By Willie Osterweil
Al-Jazeera - January 15, 2014
How Oscar-nominated films misrepresent African-American history
The Academy Awards have made progress in terms of racial
representation. This year a film about slavery is the clear front-runner
in many of the major categories, and if “12 Years a Slave” or “Gravity”
wins best picture, it would be the first time a movie by a nonwhite
director takes the prize. It’s also possible that Lee Daniels (“The
Butler”) could join Steve McQueen (“12 Years”) and Alfonso Cuaron
(“Gravity”) to make best director a majority-minority category for the
first time ever.
It’s certainly a relief to see Oscar-nominated films about black experience
actually written and directed by black people (unlike, for example,
recent Oscar darlings “Django Unchained,” “The Help,” and “The Blind
Side”). But it’s the movie’s producers — who have more power over a
film’s content than most recognize — who will actually walk up to accept
the best picture statuette. Unsurprisingly, most of them are still
white.
That might be one reason why the representations of black experience
that the Academy deems best-picture-worthy remain fundamentally
unchallenged. Out of the 120 films that received a best picture
nomination in the last 20 years, only 17 featured nonwhite protagonists
or major characters. In all but four of those films these characters
were either extremely poor or criminals. Out of the four remaining, one
featured a slave (“Django,” 2012), another an entertainer (“Ray,” 2004),
another an athlete (“Jerry Maguire,” 1996). Needless to say, the white
characters in these and the other 103 films nominated for best picture
held a much wider variety of occupational and socioeconomic positions.
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