Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Black Hollywood rolls out a carpet of its own
LOS ANGELES: Being black in Hollywood has never been a walk on a red carpet.
In the 88-year history of the Academy Awards, black actors have won only 15 out of 346 acting Oscars – nine of them since 2000.
Just three African-American directors have been nominated for the best director Oscar. Steve McQueen is the only black producer to have won best picture, for 2013’s 12 Years a Slave. For decades, black actors were relegated to film roles as slaves, servants and criminals, while black directors, screenwriters and producers struggled to get films made.
Honours in Hollywood’s mainstream were few and far between. By 1981, only 27 African Americans had been nominated for an Oscar and only three had won. It was in this context that black Hollywood decided that year to hold its own awards. The Tree of Life Awards – known informally as the Black Oscars – celebrated the work of AfricanAmerican artists whom the Oscars mostly ignored.
A private group, the Friends of the Black Oscar Nominees, awarded black-and-bronze carved statuettes to the likes of Denzel Washington, Eddie Murphy, Halle Berry, Will Smith, Don Cheadle and Debbie Allen at an annual ceremony in Los Angeles.
Few public accounts remain of the awards, or their winners. The semi-secret ceremony held the night before the Oscars was an insiders-only affair.
One prominent AfricanAmerican film critic, Gil Robertson, recalled being invited, but was told to leave his notebook at home. More than an awards gala, the event was “a symbolic gesture to say, ‘I see you’”, to black artists, Robertson said.
The awards were held annually over 25 years, during a time in which Hollywood increasingly began to recognise black artists. In 2002, Berry and Washington won the best actress and best actor Oscars. In 2007, after eight African-Americans were nominated for Academy Awards, organisers decided the event was no longer needed.
“This year, the black Oscars will be at Kodak,” one board member said that year, referring to the Los Angeles theatre where the Oscars were held.
African-American actors Jennifer Hudson, Forrest Whitaker and sound mixer Willie D Burton won Oscars that year. Today, however, things look different. For the second consecutive year, the acting nominees for the 88th Oscars were all white. The only nominations for films dealing with African-American subjects – Straight Outta Compton and Creed – went to white artists. Just a tiny handful of AfricanAmerican and black artists were nominated in any categories.
Amid growing controversy over racial inequality in Hollywood and its awards, some have reportedly called to bring back the Tree of Life Awards.
Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons is instead offering his own alternative: an African American-focused film awards ceremony to be recorded on Wednesday and broadcast at the same time as the Oscars.
The All Def Movie Awards will feature a black carpet and an irreverent awards line-up including best helpful white person and best black survivor.
Its roster of best picture nominees includes those overlooked by the Academy: Beasts of No Nation, Chi-Raq, Straight Outta Compton, Creed, Dope and Concussion.
Simmons said the awards were a “celebration of the uncelebrated”.
The ceremony is to be hosted by African-American comedian Tony Rock, brother of Oscars host Chris Rock, himself an outspoken critic of Hollywood’s racial practices. “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,” he said. – ANA-dpa
● The 88th Academy Awards will be screened live on M-Net Movies Premiere, channel 103 on DStv, on Monday at 3.30am and repeated on M-Net, channel 101, on Monday at 7.30pm.