Solving the #OscarsSoWhite Controversy

[Zontar]

I genuinely don't know why anyone gives a shit.

Because people love to complain, and complaining about something being racist is as easy as it is reductionist. I'd say this is an issue that could simply be solved with math (due to African Americans not being under represented in the past 20 years of awards, though when trash like Crash gets a handout over actually good movies I suppose one could argue the anger is that sometimes they get awards without earning them) but that applies to a lot of controversies these days if one where to remove emotion and look at things rationally.

 

[maninahat]

[snip]

Isn't this more because of the population in the USA is 77% white? It's hard to blame an industry of being "disproportionately white" when the population itself is "disproportionately white".

Anyways my opinion is, "are the oscars govement funded?", if the answer is no then the people there have the right to vote for the movies they want.

Disproportionate here means not in proportion. If white people won 77% of the Oscars, and black people won 14% of Oscars, then it would be roughly proportionate to the US population. Instead we have a season were 100% of the Oscars go to white people. That's very disproportionate.

Also, just because the Oscars (and the entire movie industry) is private, that doesn't make such discrimination okay.

 

[FPLOON]

I think... the only way to solve all this shit... is to stop holding the Academy/Oscars as the pinnacle of movie history in the making... Too bad there's too many senior citizens and/or actors that care about this shit to the point that it will always be recorded into the history books of pending movie history classes and "only" those that actively care about movie history would even dare to go beyond the movies that didn't win the gold-ass trophy, let alone get a nomination... And that's not including the compensative advertising of these movies which makes people buy/rent these movies that they probably wouldn't have watched anyway if not for being "referenced" at the fucking Oscars in the first place...

Other than that, I still love the Oscars despite being someone who "should" be complaining about the constant whitewashing/whitecasting that [still] lead up to these "prestige" award shows and shit... However, as someone who loves movies, even I don't take the Academy/Oscars as that of an importance to the overall realm of movie history... except if it involves Leo winning an Oscar and/or the Independent Spirit Awards, which are way better than the Oscars in every way in my honest opinion...

 

[stormtrooper9091]

Interestingly, the Economist did a piece on this a few weeks ago, and they actually found that Blacks gets nominated for Oscars roughly in line with what their proportion of the US population is, and, in fact, they actually win Oscars at a higher proportion of what their population percentage is.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/01/film-and-race

The real discrepancy between population % and oscar representation is with Hispanic and Asian actors.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but that slides under the radar because black people tend to make a much bigger drama about it (s. Rock, Chris), and by the same token, the slur for black people is (made to be) much louder and heavier than similar slurs for Hispanics and Asians. And yes, this is what I hate about internet moderation, racial slurs have become such a taboo that even mentioning it in a conversation is grounds for having your bollocks proverbially lopped off.

But the point is, racism itself is racist

 

[Amaror]

[snip]

Isn't this more because of the population in the USA is 77% white? It's hard to blame an industry of being "disproportionately white" when the population itself is "disproportionately white".

Anyways my opinion is, "are the oscars govement funded?", if the answer is no then the people there have the right to vote for the movies they want.

Disproportionate here means not in proportion. If white people won 77% of the Oscars, and black people won 14% of Oscars, then it would be roughly proportionate to the US population. Instead we have a season were 100% of the Oscars go to white people. That's very disproportionate.

Also, just because the Oscars (and the entire movie industry) is private, that doesn't make such discrimination okay.

Thats not how proportions work. You can't just point at a single instance of were it wasn't proportional and claim that the whole thing is not proportional. Because as another user postet earlier black people do get roughly the same proportion of nominations as their proportion of the population:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/01/film-and-race
So, yeah, the overall amount of nominations is proportional. Yes there were no nominations in 2015, but that doesn't mean that the whole thing isn't proportional. That's the reason why scientists never only measure one instance of something happening and instantly proclaim it true. That's not how you prove anything. You have to measure it many, many times and the average of the results generally shows you how it is overall.
Black people got less nominations than the proportions of the population in this year. Most likely they got a good amount more nominations than the propotion of the population in another year. It evens out over time. Demanding that black people always get 14% of nominations no matter how good they act or how good the movies featuring them were is pretty much delusional. That's not how you get honest competition.

 

[maninahat]

[snip]

Isn't this more because of the population in the USA is 77% white? It's hard to blame an industry of being "disproportionately white" when the population itself is "disproportionately white".

Anyways my opinion is, "are the oscars govement funded?", if the answer is no then the people there have the right to vote for the movies they want.

Disproportionate here means not in proportion. If white people won 77% of the Oscars, and black people won 14% of Oscars, then it would be roughly proportionate to the US population. Instead we have a season were 100% of the Oscars go to white people. That's very disproportionate.

Also, just because the Oscars (and the entire movie industry) is private, that doesn't make such discrimination okay.

The problem is how the difference in population comes to term in the industry itself but even then, having lower population means their chance of winning is far smaller. Regardless, in the end this is not dice rolling, but a competition, would it make sense if I say that the olympic is racist since mainly disproportunate amount of black people win the 100m dash?

It would not make sense. Olympic sprinting is a competition who's winners are determined by a combination of physiological factors that ensure they get the best possible time, the Oscars is based on judges selecting a winner based on entirely on their subjective preferences. To compare them, I would have to assume white people win all the Oscars because they are physically better at acting than black people, which would be an absurd suggestion. I mean there are a bunch of racial issues with the Olympics, but not specifically in how runners win a race.

And about privacy, imagine you celebrating your birthday and the local newspaper calls you racist for not having enough black people in your party, is that reasonable?

It wouldn't be reasonable. My party is not an explicit attempt to reflect and celebrate the entire output of a country's film industry. The Oscars are. The fact that I can only possibly know a finite number of people worth inviting to a party in the first place makes the two incomparable. Not personally knowing the director of Creed is not an excuse for a lack of nomination, though it might be an excuse for why I didn't invite him over to my house for cocktails.

[snip]

You might have had a point if you didn't choose comic book characters who's race was already decided decades ago.

If anything, that strengthens the point. Comics written decades ago were even less inclusive than movies are now, and there is no rule that says a movie has to stick to a specific race; Superman being white is not an inherent aspect of his character. Movies already have race changed a number of comic book characters, but they don't do it anywhere near enough.

 

[maninahat]

[snip]

Isn't this more because of the population in the USA is 77% white? It's hard to blame an industry of being "disproportionately white" when the population itself is "disproportionately white".

Anyways my opinion is, "are the oscars govement funded?", if the answer is no then the people there have the right to vote for the movies they want.

Disproportionate here means not in proportion. If white people won 77% of the Oscars, and black people won 14% of Oscars, then it would be roughly proportionate to the US population. Instead we have a season were 100% of the Oscars go to white people. That's very disproportionate.

Also, just because the Oscars (and the entire movie industry) is private, that doesn't make such discrimination okay.

Thats not how proportions work. You can't just point at a single instance of were it wasn't proportional and claim that the whole thing is not proportional. Because as another user postet earlier black people do get roughly the same proportion of nominations as their proportion of the population:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/01/film-and-race

So, yeah, the overall amount of nominations is proportional. Yes there were no nominations in 2015, but that doesn't mean that the whole thing isn't proportional. That's the reason why scientists never only measure one instance of something happening and instantly proclaim it true. That's not how you prove anything. You have to measure it many, many times and the average of the results generally shows you how it is overall.

Did you actually read all the article, or just look at the graph?

 

[Amaror]

Did you actually read all the article, or just look at the graph?

I have. I have never said there was no underrepresentation of minorities in the oscars, I said there is no underrepresentation of black people, which is true.
That being said I don't really have too much investment in the oscars and I am not trying to defend them. I was mostly against your argumentation that one instance of something disproportionate happening is some kind of proof of racism.
If you however say something like: There's a disproportionately small amount of nominations for asian and hispanic minorities, I agree with you, since it is backed up by data.

 

[JimB]

You cannot claim there is a different 'standard' that black filmmakers are judged by.

In a year when movies like Creed and Chi-raq get snubbed? Sure I can.

I don't know where your obsession with subjectivity being impossible to be racist comes from, since racism itself is a subjective belief with no basis in objective reality.

You might have had a point if you didn't choose comic book characters whose race was already decided decades ago.

Those choices can be changed. Nick Fury was created as a white man. The first person to play him in a movie adaptation is David Hasslehoff. So was Johnny Storm, and so far as I can tell (though it can be hard to tell this based off comic book art), Quake is not half-Asian.

[snip]

You might have had a point if you didn't choose comic book characters who's race was already decided decades ago.

If anything, that strengthens the point. Comics written decades ago were even less inclusive than movies are now, and there is no rule that says a movie has to stick to a specific race; Superman being white is not an inherent aspect of his character. Movies already have race changed a number of comic book characters, but they don't do it anywhere near enough.

I agree with your point, but just to let you know, you reversed the nesting tags. I am not the person arguing that the race of comic book characters is set in stone and cannot be changed.

 

[maninahat]

Did you actually read all the article, or just look at the graph?

I have. I have never said there was no underrepresentation of minorities in the oscars, I said there is no underrepresentation of black people, which is true.
That being said I don't really have too much investment in the oscars and I am not trying to defend them. I was mostly against your argumentation that one instance of something disproportionate happening is some kind of proof of racism.
If you however say something like: There's a disproportionately small amount of nominations for asian and hispanic minorities, I agree with you, since it is backed up by data.

I asked because the article specifically says this isn't the first time it happened. It is not a random, isolated occurrence. Also, even if you just go by the chart, the chart does show under-representation of black people. Not in nominations or roles, mind you, but in Oscars won and top roles. The article expounds on that too.

 

[Amaror]

Did you actually read all the article, or just look at the graph?

I have. I have never said there was no underrepresentation of minorities in the oscars, I said there is no underrepresentation of black people, which is true.
That being said I don't really have too much investment in the oscars and I am not trying to defend them. I was mostly against your argumentation that one instance of something disproportionate happening is some kind of proof of racism.
If you however say something like: There's a disproportionately small amount of nominations for asian and hispanic minorities, I agree with you, since it is backed up by data.

I asked because the article specifically says this isn't the first time it happened. It is not a random, isolated occurrence. Also, even if you just go by the chart, the chart does show under-representation of black people. Not in nominations or roles, mind you, but in Oscars won and top roles. The article expounds on that too.

What are you talking about? Black people are clearly shown to have a higher percentage of Oscar wins than both nominations, roles played and population. If anything, they are being favoured for actually winning the oscars, not discriminated against.

Edit: Concerning the "It's not the first time it happened". Yeah that's kindof how this stuff works. You will have some instances were black people have a much higher percentage than the percentage of population and you will have some instances were black people have a much lower percentage than the percentage of the population. It's what an average describes.

 

[Strazdas]

But again, that's mistaking the issue. No one is arguing that black people deserve more nominations because the nominations have to suit racial demographics within the US; they're arguing that good movies by and starring black people have been snubbed in favor of white movies, because the black movies didn't follow the Oscar-bait formula for what makes an Oscar-worthy black movie (be about slavery/racial oppression that the hero overcomes so everyone can feel good that racism is over now). It's about the Academy congratulating itself for the fine work it's done this year and telling the world that it doesn't think any black people have done fine work in 2015.

But... thats impossible to prove? The oscars are supposed to be the institution decision what is and isnt a good movie, so by definition its impossible for them to pick bad movies because of bias because they are the ones deciding what is bad in the first place.

And if we go with oscar bait and its bias towards certain tropes, thats a whole different discussion and becomes purely subjective and pointless in terms of racial discourse.

It's only a population-based problem if 23% of all characters in movies are not white--one in four, so if we only count team members, then at least two characters in the second Avengers movie should have been not-white, right?--and if non-white people get cast in "white" roles with the same frequency and lack of comment as the reverse.

Well one of them was a tree and another was a racoon. So two are definatelly not white men. There was also a blue man, though i doubt there are many blue skinned people in US.

 

[Souplex]

For me the lack of black nominees isn't nearly as abad as the overall lack of roles for asians and hispanics.
The film industry is based in California, I'm pretty sure those demographics are represented there.
That said, I won't care about the Oscars until they acknowledge that action and comedy are things, and they recognize that Men in Black is objectively the best move ever.

 

[JimB]

You might have had a point if you didn't choose comic book characters whose race was already decided decades ago.

Those choices can be changed. Nick Fury was created as a white man. The first person to play him in a movie adaptation is David Hasslehoff. So was Johnny Storm, and so far as I can tell (though it can be hard to tell this based off comic book art), Quake is not half-Asian.

Except he's based on Ultimate Nick Fury who is black in the comics before the films.

And Johnny Storm and Quake?

But... that's impossible to prove?

By what standard is it impossible to prove? Reasonable people can draw inferences based on patterns of behavior and be satisfied by them.

The Sscars are supposed to be the institution decision what is and isn't a good movie, so by definition it's impossible for them to pick bad movies because of bias because they are the ones deciding what is bad in the first place.

I don't remember saying that the Oscars are picking bad movies, so I'm not sure where that's coming from...but since we're on that topic, I remember Crash.

It's only a population-based problem if 23% of all characters in movies are not white--one in four, so if we only count team members, then at least two characters in the second Avengers movie should have been not-white, right?--and if non-white people get cast in "white" roles with the same frequency and lack of comment as the reverse.

Well one of them was a tree and another was a raccoon.

You have mistaken the Avengers for the Guardians of the Galaxy.

 

[maninahat]

You might have had a point if you didn't choose comic book characters whose race was already decided decades ago.

Those choices can be changed. Nick Fury was created as a white man. The first person to play him in a movie adaptation is David Hasslehoff. So was Johnny Storm, and so far as I can tell (though it can be hard to tell this based off comic book art), Quake is not half-Asian.

Except he's based on ultimate Nick Fury who is black in the comics before the films.

So your original point about them being "decades old comics" was moot in the first place - even the comics change.

[snip]

Isn't this more because of the population in the USA is 77% white? It's hard to blame an industry of being "disproportionately white" when the population itself is "disproportionately white".

Anyways my opinion is, "are the oscars govement funded?", if the answer is no then the people there have the right to vote for the movies they want.

Disproportionate here means not in proportion. If white people won 77% of the Oscars, and black people won 14% of Oscars, then it would be roughly proportionate to the US population. Instead we have a season were 100% of the Oscars go to white people. That's very disproportionate.

Also, just because the Oscars (and the entire movie industry) is private, that doesn't make such discrimination okay.

The problem is how the difference in population comes to term in the industry itself but even then, having lower population means their chance of winning is far smaller. Regardless, in the end this is not dice rolling, but a competition, would it make sense if I say that the olympic is racist since mainly disproportunate amount of black people win the 100m dash?

It would not make sense. Olympic sprinting is a competition who's winners are determined by a combination of physiological factors that ensure they get the best possible time, the Oscars is based on judges selecting a winner based on entirely on their subjective preferences. To compare them, I would have to assume white people win all the Oscars because they are physically better at acting than black people, which would be an absurd suggestion. I mean there are a bunch of racial issues with the Olympics, but not specifically in how runners win a race.

And about privacy, imagine you celebrating your birthday and the local newspaper calls you racist for not having enough black people in your party, is that reasonable?

It wouldn't be reasonable. My party is not an explicit attempt to reflect and celebrate the entire output of a country's film industry. The Oscars are. The fact that I can only possibly know a finite number of people worth inviting to a party in the first place makes the two incomparable. Not personally knowing the director of Creed is not an excuse for a lack of nomination, though it might be an excuse for why I didn't invite him over to my house for cocktails.

1. But it's still a competition, you can't go to a person and tell him his choice at who's better is wrong because it is not inclusive enough. What's next? we'll have a mandatory minority representation in the Nobel prizes?

2. But isn't the oscars an internal private affair? The fact that people made it a big event does not mean it has the job to cater to everyone.

1. Of course I can't tell a person that they're taste is wrong. What I am doing is pointing out the difference in having an objective means of determining a winner, and a subjective one. The subjective one is always going to have problems, if you are going to rely on a big panel of judges who severely lack in diversity. They are naturally going to have a lot of overlap in opinion, at the expense of those outside their tastes.

2. It does when it's explicit aim is to celebrate an entire industry, and not just "the movies white people like".

 

[sageoftruth]

Interestingly, the Economist did a piece on this a few weeks ago, and they actually found that Blacks gets nominated for Oscars roughly in line with what their proportion of the US population is, and, in fact, they actually win Oscars at a higher proportion of what their population percentage is.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/01/film-and-race

The real discrepancy between population % and oscar representation is with Hispanic and Asian actors.

Sounds like you use the Economist for more than just passing the time during a commute. I never make it to the arts section of the magazine before the next issue comes out. Kudos.

I think it's time to call controversies like #OscarsSoWhite for what it is: First World Racism. Like First World Problems, FWR are mild grievances built up to sound like major problems.

Seriously, any and all awards and lists of "Best" art are subjective. So What! If your favorite movie or actor didn't get nominated by an award show. It's not the end of the world. If you liked the movie before the Oscar nominations were announced, they will still entertain you regardless of how many nominations it received.

I think the basketball team analogy is an appropriate one. I feel that the people who are complaining about the racial makeup of the acting nominees are being racist. Seriously, would it be appropriate if next year all acting categories were made up of black actors, and people would start hashtags complaining that #OscarsSoBlack?

There is an honest discussion could be had if you think a certain black actor or actress should have been nominated this year. Like I said earlier, awards shows are subjective. There is always room for debating who is or isn't the best. If you are honestly concerned about who The Academy Awards constantly discriminate against, you need to start with comedies and genre movies. Also, their insistence of not nominating voice acting performances. (Seriously, the casts of Inside Out and Anomalisa should have nominated this year.)

Let's be honest. There wasn't really a great or note-worthy acting performance from black actors this year. There was no major snub. This controversy was brought up by people who are invested in political identity. Which I think is a racist philosophy that has caused more harm than good.

Well, if someone's offering a solution to a problem, I'm all ears, even if we're talking about how to make train tickets less expensive. Granted, this solution came from a stand-up comedian in the middle of his act, but I'm just happy to see people focused on solutions rather than problems.

 

[maninahat]

Did you actually read all the article, or just look at the graph?

I have. I have never said there was no underrepresentation of minorities in the oscars, I said there is no underrepresentation of black people, which is true.
That being said I don't really have too much investment in the oscars and I am not trying to defend them. I was mostly against your argumentation that one instance of something disproportionate happening is some kind of proof of racism.
If you however say something like: There's a disproportionately small amount of nominations for asian and hispanic minorities, I agree with you, since it is backed up by data.

I asked because the article specifically says this isn't the first time it happened. It is not a random, isolated occurrence. Also, even if you just go by the chart, the chart does show under-representation of black people. Not in nominations or roles, mind you, but in Oscars won and top roles. The article expounds on that too.

What are you talking about? Black people are clearly shown to have a higher percentage of Oscar wins than both nominations, roles played and population. If anything, they are being favoured for actually winning the oscars, not discriminated against.

Apologies, I got the "Wins" and "Nominations" the wrong way around. From the article (emphasis mine):

"Black actors get speaking roles in rough proportion to their percentage of America's population, according to a study of 600 top films from 2007-2013 at the Annenberg Center for Communication and Journalism. (See ?film roles? in the chart above.) Again, Latinos and Asians do much worse. But blacks are under-represented in the roles that count for the Oscars, getting just 9% of the top roles since 2000, according to our own analysis. (We define "top roles" as the top three names on the cast-list on IMDb, an online film database, in films with a rating of 7.5 or greater, an American box-office gross of at least $10m, and which were neither animated nor in a foreign language.)"

Edit: Concerning the "It's not the first time it happened". Yeah that's kindof how this stuff works. You will have some instances were black people have a much higher percentage than the percentage of population and you will have some instances were black people have a much lower percentage than the percentage of the population. It's what an average describes.

According to the article:
"...These years are far from the first whitewashing in Oscars history: no actors from ethnic minorities were nominated in 1995 or 1997, or in an extraordinary streak between 1975 and 1980. Throughout the 20th century, 95% of Oscar nominations went to white film stars...

...Could the "whiteout" be a statistical glitch? If the data were random, such a glitch would be hugely unlikely. A 2013 survey of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), an American union for film performers, suggests that 70% of its members are white. If all of the Guild?s members were equally likely to receive Oscar nominations, regardless of race, then over a two-year period 28 out of 40 nominations would be of white actors. The chances of no single person of colour being nominated across two ceremonies would be exceptionally small?even during a 15-year span, the odds of seeing at least one sequence of back-to-back whiteouts are around one in 100,000."

 

[Areloch]

Honestly, given that the 'OscarsSoWhite' thing seems to focus exclusively on black people, and from what I've heard, ignore the Latino and Asian actors and directors that DID get nominated(I hadn't looked up the nominations, but read other people talking about how there were non-black non-white nominations everyone was ignoring), the whole thing is stupid anyways.

Beyond that, this just strikes me as demanding quota'ing so that people's feelings don't get occasionally hurt when the subjectivity of an awards program gets in the way of their own personal biases of 'how they would have done it'.

Far better to ensure that minorities get pity awards rather than awarding them for actually being good, it seems. I'm sure the directors and actors would love having to wonder if they got a freebie for being black rather than actually the best at what they do.

 

[MrFalconfly]

You might have had a point if you didn't choose comic book characters whose race was already decided decades ago.

Those choices can be changed. Nick Fury was created as a white man. The first person to play him in a movie adaptation is David Hasslehoff. So was Johnny Storm, and so far as I can tell (though it can be hard to tell this based off comic book art), Quake is not half-Asian.

Except he's based on ultimate Nick Fury who is black in the comics before the films.

So your original point about them being "decades old comics" was moot in the first place - even the comics change.

IIRC "Ultimate Marvel" was basically a thought-experiment.

Basically, "Suppose those comics were never written, and we were the original writers writing the original characters".

So Ultimate Nick Fury, would by no means be the same character as Earth-616 (the original) Nick Fury, and therefore inu-kun's point still stands, for the simple reason that Ultimate Fury, 616 Fury, and 19999 Fury, are essentially three wildly different characters, who only share the same name and job description.

 

[Amaror]

According to the article:
"...These years are far from the first whitewashing in Oscars history: no actors from ethnic minorities were nominated in 1995 or 1997, or in an extraordinary streak between 1975 and 1980. Throughout the 20th century, 95% of Oscar nominations went to white film stars...

...Could the "whiteout" be a statistical glitch? If the data were random, such a glitch would be hugely unlikely. A 2013 survey of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), an American union for film performers, suggests that 70% of its members are white. If all of the Guild?s members were equally likely to receive Oscar nominations, regardless of race, then over a two-year period 28 out of 40 nominations would be of white actors. The chances of no single person of colour being nominated across two ceremonies would be exceptionally small?even during a 15-year span, the odds of seeing at least one sequence of back-to-back whiteouts are around one in 100,000."

I don't really want to argue about this anymore, since I have no personal opinion on how racist the movie industry is and or isn't but I have to just mention one problem with that last statement.
The economist itself says that the top actors are most likely to get nominated for oscars, yet it uses the ethnical proportions of ALL actors in order to measure the likelyhood that all nominees for oscars are white. Which is silly because there are plenty of actors in that estimation that don't have large enough roles to even have a chance to be nominated for the oscars. And if we look at the top actors on the chart itself, we see that 85& of top actors are white, which makes the chances that all nominees for oscars are white a lot higher than the 70% that the economist is working with. I would calculate the actual chance of consecutive oscar nominations being entirely white, but I would need the standart deviation of the data for that and I don't have that.