20 Weeks To Oscar: #GlobesSoWhite

The irony is profound.

Last year, while Oscar was pounded to a pulp for not nominating one of a small handful of black actors and films, somehow, by including Will Smith, The Globes didn’t get pounded. And oh, yeah, no one takes them all that seriously anyway, except as the world’s most dramatic photo op.

This year, with four serious Best Picture candidates “of color,” The Globes remind us what racism in Hollywood actually looks like. They included the one “black” film that is on top of every list of every awards group and prognosticator and tea leaf reader in town. Moonlight. Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, Score. All 6 looking sure to be Oscar nominated.

The other three “black” films? Fences was good enough for its two big stars of color to be nominated. Loving was good enough for its two likely Oscar nominees to be nominated. Hidden Figures was good enough for its Oscar-winning star to be nominated along with, uh, Best Score.

THIS is what racism in Hollywood looks like. It’s not a big ol’ snub, where no black actors get in for two years. That is not the real shape of this problem. It is the lack of opportunity overall. And then, when there is a real opportunity, it is a half-open door, welcoming only the most familiar.

I’ve written before that this award season will not be “#OscarSoWhite” because of the product in the marketplace, not because The Academy membership is any more or less racist than they were last year or the year before. And I stand by that. 6000 or 7000 members of the industry are not making choices based on color in any kind of direct way. The Academy, which has always been a nearly-exclusively white group of people from inside the bubble of Hollywood because that is what the bubble demographic has looked like for over 100 years, leans against stories of racial struggle in America. It is silly to dispute that.

But 2016 represents one of the rangiest groups of “films of color” that The Academy (and everyone else) has had to choose from in a while. Each of the four films being focused on has something very different to bring to the table. And that is great. I don’t suspect you will see such a feast next year. But hopefully, in time, with attention being paid, it won’t be long before we have another year with this much color and this much range of tones and styles and stories are there to be picked from again.

The hard part about writing about bias in awards is that it seems to be putting down the other nominees… and even the nominees who are getting in under a biased group’s system. That is truly not my intention. None of the Globes movie nominees this year are shocking to me. There is no giant movie star whose film was a disaster sneaking in. And perhaps the group’s most significant snub was Silence.

But Moonlight has been the hottest title of the last couple months. It got 6. All that kept it from equaling La La Land was a song.

And then… Denzel, Viola, Octavia, Pharrell (for Score, not Song)… and Ruth and Joel, who have been touted as sure nominees for months.

Sorry, but it’s quality, not quantity to me. And it’s not likely a coincidence that Hidden Figures and Fences and Loving were all shut out from the rest of the categories.

Honestly, it shows too much respect to what is an inherently dishonest organization to spend time arguing about the details of what they decided to nominate. Can’t get behind Jackie or Silence? Fine. That reflects on who they are as a group. Typical. Sully hasn’t had enough heat. Expected. I’m even pleasantly surprised by Aaron Taylor-Johnson getting recognized for his work in Nocturnal Animals, which hasn’t been discussed much before now.

But that’s how they get you. You start talking about the details. And the surprises. And the “snubs.’

And you never really consider how corrupt this organization is. How many tens of millions are spent annually on courting these 80-something half-ass journalists who are considered the second-most valuable marketing tool in Oscar season because they have a TV show that works.

You never really consider how racially biased this group tends to be and how disinterested they are in the art form of filmmaking (unless it makes them seem influential).

HFPA is still a group that wants credit for wearing a Jackie Robinson t-shirt five years after he had integrated baseball.

HFPA is still a group that sells itself.

HFPA runs one of the single greatest cons in America… and it airs on national TV!

But that party is so much fun, we just look away and mainstream mediocrity into a process of honoring the best. Then we raise it higher and higher in perceived significance because… well… everyone is getting a ride on the gravy train and the more cars on the train where some money can be made, the better for the economy of award season and thus, the economy of industry media, etc.

That is how we all participate in devaluing not only awards, but our personal principles, little by little each year. Up the ridge we go.

And I am not Desmond Doss myself. Throwing a little mud now and again ain’t putting much skin in the change game.

But how does one fight an 800-pound gorilla? This was the question of the 2016 presidential election as well. People want to have fun and when the nuclear option is the only one that might work, no one wins. And so, we all tend to try to focus on the positives on the surface and pretend the rest isn’t really happening.

All that said, I offer a true “congratulations” to everyone who was nominated. Every nominee is a part of something bigger and more significant than The Globes. I know it feels good to be recognized. Nothing wrong with that. And all of these people have earned it. No one got here being a mediocrity or not giving of themselves deeply.

But the system is broken. Long live the system.

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