I keep telling you, it is not the Academy, who actually has a SISTA as its president currently. The problem is HOLLYWOOD ITSELF. Black people in general are a huge minority when it comes to filmmakers, and literally these black actors and actresses have to crawl over each other to get a promising role that may or may not get recognition. That's problem number one. Problem number two is, out of that small minority of filmmakers, how many black films just last YEAR from the mainstream box office out of hundreds upon hundreds of white films that were released? To my knowledge, just FIVE: Dope, Straight Outta Compton, Creed, Chi-Raq, and Beast With No Nation and the last two were simultaneously streamed online by Netflix & Amazon Prime. Straight Outta Compton was a movie that took decades into the making and forced to switch studios because the former studio didn't believe in providing a satisfactory budget for the movie. So, most of these BLACK FILMS by the limited black filmmakers that we got struggle to even get a major studio to green light and back their films to be made, and if they go independent, those films would get ignored completely. This leads to problem number three, whether it is intentional, or unintentional, come Oscar season, which is the fall/winter season, there's a lot of movies that would already came out prior to October. Unless you got a film like Mad Max that was making noise ALL YEAR, a lot of GREAT film by any ethnicity, especially black films like DOPE would be completely overlooked. Even a film that was trying to regain buzz, Ex Machina, got snubbed. Everyone is now talking about how Alicia Vikander got picked a nomination for the wrong role. The studios pushes all of their maximum effort in campaigning for a film or actor or actress that THEY believe could win for them. They base it off of buzz from other minor awards stops, like critic awards and so forth. Nine times out of ten, they AREN'T going to push and campaign for movies that are summer blockbusters, or horror thrillers, sci-fi fantasies, and films that are for entertainment for pure entertainment. They go for the artsy, dramatic, confined, traditional type of films. This is why SPOTLIGHT been hyped up because it is as traditional of an Oscar baited film as any before. The anomaly would be a film like Mad Max. But with BLACK FILMMAKERS, there's hardly or rarely ever movies that we made with a Hollywood budget that the studios would push because they believe it is a sure Oscar contender based upon the same artsy, dramatic, confined traditional Oscar bait themes. Prime example would be CREED, which deserves to be recognized. But Creed in the studio's eyes as well as many in the public that haven't yet SEEN the movie, just brush it off as another generic Rocky sequel and therefore no extra push for it or buzz. The only thing that was buzzing all over was Sly Stallone.
So, this leads to the Academy's problem. Mind you, they were aware of the diversity problem last year, they got a sista as the head of the Academy. The host that THEY chose is Chris Rock, which you cannot get anymore blacker. They WANT a diverse selection of nominees of every ethnicity because it is good for RATINGS. So, this is something even they don't even want. How the nominees are picked is through over 6,000 individuals that are Academy members to whom are actors, directors, producers, firm consultants, editors, composers, and a gang of random people who works in Hollywood. I guarantee you if the demographics of all of those people are white, the end result are going to be mostly white nominees. Unless the studios successfully PUSH for their films and people to be nominated, most of the time those peoples and films are going to be ignored. No matter what, it is an uphill battle. The problem is with HOLLYWOOD.
So, this leads to the Academy's problem. Mind you, they were aware of the diversity problem last year, they got a sista as the head of the Academy. The host that THEY chose is Chris Rock, which you cannot get anymore blacker. They WANT a diverse selection of nominees of every ethnicity because it is good for RATINGS. So, this is something even they don't even want. How the nominees are picked is through over 6,000 individuals that are Academy members to whom are actors, directors, producers, firm consultants, editors, composers, and a gang of random people who works in Hollywood. I guarantee you if the demographics of all of those people are white, the end result are going to be mostly white nominees. Unless the studios successfully PUSH for their films and people to be nominated, most of the time those peoples and films are going to be ignored. No matter what, it is an uphill battle. The problem is with HOLLYWOOD.
