Academy Awards see improved diversity
Awards season is rolling into the final stretch and, with the announcement of the 2024 Oscar nominations, performers of color have a lot to celebrate.
Danielle Brooks, Sterling K. Brown, Coleman Domingo, America Ferrera, Jeffrey Wright and Lily Gladstone all snagging their first Oscar noms. Gladstone’s nod is historic as she is the first Native American to be nominated for Best Actress for her role as Mollie Burkhart in “Killers of a Flower Moon.”
The Golden Globe winner says she’s breaking barriers, not just for herself but for all indigenous people.
“This is for every little rez kid, every little urban kid, every little native kid out there who has a dream who is seeing themselves represented in our stories told by ourselves,” she expressed in her Golden Globe acceptance speech earlier this month. “In our own words with tremendous allies and tremendous trust from each other.”
Her co-star Cara Jade Myers, who plays Anna Brown in the Best Picture contender, tells The Daily News Native representation is long overdue.
“How often to you see not only Natives in film, but natives in high caliber films,” Myers said. “Growing up, I didn’t see myself on TV. You saw leathers and feathers, period pieces and we were the villains.”
Myers adds, “I have friends tell me ‘When we saw Natives on the carpet, we cried because we don’t get that.’ ”
Also making history, Coleman Domingo snagged his first Oscar nod for the depiction of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin in biopic, “Rustin.” Domingo is the first Afro Latino and first gay Latino to be nominated in the Best Actor category.
The field for Best Supporting Actress is especially diverse this year. Two Black women are nominated — Brooks for her role as Sophia in “The Color Purple” and Golden Globe winner Randolph for “The Holdovers” — and Latina actress Ferrera is up for her performance in “Barbie.”
Wright and Brown are nominated for their performances in “American Fiction,” a race-related film that earned five nods including Best Picture. Erica Alexander, who plays Coraline in the movie, calls the film’s message “necessary.”
“It’s about what lies beneath, the identity crisis that African-Americans have that shape how people see us and how we see ourselves is locked into this film,” Alexander told Daily News. “It’s trying to remold the clay and rebrand Blackness and you know I’m down with that.”
The Academy Awards have faced criticism throughout the years for lack of diversity with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite flooding social media timelines in 2015, calling for the industry to address racial disparities.