Hollywood’s race problem

That she hit the front pages of leading newspapers with her Oscar nomination in addition to the excitement online is proof enough that many are rooting for her to win acting’s biggest honour.

Black Americans are also probably supporting her. But all this excitement, while understandable and deserving, rings hollow in Tinseltown.

It is a reality that has been documented for years and is still holds true. It will probably be on the mind of Lupita Nyong’o — who holds the honourable title of being the first black African actress to be nominated for an Oscar — in as much as she is talented and worth the hype.

John Horn, writing for the LATimes last year said: “For the first time in Academy Awards history, a black man — British filmmaker Steve McQueen — may win the directing Oscar for his heralded, harrowing film ‘12 Years a Slave’. Several other prominent black filmmakers say that change within show business remains glacial. Even if Hollywood likes to present itself as magnanimous and liberal, its hiring decisions — including jobs handed to women — continue to be demographically constricted, with most work still going to white men.”

Six black actors— Lupita Nyong’o, Kerry Washington, Barkhad Abdi, Idris Elba, Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor — were nominated for different Golden Globe awards but no one got rewarded, raising the issue of why Hollywood continues to overlook actors of colour.

Lupita has to contend with the realities of Hollywood. It is not necessarily a happy place for black actors.

Sure, Lupita is the toast of Hollywood right now but when it came to the Golden Globes, she lost to Jeniffer Lawrence for her performance in “American Hustle” in what many believe was an outright betrayal as the two, while delivering fantastic performances, cannot be compared.

'NOT IN THE SAME LEAGUE'

“There is not a self-respecting critic on the planet who would pretend that Jennifer Lawrence’s performance in ‘American Hustle’ and Lupita Nyong’o’s performance were in the same league,” wrote Keli Goff of The Root.

“Had Nyong’o won (the Golden Globe), it is possible that there would have been less overall disappointment with how the evening turned out. But her loss struck many — if not all — except perhaps Lawrence’s friends and family, as such an egregious snub that it set an uncomfortable tone for the rest of the night.”

Furthermore, Keli wrote, “having seen both films I must say that the fact that ‘American Hustle’ is being positioned as on par with ‘12 Years a Slave’ is, to put it mildly, perplexing. One is moderately entertaining. The other is cinematically extraordinary. One will be remembered as an important work 20 years from now. The other may not be remembered at all.”

Lupita and Jennifer will square it out again in March after they were nominated for the Oscars.

To try and understand how big an issue it will be if the Kenyan goes on to win an Oscar, she will be the 14th black actor (and the 6th female) to win an Oscar for acting achievements in the award shows’ 86-year history.

The first black actress to win an Oscar for Best Supporting role was Hattie McDaniel for her role as Mammy in “Gone with the Wind” in 1939.

She was also the first black person (male or female) to win an Academy Award, first black person to be nominated for Best Acting, first black actress to win Best Supporting Actress and oldest black actress to win an Academy Award (age 44).

Another issue is that these roles that black actors and actresses get nominated for and occasionally win have to be played by black actors.

Huffington Post’s Kia Makarechi opines; “…but the fact that they’re generally only rewarded for roles that literally could not have been given to white actors is cause for concern.

“A study of the roles that have earned black men Best Actor nominations reveals that this is a historical problem. Sidney Poitier won in 1963 for playing a black itinerant worker in ‘Lilies of the Field’, a movie based on a novel by the same name.

Jamie Foxx won in 2004 for playing Ray Charles in ‘Ray,’ and Forest Whitaker won in 2006 for playing Idi Amin in ‘The Last King of Scotland.’ The only black man to win Best Actor for a role that could have been played by a white actor is Denzel Washington, who won in 2001 for his turn as a LAPD detective in ‘Training Day’.”

It is not lost on us that Lupita Nyong’o has also been nominated for a role that could only have been played by a black person and even the other two black actors nominated for an Oscar, Barkhad Abdi (“Captain Phillips”) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave”) were playing roles reserved for blacks.

According to the LA Times, it is not just movies that are an issue for blacks. The Directors Guild of America recently found that 73 per cent of all primetime TV episodes were made by Caucasian males, and the Screen Actors Guild concluded that 76 per cent of all leading roles in television and film were given to Caucasians. (Separately, the picture for women of all races is similarly depressing, and yet again no female filmmakers are contending for the directing Oscar.)

Following a 2012 Los Angeles Times study that found the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was whiter, older and more male than the organisation’s toughest critics feared, the academy has tried to diversify its ranks.

“The last two classes of people invited to become Oscar voters look far less like members of a country club, even if the invitees hardly mirror the nation itself, where African Americans, Latinos and Asians collectively make up more than 35 per cent of the population. But because the academy has more than 6,000 voters, the more diverse new members haven’t been able to change the organization’s overall makeup in a meaningful way,” said the LA Times.

So, while Kenyans are right to be excited about Lupita’s nomination and root for her, do not be shocked if she walks away empty handed at the Oscars — though I still have faith that she will bag it.