Why I Won't Be Watching the Academy Awards This Year

image source

In 1994 Anna Paquin won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role in The Piano.  She was eleven.  She wore this bright blueish/purple dress with a matching hat and when she got up there she just sort of stood there giggling nervously in shock.  I think this moment may have begun my love affair with the Oscars.

A year later Martin Landau won Best Supporting Actor for Ed Wood and some kid in my TAG pullout group went on and on the next day about how Martin Landau was his great-uncle.  I was so insanely jealous.

A long time ago I dreamed of being a big actress and of course those daydreams included a trip up those stairs to accept my award.  I’m not ashamed to admit it (ok, maybe a little embarrassed) but I definitely practiced my speech in the mirror.  And in a total Meta moment I remember saying (in my practice speech) how I used to practice this moment in the mirror as a kid but the real thing is so much better.

I was kind of a weird kid.

At any rate for the better part of twenty years I have LOVED the Academy Awards.  I’ve paid attention to the predictions, listened to the talk radio circuit in the weeks leading up to it and watched the entire coverage from the red carpet to Oprah’s interviews the next day.  I’ve DVR’d it and watched pieced together versions on YouTube.  I’ve rushed to Walgreens the next day to buy the People Magazine coverage and scoured the best and worst dress lists.  It’s my Super Bowl and March Madness and Stanley Cup all rolled into one and I love it.

Except this year I won’t be watching it.

On Thursday morning they announced the nominations.  While I haven’t seen any of the movies in the running this year (because, well, three kids means I ain’t watching anything I can’t see from the comfort of my couch.  And half those movies have only been out in limited release until this weekend) I’ve read reviews and listened to interviews with many of the directors or critics about the movies.  I’m not completely uninformed on this topic and I had my own predictions on who would be up for the awards.

The radio blared as I made the kids breakfast Thursday morning and I perked up a little as they began to announce nominees.  There were a few I was fairly sure were “safe bets” as far as nominees go.  When I didn’t hear David Oyelowe’s name for Selma I thought maybe I’d missed it amid the clamor that is my kids and breakfast time.  And then I didn’t hear Selma director Ava DuVernay’s name either and my heart sunk a little. 

I wasn’t the only one who noticed the glaring omission of any real diversity in the nominees this year.  People took to twitter pretty immediately to express their disappointment, creating the trending hash tag #whiteoscars.  In all four acting categories not one person of color received a nomination.  This hasn’t happened in seventeen years.  And Ava DuVernay was expected to be the first African American woman to receive a director’s nom.

Except she won’t be.

This is certainly not unprecedented.  For years the Academy has been criticized for its lack of diversity.  Part of the problem lies in the Academy voters, 94% of whose population is Caucasian, 77% male.  Read that again.  94% of the people who are voting for the nominations and subsequent winners are white. (source)

That’s a problem.

The Academy Awards have a strong influence on what movies people will go see.  And the money those movies make determine the kinds of movies that will be made the next year.  And so on and so on.

I have a hard time believing there were no compelling performances by people of color in the past year.  But even if there weren’t, if movies starring strong characters of color aren’t being made at all, that’s a big problem too!  There is an unjust system at play that we keep perpetuating by ignoring the reality of it.

I know this is not a new problem.  Every year the list of nominees if pretty white washed.  But this year it really bothers me.  In part it’s because of the events of Ferguson and the lack of charges in Eric Garner’s death.  And because of the deaths of Tamir Rice and John Crawford, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker and countless others.  It seems that racial tensions are at an all time high right now.  I’m increasingly aware that there are major systems of injustice at play in our world today and I can’t keep taking part in them blindly.

I know that my refusal to watch the Academy Awards in February won’t likely change much.  No one at the Academy will find out that they’ve lost one life-long fan this year.  The advertisers will still pay lots of dollars to air commercials during the show and the same thing will probably happen next year.  And I don't fault anyone who will participate in all the Oscar to dos.  But I’m realizing more and more that my choices in how I spend my time and money are casting votes for something whether I’m intentional about it or not.  I can choose to vote to maintain systems of injustice and oppression or I can vote for something better.  For a new way of doing business.  For a bigger, more diverse table.  And maybe if we all start voting this way the people making the decisions will start listening.

So that’s why I won’t be watching the Academy Awards on February 22.  It’s why I won’t go out and buy People magazine the next day or spend lots of time reading all the recaps online the next day.  That time is a vote and I can’t keep voting to maintain an unjust system.