Straight Outta Hollywood and Oscar's white supremacy

The United States is rapidly becoming a majority-minority nation. Yet, the composition of Oscars voters, and this year's Academy Awards nominees, is still overwhelmingly white. For the second straight year, the Oscar nominees within the major categories are all white men or women. Not a single African or Asian American, Latina/o or Native American was nominated. Another Oscars' whitewash has spurred social media protests (#OscarsSoWhite), criticism from within Hollywood, and even a call for boycott demanding "more diversity". 

Demands for greater diversity within American cinema, whether within films themselves or award recognitions, are not new. They were launched five, 10 and 20 years ago. These demands for more diversity have rendered token progress. In years after protests, Halle Berry won the Best Actress in the Leading Role category in 2001, and in 2013, Lupita Nyang'o won the Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 2013 for 12 Years a Slave. Yet, these moments of minority recognition are fleeting and far between. And almost always, followed by award whitewashes or near whitewashes. Illustrating that demands for mere or more diversity should be replaced, or recast, with calls demanding structural reform within the Academy itself. 

Hollywood or Hollywhite?

Oscar voters are old, wealthy, white, and men. Not unlike every other hall of US power, this narrow demographic controls which films are made, which actors are cast, and certainly, which films and actors deserve Oscar recognition. Ninety-four percent of the Academy are white; 77 percent are men; African-Americans comprise roughly 2 percent of the Academy, while Latina/o voters are less than 2 percent. Other communities of colour, including Asian, Arab and Native Americans, are virtually non-existent within the Oscar voting committee. Perhaps America's quintessential old boys' network, a virtually all-white Academy is the principal reason the 2016 Oscar nominations were once again swept by white men and women. If the racial composition of Oscar voters remains almost entirely white and male, then the composition of the nominees will follow in that very line. 

Not unlike an informally segregated golf course, or corporate boardroom, these gatekeepers not only determine - in the words of Martin Scorsese - who's "in the frame and what's out". But also, whose cinematic performances and contributions, creativity and impact, are awarded. Moreover, the racial identity of the Academy illustrates why films centering on minority narratives - like Ryan Coogler's Creed or F Gary Gray's biopic, Straight Outta Compton - did not resonate with voters, and ultimately, were not nominated. 

The latter film, depicting the story of the landmark rap group NWA was both critical and a box office hit. But the nearly all-black cast, featuring the rise, fall and impact of the controversial rap collective and its iconic members, likely clashed with the interests and sensibilities of Oscar voters. One member of the Academy, a white male, stated, "I happen to think Straight Outta Compton is not a great film for reasons of structure and substance."Perhaps fittingly, the-all white music industry that feared and didn't understand NWA nearly three decades ago mirrors the all-white Oscar voters who don't understand Straight Outta Compton today. History certainly repeats itself. But this time, within another segment of the entertainment industry also dominated by white, old, wealthy men.

Structural instead of symbolic diversity

The reoccurring demands for racial diversity should be redirected from the Oscar nominations and towards the Academy itself. Certainly, if the racial composition of Oscar voters remains almost entirely white and male, then the composition of the nominees will follow in that very line.Though interrupted some years by nominations and awards to filmmakers or actors of colour, this shouldn't be perceived as emblematic of racial progress in Hollywood, but as intermittent deviations from the norm that are more superficial and strategic than symbolic of structural inclusion.

Meaningful racial diversity within the Academy itself should be reframed as the goal. Namely, integrating black and brown voters that can relate to the structure and feel the substance of Straight Outta Compton. And including gatekeepers of colour that represent the racial and multicultural evolution of the country, who will greenlight films and recognise performances that reflect the changing demographics within the country.

In cinema, African American narratives are ghettoised within a separated "black films" industry. Latina/o American storylines are branded foreign and unmarketable, while this demographic ranks as the fastest growing population in the country.And Muslim depictions in cinema virtually limited to terrorist villains and national security threats, intensifying the hateful political rhetoric and on-the-ground Islamophobia gripping the country. 

A brand of bigoted diversity, as illustrated by the six Oscar nominations American Sniper received last year, Oscar voters are more than keen to celebrate. To put things into perspective, American Sniper - a film lionising a soldier indiscriminately gunning down Iraqis - received six more nominations than actors or filmmakers combined both in 2015 and 2016. And one more Oscar award.A film depicting the brutal execution of minorities is more deserving of Oscar recognition than films humanising minorities. This message, unlike the structure and substance of Straight Outta Compton, resonated resoundingly with Oscar voters.

Soft power and subtle racism

Films are far more than films. They, perhaps more than another medium, are the salient shapers of views on politics and culture, beauty and identity. Particularly American cinema, consumed by viewers in every country in the world, and emulated by film industries near and far. Apart from exporting the most recent blockbuster or action hit, Hollywood also exports the prevailing face of racism, colourism, and the underlying messages and patent images that whiteness is the benchmark. While the casting out of black and brown bodies reaffirms deeply rooted racial castes that brand these groups inferior.Calls for mere or more diversity in Oscar nominations will not change the natural trajectory of white supremacy within Hollywood. Demands for structural instead of token diversity - followed by meaningful reform - will.

Bibliography

View in list  |  Ed

Beydoun, Khaled A. "Straight Outta Hollywood and Oscar's White Supremacy." - Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera, 24 Jan. 2016. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. <http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/straight-outta-hollywood-oscar-white-supremacy-160124050957002.html.>

Response 

This article is talking about white supremacy that exists in Hollywood today. Over the years, it has been evident that whites are most likely to be awarded and voted for Oscars, disregarding the vast majority of diverse actors/actresses who play vital roles in today’s cinema. I agree with the author that it is definitely showing white supremacy, because the voters are white and lack diversity on their board--furthermore showing that it will be impossible to see other races represented in Hollywood in the future. The few nominees of color who have been chosen such as Lupita Nyong’o and others do not represent the immense number of black, Hispanic, Arabs and Asian actors who deserve Oscar’s. Another existing form of white supremacy which I believe is a valid point in this article, is the actor’s roles in these movies; whereby the Arab or Muslim is always playing the terrorist or the national security threat, thus causing a worldwide analogy of all Middle-Easterners as terrorists. I don’t think the author shows any bias in this article, it is well-written and direct.

The Cecil Rhodes statue is not a problem

It began as a campaign at the University of Cape Town to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes that stood in the campus. For the protesters, the statue represented everything that Rhodes himself stood for: racism, colonialism, plunder, white supremacy, and the oppression of black people. Last April, a month after the protests began, the university authorities removed it. By then, the protests had moved to other universities in South Africa, before travelling abroad. Now "Rhodes Must Fall" has come to Oxford where, for the past two months, students at Oriel College, led ironically by a South African Rhodes scholar, Ntokozo Qwabe, have been campaigning to remove a statue of Rhodes that stands above the main entrance

Rhodes was an alumni of Oriel, and bequeathed £100,000 to the college in his will. The statue is small, undistinguished, and often unnoticed. For the student protesters, however, it represents the racism, imperialism and white privilege that, they argue, still pervades the college.

Decolonisation, not diversity

"Our demand" according to activists, "is for decolonisation, not diversity". Another protester insisted: "Removing the statue… would address our colonial past in an effort to decolonise our collective conscience." Rhodes was a brutal racist and imperialist. His record is often whitewashed in Britain, as is the reality of Empire. Yet there is something preposterous in describing a campaign to take down Rhodes' statue as an act of decolonisation, or to present it as a transformative act. Decolonisation was one of the defining transformations of the 20th century. It was driven by the great social movements that swept through Africa and Asia and challenged the might of European rule.

To compare a campaign to remove a statue with the momentous global dismantling of Rhodes' legacy is to diminish the very meaning of decolonisation...

To compare a campaign to remove a statue with the momentous global dismantling of Rhodes' legacy is to diminish the very meaning of decolonisation and to demean all those who gave their lives to that transformative struggle. At the heart of decolonisation was an insistence that the peoples of Africa and Asia could run own lives. In 1887, Rhodes had told the House of Assembly in Cape Town that "the native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise".

The struggles for independence shattered that view. They were assertions of the agency that had been denied to non-Europeans in the age of Empire. For the great figures of the anticolonial movement - from Toussaint L'Ouverture to Frantz Fanon, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Kwame Nkrumah - there was a determination that history should not be a barrier to creating a new world.

"When a black person looks on Cecil Rhodes' statue, she sees a person who denied her basic moral worth, and would have justified enslavement, ruthless autocratic rule, and the sadistic treatment of her and her ancestors," wrote Omar Khan, director of the Runnymede Trust, a leading British race equalities think-tank; this creates "a deep wound that isn’t merely in people's heads nor in any way irrational". Removing the statue is important to start a "conversation about the past's continued effects on black and minority ethnic people".

British colonial statesman and financier Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902) [Getty]

Of course, the past shapes the present. But the "Rhodes Must Fall" campaigners seem to believe that black and ethnicity minorities are trapped by their history; and that history is the cause of unending psychological trauma. This suggests not an assertion but a diminishment of agency, a view of black and ethnic minorities as not so much the shapers of history, as its victims. Whereas the real decolonisers sought to throw off the yoke of history, "Rhodes Must Fall" campaigners appear to have let the past recolonise them. 

Statues have frequently been the focus of struggle in defining the past. After the French Revolution, dozens of statues of monarchs were defaced or demolished. In post-independence India, many statues of Viceroys and British monarchs were removed and given a new home in Delhi's Coronation Park. The fall of communism saw the destruction of statues of Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders.nThe monuments that Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi had built of themselves were publicly brought down after they fell from power. In all these cases the toppling of statues came as part of a great social upheaval or in the midst of a great change when the old oppressive regime came tumbling down.

The Oxford "Rhodes Must Fall" campaign is very different. It is not so much the product of a great social movement as a substitute for one. It's a campaign that bears resemblance not to the struggles for independence but to the current mania sweeping campuses for getting rid of "microaggressions", imposing "trigger warnings", creating "safe spaces" and "no platforming" those whose views are deemed unacceptable. Such campaigns present the human individual as vulnerable and damaged and in need of protection. They seek not to transform the world but to shield people from anything that they might find troubling or offensive or difficult.

There are, of course, major issues of race and justice to be tackled both in universities and in wider society. The lack of black and ethnic minority, and of working class, students in universities such as Oxford needs tackling. So does the way that we look upon empire and its legacies. But turning a statue of Cecil Rhodes into an invented psychological trauma, or demanding that it be removed as an act of decolonisation, will change neither the way that people look upon the past, nor challenge the injustices of the present.

Once upon a time, student activists used to demand that capitalism must fall, or that apartheid must be crushed, or that colonialism must be swept away. Now, it seems, they just want to take down statues.

Citation

Malik, Kenan. "The Cecil Rhodes Statue Is Not a Problem." Aljazeera.com. Aljazeera, 11 Jan. 2016. Web. 11 Jan. 2016. <http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/cecil-rhodes-oxford-problem-160110061336569.html>.

Response: 

The article is talking about the recent revolt for the removal of the Cecil Rhodes Statue in South Africa. A campaign started by students at the University of Cape town and is further bridging with other Universities, such as; Oxford University in the UK. Honestly, I don't know much about the history of Cecil Rhodes, but I do know that he was a racist and bought a lot of hatred, hurt and long lasting consequences to black South Africans, so I think they deserve the right to put him down. The whole argument of  decolonisation doesn't appeal to me much, since they described Cecil as a "brutal racist and imperalist", if taking down the statue makes them redeem a bit of their dignity--i don't see why it should be a problem. Also, i believe the article is a bit biased towards the end, when the author mentions that taking down the statue won't change the past and the black South Africans are simply making themselves "victims" of "psychological trauma". Well, what happened in South Africa is still happening today and in some ways they are still victims of the history of their country. 

Cameron: Isis video is 'desperate stuff' from a group losing ground

David Cameron has condemned a new Islamic State propaganda video as “desperate stuff” from an organisation that is guilty of perpetrating “utterly despicable and ghastly acts”.

As Downing Street cast doubt on claims by Isis that the five hostages murdered in the video had acted as UK spies, the prime minister said Isis was losing ground under pressure from allied airstrikes.

Speaking during a visit to east London on Monday, Cameron said: “It’s desperate stuff from an organisation that really does do the most utterly despicable and ghastly acts and people can see that again today. But this is an organisation that’s losing territory, it’s losing ground, it’s, I think, increasingly losing anybody’s sympathy, and this again shows what an appalling organisation we’re up against.

Search for UK jihadi in Isis video to use voice and vein recognition software

Read more

“They hate us not for what we do but for what we are – the fact that we are a successful, tolerant, democratic, multi-faith, multi-ethnic nation. They hate that and that’s why they want to take us on and that’s why they do what they do. But I know that Britain will never be cowed by this sort of terrorism. Our values are so much stronger than theirs. It may take a very long time but they will be defeated.”

Downing Street had earlier condemned the video, which appears to show the murder of five hostages accused of being UK spies, as a “propaganda tool”. The prime minister’s spokeswoman cast doubt on claims in the video that the apparent victims were spies, and said Isis was facing strong pressure from allied airstrikes. “This does appear to be a propaganda tool and not all of Isil’s propaganda in the past has been true,” she said using another name for the group.

No 10 illustrated its claim that Isis was facing severe pressure by saying that RAF aircraft had taken part in 11 airstrikes against Isis targets in Syria since parliament approved the extension of the military operation from Iraq. These included the targeting of Isis targets south of its Syrian base on Raqqa on Christmas Day.

Response:

I agree with the way David Cameroon handled the situation. It is very clear that all ISIS wants to do is to evoke terror in the lives of people so that they will eventually give in. His response to UK citizens is direct and encouraging, because truly ISIS is desperate to let the world know who they are and what they are capable of. The UKs step in attacking back was all simply defense and I wouldn't call it "sever pressure" compared to what ISIS is doing in other nations. 

The author did a great job, presenting both views clearly and concisely. I would say however that there is some bias because in this situation it is hard to see David Cameroon in a negative light.

Bibliography

Watt, Nicholas. "Cameron: Isis Video Is 'desperate Stuff' from a Group Losing Ground." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 4 Jan. 2016. Web. 4 Jan. 2016. 

<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/04/isis-video-is-propaganda-and-a-reminder-of-barbarity-of-daesh-says-no-10>.