue this year. No one really deserving got snubbed. The issue this year was with movies and roles for minority actors. That's not the Academy's fault.

The people boycotting the Oscars are focusing their misguided anger at the wrong people. It's the studio executives who they should be focusing on.

If those numbers are correct it would seem that there isn't really an issue here. Just the perception of an issue.

The thing with awards ceremonies like this is that there will always be people left out of the nominations. Some may be deserving of inclusion, but most aren't.

^someone send that to Spike Lee and Jada...