The big, fat, racist Oscars.

[The Curmudgeon]

I hate award shows. Hate them. I don't mind things like the NME Awards, where it's all a little bit rock and roll and with at least a hint of attitude, but backslapping "I want to thank my team" affairs like the Oscar's just put me to sleep. So I'd like to say I'm "boycotting" the Oscars this year, but I wouldn't watch that shit if Samuel L Jackson was up for every award. Well, OK, I might if that was the case, but that's not very likely this year, is it?

Because if you've got eyes and an internet connection you'll already know that this year's ceremony is tainted by being all white everything, with no person of colour being nominated for one single award. And so black actors and media types are lining up to say they're not going.

So how do we feel about this? Despite the fact they've got Chris Rock presenting the fucking thing, there's no end of blogs and Twitter feeds calling the Oscars racist, with even the head people (I can't be bothered looking up their names) pretty much saying "welp, shit. Looks like we'll have to change next year."

Surely though blaming the Oscars is like blaming dog food when a dog bites you? Isn't it the entire movie industry that needs to look at this situation, rather than some award ceremony? If there are no "quality" films starring people of colour, blame the studio's. Blame the production and direction teams. Why blame an awards ceremony that only looks at certain high caliber movies released that year?

The whole argument seems counter-productive and a little patronising to me. People were losing their shit at the fact "Straight Outta Compton" wasn't nominated, or that Will Smith didn't get an automatic Oscar nod for "Concussion", like, "hey, there's black people in that and it's not Scary Movie 8. Give them an Oscar."

Maybe I'm missing the point, but maybe the Oscars is dominated by white actors because only white actors were in the sort of critically acclaimed movies the Oscars go for? And again, that's not the fault of the Oscars but the movie business in general. Go boycott that.

[trashcanman]

THIS.
IS.
NOT.
FUCKING NEWS.

The Oscars are nothing more than corporate commercial advertisements/a celebrity beauty pageant and they never have been (in my lifetime, at least). If racial equality or art were any sort of priority, then all films from across the world would be eligible for every award and an entire universe of art other than American and British films wouldn't e condensed into one half ass Best Foreign Language Film category and Pixar/Disney wouldn't win Best Animated Feature every year when Japan by itself has put America's animation industry to shame for decades in terms of artistic achievement. The Oscars are here to advertise for Hollywood and to get idiots who are too lazy to figure out what movies are good for themselves to watch six straight hours of commercials and celebrity circle jerks. I've never deliberately watched the Oscars and at one point in my life I watched at least a movie a day for years. My wife can count the number of films she watches in a year on her fingers, but she never misses the Oscars. That's all you need to know. So no, motherfuckers, like George Bush, the Oscars don't care about black people (don't say "people of color") or anything at all other than Hollywood's corporate interests.

People pretending to suddenly give a shit about race after all these years just because it's trending on Twitter right now is crass and pathetic. The Oscars have never given a shit and the only way they'll ever nominate any minority for anything ever is if the movie they decide to push happens to star one and that's just racial roulette. Given that most Hollywood films are cast based on what appeals to a given demographic (usually white) and most foreign films have to stay in their place, expect no shortage of whiteness. But if people actually do boycott the Oscars and they do lose money from it, expect lots of tokenism. Maybe next year ONLY BLACK PEOPLE WILL WIN! How exciting! Progress at last! Proof that racism is dead! Feel good about yourselves, white people who are overcompensating for your racial insecurities! Hollywood has vindicated your hashtags! Sing it with me: we will overcoooooooooome...oh wait. No Asians, Hispanics, Indians, Native Americans, Filipinos, Africans, Pacific Islanders, Arabs, or Israelis were nominated. And then there's transgender people. This nonsense isn't going away anytime soon, is it?

[Ben]

I don't understand this new phenomenon about racial quotas. Like, because black people exist the Oscars ought to automatically nominate a few of them? I don't believe for a second the Academy is any more racist than any of us- as has been said, Chris Rock is hosting and, uh, wasn't it just last year Selma was nominated for Best Picture? But now they have to nominate, like, a certain number of black people/pictures or *gasp* RACISM, RACISM!

This kind of stupidity makes me hate humans. The cretins who chirp about this kind of stuff don't even realize that were Will Smith to be nominated for Concussion solely on the grounds that he's a black man it would be fucking racist.

I mean, what's more offensive:

A: We choose not to nominate any black people this year because the biggest movies and best performances were all by white folks.

B. We nominate 2 black people for Oscars this year because, while some white folks might be more deserving, we have to be inclusive.

Maybe I'm all backwards in the modern world, but I have to ask: what kind of sad, bitchass person would feel good about him/herself for receiving a nomination born from pity or public pressure?

[The Curmudgeon]

Thank you, glad I'm not the only one who sees how deeply stupid and backward this is. Hey, the fact there aren't more non-white actors in prominent roles is an acceptable and legitimate concern, but I don't get why the Oscar's is suddenly the culprit. And you know they're going to be falling over themselves to nominate black actors next year, so any black actor who DOES get an award has got to be thinking "did I win this because I was good or..."

Dumb shit.