Why I won’t watch the Academy Awards
The Oscars have never been a big deal to me. The few times I’ve caught the show on TV, it seems like a small group of people celebrating themselves. Of course they’re famous, wealthy and mostly white. As a teenager and a person of color, I’ve never felt it’s relevant.
Recently, the media blew up; there was Twitter post after post with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. And the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is coming under heat for not including any black nominees in the top categories in 2016. I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed, because there were so many great black films last year.
I was especially impressed by how “Straight Outta Compton” portrayed black lives in the music industry and things we witness on our own lawns every day. But “Straight Outta Compton” was only nominated for screenwriting, and the movie’s writers are — you guessed it — white.
Dr. Dre and Ice Cube were portrayed in “Straight Outta Compton” by their own sons, Corey Hawkins and O’Shea Jackson Jr. This is significant to me, because these are young, black actors who aren’t being recognized. The Oscars are ignoring not just the black community, but also young talent. I feel like starting my own hashtag, #OscarsSoOld. As a teenager, I don’t have anything to connect to in the show.
In comparison, at the BET Awards show, you see a lot of youth receiving awards, or presenting, or even just in the crowd having a good time. Growing up, the BET Awards was a day for my family to get together and watch a show that made us feel united. My mom would always record the red carpet and the awards ceremony. It was exciting to see some of my favorite artists walk the red carpet, and to be introduced to up-and-coming talent who resembled me, young and African American. The awards ceremony seemed connected to youth culture and to my community.
Last year, ratings for the Oscars ceremony declined 16 percent, by 6.9 million viewers. It was the Oscars’ lowest viewership in the past six years, and it was also a year when no people of color were nominated for acting awards. Given that the youth and peo- ple of color are a huge part of the population, the declining ratings make sense.
I can’t even be counted as someone following the call to boycott this year’s Oscars because of its race problem. I was never planning to watch in the first place.
The academy has said it will double the number of women and people of color among its members by 2020. I’m not sure why it takes so long, but I’m going to have to see some big changes before I’ll want to “thank the academy” for anything.