#OscarsSoWhite: Is It Rude to Acknowledge Progress?
Why the Academy Award diversity watch delivers so much angst
Quick, how many Oscar nominations should go to black people? To Hispanics? To Asians? How will we know if we’ve achieved success? Is it rude to even ask?
To get to the place where we’re tallying up Oscar nominations by race and other attributes, we have to scoot past many important questions that deserve deep investigation.
Consider this abridged list:
Is the current approach the best way to achieve greater diversity?
What if the diversity push mostly helps artists who are wealthy and well-connected?
Why do we focus so much on certain attributes (like race and sex) and less on others (like poverty and unattractiveness)?
How might the current focus on diversity hurt minorities and others?
You may care deeply about diversity, but still have deep misgivings about the current state of debate (or lack thereof). In fact, those who care deeply should demand an open and frank debate. Otherwise we’re merely defaulting to whatever course of action the loud and the powerful think is right.
But for now, let’s return to what receives the most attention. Let’s return to what Twitter cares about, what the entertainment press writes about, and what has the Academy all tied up in knots—How can we honor more filmmakers from underrepresented groups?
The discussion generates plenty of angst, and part of the reason is we’re not really sure what we’re aiming for. How will we know if we’ve achieved success? Or at least progress?
The familiar #OscarsSoWhite hashtag first went viral on January 15, 2015 when Twitter user April Reign used it in immediate response to all 20 acting nominations for the year’s upcoming Academy Awards being given to white actors. In addition to sparking a social justice movement, the hashtag provided a measuring stick—the 20 acting nominations. So let’s use it.
Now for the goal. There are many ways to measure diversity, but one popular way, which also seems to be the way Reign was framing the issue, is proportionate representation.
In that case, the percentage of Oscar nominees who are, say, non-white, should roughly mirror the percentage of Americans who are nonwhite. If that happened, would Twitter users, activists, and journalists rejoice?
Don’t count on it.
One reason is that Americans have no idea what percentage of their nation is black. Or lesbian or gay. Or transgender. Or nearly any other minority group.
Here’s how the pollster YouGov puts it:
Americans tend to vastly overestimate the size of minority groups. This holds for sexual minorities, including the proportion of gays and lesbians (estimate: 30%, true: 3%), bisexuals (estimate: 29%, true: 4%), and people who are transgender (estimate: 21%, true: 0.6%) …
And we find the same sorts of overestimates for racial and ethnic minorities, such as Native Americans (estimate: 27%, true: 1%), Asian Americans (estimate: 29%, true: 6%), and Black Americans (estimate: 41%, true: 12%).
The overestimates continue for other minority groups, including Hispanics, and that puts America in a pickle: We demand proportionate representation, but also vastly overestimate minority groups’ share of the total population.
Americans think racial minorities comprise more than 132% of the US population! That means progress may be easy to overlook.
Don’t expect the most prestigious Oscar watchers to set us straight. Another reason why the Academy Award diversity watch may always end in angst is brought to you by The New York Times:
This time around seven actors of color were nominated. Michelle Yeoh was chosen for the best actress lineup for playing a Chinese immigrant who discovers that she can jump between universes in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Ana de Armas nabbed a nomination for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in the polarizing “Blonde.”
The Times’ Brooks Barnes goes on to list all the other nominees of color, but what he doesn’t do is offer any kind of big-picture context. Seven actors of color out of 20 nominees means that 35% of actor nominees are nonwhite, nearly the same percentage as America’s nonwhite population (36%).
You think he might pause to deliver some good news: “Hey look, proportionate representation!”
Yes, it’s just one year. No, it’s not the whole story. But isn’t it a fairly important part of the story?
There are countless ways to slice and dice diversity and Oscar gold, and journalists and activists operate under incentives that reward bad news—bad news generates ad revenue and supercharges fundraising appeals.
If you’re looking for a negative angle, you’ll always be able to find one. The Los Angeles Times did: “Snub of Black performances in 2023 Oscar nods has some declaring #OscarsSoWhite again.”
Another creative display of framing can be found among some in the LGBTQ+ press. Gay-themed films racked up Oscar nominations this year: “Tar,” received six nominations, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” scored 11, and don’t forget “Close,” “The Whale,” “Aftersun,” and “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”
And the response?
Across queer media, a common — and not necessarily untrue — refrain has already emerged: The Advocate says queer talent has been “overlooked again.” On LGBTQ+ Nation, the headline reads: “The Academy Still Loves Nominating Straight Actors for Gay Roles.” And along the same lines, the Blade writes “there’s not much to get excited about '' on the list.
Sure economic concerns play a powerful role in coverage, but there are plenty of nonpecuniary incentives at play too. Journalists and activists may worry that acknowledging progress invites complacency.
That’s possible, but you can acknowledge progress and still say there’s more work to be done—this discussion in the LGBTQ+ publication Them is an example of a more nuanced framing.
And overly negative coverage brings its own risks, such as despair. And despair is no friend of progress.