Deep-seated racism behind Viola Davis’ Oscar snub
By Monica Moorehead
Viola Davis before Oscar ceremony.
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The 84th Academy Awards announcements for the acting categories held little surprise for three out of the four categories. Front-runners Octavia Spencer, Christopher Plummer and Jean Dujardin were all expected to win and did. The only other category that wasn’t a shoo-in was for best lead actress.
According to many film critics, it had boiled down to a race between two brilliant actors who just so happen to be very good friends: Viola Davis, an African American nominated for her portrayal of a domestic worker in “The Help,” and Meryl Streep, nominated for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of Great Britain, in “The Iron Lady.” Streep turned out to be the winner. Davis and Streep acted together in the 2008 movie, “Doubt.”
Before making her way to the stage to pick up the award, Streep walked over to Davis to embrace her. Streep’s speech alluded to her thinking that Davis’ name would be called instead of her own. Streep was certainly not alone in her thinking. Many movie critics and goers were also shocked that Davis was overlooked. This view was expressed in many Twitter exchanges.
Nekisha Cooper & Dee Rees accept award,
Feb. 25.
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If Davis’ name had been called, it would have been the first time in Oscar history that two Black women would have won for best lead and supporting actresses in the same year. Davis and her co-star Spencer played characters from the best-selling book, “The Help,” which came out in 2009. The book focuses on recollections by author Kathryn Stockett, who secretly conducted interviews with African-American domestic workers on their experiences of working in white homes — including her own — in Jackson, Miss., during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
Stockett drew criticism for how she portrayed these oppressed workers, including the African-American dialect she interpreted. Despite the critical success the film has received, it has received criticism for the subject matter.
Davis and Spencer both have publicly defended their choices of playing domestic workers, saying they wanted to show the humanity of their characters, who were denied their voice due to racism. Davis agonized for three months before taking the role in "The Help" because of the criticism she anticipated for playing a domestic worker. The actress has stated in numerous interviews the difficulty she has had in being offered multifaceted lead roles because of being “dark-skinned.”
Many are characterizing Davis’ loss as having robbed only the second African-American of winning a best lead actress Academy Award; Halle Berry was the first. Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx and Forest Whitaker are the only four African Americans to date to win in the best lead actor category.
This kind of racism is no mistake or unfortunate coincidence. It is a reflection of the broader, historic issue of racism within the Academy, which reflects the entire Hollywood film industry.
‘A good, old white boys club’
On Feb. 19, the Los Angeles Times published an extensive study entitled, “Unmasking the Academy — Oscar voters overwhelmingly white, male,” exposing institutionalized racism. The article stated that out of the 5,765 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 94 percent are white and 77 percent are male. The eight-month study was based on conducting interviews with Academy members and their representatives to help confirm the identity of 89 percent of the present membership.
Even Viola Davis — herself an Academy member — stated she wasn’t sure who else was in the Academy since there is no public listing of members.
The Academy is composed of those who work in front of and behind the camera. Only 2 percent are Black and less than 2 percent are Latino/a.
Out of the 15 branches that make up the Academy, whites compose 90 percent of each branch except for the acting branch, which is 88 percent white. The Academy’s executive and writers branches are a startling 98 percent white. The cinematography and visual effects branches are 95 percent white.
Even though globalization has had a tremendous impact on the movie industry, there were no statistics given in this study to reflect the numbers of immigrants within the Academy, which one can surmise is probably very, very minute.
Sexism is also rampant within the Academy. According to the Writers Guild of America, women made up a mere 17 percent of employed writers in 2011. Martha Lauzen, in a San Diego State University study, stated that in 2011, women made up 18 percent and 9 percent of the Academy’s producer and director branches, respectively.
The median age of all Academy voters is 62. Fourteen percent of these voters are under the age of 50. The study went on to say that Academy membership is for life, whether members still work or not. Hundreds have not worked in many years. Close to 50 percent of the Academy actors have worked within the past two years.
Out of the 43 members of the Academy’s powerful Board of Governors, only six are women, one of whom is the only person of color on the Board.
The Academy is reflective of the racism and sexism that is prevalent throughout U.S. capitalist society, from those who control Wall Street’s profits to those who dominate the big-business parties of the Democrats and Republicans. The Academy has only paid lip service to promoting affirmative action throughout the film industry for people of color and women since it was founded in 1927.
The Academy also has a history of reflecting reactionary political positions. For instance, Streep’s portrayal of the war criminal Thatcher was an attempt to rehabilitate the former British leader from a moral point of view. In 2010, Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman director to win an Oscar for her pro-Iraq war film, “The Hurt Locker.” Bigelow is currently shooting a film based on the Navy Seals’ capture of Osama bin-Laden.
Few roles, few nominations
It has been a long, uphill battle for African-American actors, female and male, to be placed in non-stereotypical roles, much less get recognized by the Academy for those roles. Hattie McDaniel was the first African American to win an Academy Award, in 1940. Her best supporting actress Oscar was for playing a stereotypical house slave in the pro-Confederate movie, “Gone With the Wind,” which won other Oscars, including best picture. McDaniel, a great dramatic actor, was forced to play demeaning roles as domestic workers during the so-called “Golden Age of Hollywood” until her death in 1952.
It took 24 years after McDaniel’s win until Sidney Poitier won the Oscar as lead actor in 1963’s “Lilies of the Fields.” His Oscar had less to do with playing a handyman helping white nuns build a church than that it reflected the social impact of the Civil Rights movement, including in the entertainment industry.
Just five years earlier, Poitier was nominated in the same category for playing an escaped prisoner in the anti-racist drama, “The Defiant Ones.” He wasn’t even nominated for his role in the 1967 Oscar-winning film, “In the Heat of the Night,” as a Philadelphia police officer assigned to solve a murder in Mississippi. In that film, Poitier’s character slaps a racist plantation owner in retaliation for being slapped first. Why didn’t Poitier win for one of these powerful roles?
Then, there is the brilliant Denzel Washington, who won the best lead actor Oscar in 2002 for playing a corrupt cop in 2001’s “Training Day.” This win was really a token gesture to cover up the fact that Washington should have won Oscars for his powerful portrayals of Malcolm X in the film of that name in 1992 and jailed boxer Rubin Carter in “The Hurricane” in 1999. That Washington did not win for portraying real-life political figures was a conscious snub made by the white, male-dominated Academy. Will Smith was also nominated in 2002 for playing Muhammad Ali in “Ali.”
Foxx won his award for playing Ray Charles in "Ray" in 2005. Whitaker won his award for playing Uganda leader, Idi Amin, in “The Last King of Scotland” in 2007.
The situation is even worse for African-American female actors. It took 47 years for Berry to win the first Oscar for lead actress since Dorothy Dandridge became the first Black woman to be nominated in the same category in 1955 for “Carmen Jones.” Berry won for her role in “Monster’s Ball,” portraying a woman who had an affair with a white jailer who executed her spouse.
The Oscar-nominated Black female actors who were passed over for best lead Oscars besides Dandridge and Davis include Angela Bassett, Diana Ross and the legendary Cicely Tyson, for her beautiful portrayal of a sharecropper’s spouse in “Sounder.”
And what about a film like “Pariah,” which didn’t receive any recognition at all from the Academy? This 2007 independent film was directed and written by Dee Rees, a Black woman, and tells the story of a Black teenager, played by Adepero Oduye, who comes out as a lesbian. The film, shot on a $500,000 budget, won the 2011 Independent Spirit John Cassavetes award. It took four years to get released to the public. The producers include director Spike Lee and a Black woman producer, Nekisha Cooper.
Another snub during this year’s Oscars is that Demián Bichir, a Mexican-American actor, did not win the best actor award for his moving role as an undocumented immigrant living with his son in Los Angeles.
