danfrank wrote:Okri wrote:I don't think having middlebrow taste and the idea of entrenched racism is mutually exclusive. Especially since middlebrow taste often means films centered on cis/straight/white/male. And while there are definitely years where the idea of "OscarSoWhite" is a reasonable, if unfortunate, reflection of the cinematic gestalt, this year was emphatically not an example of that. Not that I think it's willfully racist.
I completely agree with your first two sentences. At the risk of sounding obtuse, I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying with the rest of your statement. Can you expound a bit? How is this year not an example of entrenched racism?
No problem.
There are years where, unfortunately, the slate of films that breaks through to oscar possibilities aren't a diverse slate. 2010 is a good example. That's a really white year. But unfortunately, that was reflective of the film year. I look at my own list and (restricting it to English language movies), the highest rated film featuring a non-white lead one is the uber-indie Night Catches Us. If you're frustrated at the lack of diversity in the line-up, AMPAS shoudn't be your target.
However, this year, that isn't the case. The writerly-indie makes it in fair regularly, but The Farewell missed (to a technical juggernaut but simple story in 1917, which makes it doubly frustrating). The Hollywood star delivers a truly acclaimed performance in a box office hit is a pretty solid bet for a nomination, but Jennifer Lopez missed out (and not to a best picture-coattails, but to a film with it's own controversy). No one saw Just Mercy in time and no one saw Clemency and I place those misses squarely on the studio (Neon clearly went all in for Parasite, but what the hell was Warner Bros doing with the former). They saw Parasite, but we know that foreign language films struggle to breakthrough in the supporting categories. International film got narrowed down to 4 European, one not, which was disappointing given the profile of the non-European entries. But the non-European one is gonna win and it's a huge hit, so let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, right (wrong, but still, good news is good news)