We Got Rid of Some Bad Men. Now Let’s Get Rid of Bad Movies.
- 6 years ago
We Got Rid of Some Bad Men. Now Let’s Get Rid of Bad Movies.
The Oscars are here: the first Oscars since powerful men started falling to #MeToo, a Trump-era Oscars,
a #TimesUp Oscars, an Oscars in the shadow of “Black Panther.” Some big chairs will be empty.
You could make a parallel list about race, sexuality, ability, poverty — every vector of identity
that has historically been funneled through, for instance, the 82.4 percent of film directors who are white men (according to a 2015 report by the Directors Guild of America).
Jordan Peele has the chance to become the first black person ever to win best director; Greta Gerwig would be only the second woman.
Yance Ford, whose film “Strong Island” is up for best documentary feature, would be the first trans director to win an Oscar.
TV and film are in the thick of an unprecedented sociopolitical reckoning, the first ever of such scale
and ferocity, a microcosm of our ever-more-literal national culture war.
Vulture reported last week that some older Academy voters refused to even watch “Get
Out,” calling it “not an Oscar film,” a dismissal more air horn than dog whistle.
We need artists and studios fighting for diverse work made by diverse creators for diverse audiences
because it’s the right thing to do, not just because “Black Panther” is hurtling toward a possible billion-dollar worldwide box-office take.
But to make that reckoning stick, we have to look ahead
and ask ourselves what we want of this new Hollywood, and look back to avoid repeating the past.
The Oscars are here: the first Oscars since powerful men started falling to #MeToo, a Trump-era Oscars,
a #TimesUp Oscars, an Oscars in the shadow of “Black Panther.” Some big chairs will be empty.
You could make a parallel list about race, sexuality, ability, poverty — every vector of identity
that has historically been funneled through, for instance, the 82.4 percent of film directors who are white men (according to a 2015 report by the Directors Guild of America).
Jordan Peele has the chance to become the first black person ever to win best director; Greta Gerwig would be only the second woman.
Yance Ford, whose film “Strong Island” is up for best documentary feature, would be the first trans director to win an Oscar.
TV and film are in the thick of an unprecedented sociopolitical reckoning, the first ever of such scale
and ferocity, a microcosm of our ever-more-literal national culture war.
Vulture reported last week that some older Academy voters refused to even watch “Get
Out,” calling it “not an Oscar film,” a dismissal more air horn than dog whistle.
We need artists and studios fighting for diverse work made by diverse creators for diverse audiences
because it’s the right thing to do, not just because “Black Panther” is hurtling toward a possible billion-dollar worldwide box-office take.
But to make that reckoning stick, we have to look ahead
and ask ourselves what we want of this new Hollywood, and look back to avoid repeating the past.