It’s not unprecedented, but after two years running in which the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has not nominated a single black actor for an Oscar, several artistes of colour are threatening to boycott the award ceremony this year. Others are asking their peers to get over colour issues, while Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs herself insists that greater representation is required. Instead of war, a discussion has broken out.
Roll back to 1975, when a five-year streak of all-white nominations began. No alarm bells rang. Hollywood’s limited palette was again highlighted in 2001, in Halle Berry’s acceptance speech for Monster’s Ball, where she dedicated her award to “every nameless, faceless woman of colour that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.” It was admired for its boldness at the time but today, it would be deemed a routine element of the discourse. Because in the meantime, the quality of the discussion has changed. The Obama presidency was expected to deliver on foreign policy and welfare, but it may be remembered better for making the issue of race relations so explicit, so normal, that even the president of an embattled cultural academy can speak freely and honestly about it, in the public domain.
Jada Pinkett Smith, who is spearheading the movement, has not been accused of being anti-national. The US used to be derided as absurdly nationalistic but today, India could beat it hands down.
