OSCARS

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! Something I’m really excited for this year are the 2020 Oscars! Every year my husband and I throw a huge Oscar-viewing party. We invite all of our friends and some co-workers to our house and we all watch the Oscars together. People get here in the afternoon around 4 and we all place bets on who we think is going to win each category. We do a similar gig for the Superbowl, since my husband loves football. I love watching movies, which makes sense since I love theatre and acting, and so the Oscar party is my thing. One thing though that really bugs me about the Oscars is the lack of women nominated. This isn’t a problem just this year either. Lack of diversity is a consistent problem the Oscars have. This is the second year in a row that there are no female directors nominated for the “Best Director” category, even though there were amazing films released this year directed by women. For example, Hustlers, Little Women, Queen and Slim, Booksmart, Frozen II, Captain Marvel, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and many more. I brought this up to my students, many of whom are aspiring movie stars themselves, at the beginning of class. My students shared much of my sentiments, of the need for more gender representation in the Oscars. They also told me about a hashtag that was trending on social media a couple years ago called #oscarssowhite, which highlighted the lack of racial diversity in the Oscars. This was something I had never thought about before. As a white woman, I noticed the lack of women nominated in different categories but not the lack of people of color. My students asked me about who decides who wins the Oscars and I told about the Academy, which is the group of people that votes and nominates people/films to win Oscars. You have to be very good at what you do to be invited into the Academy. Best Picture is the only category that everyone votes on, otherwise people vote for the category that reflects their profession. For example, only directors vote for best director and only actors vote for best actor. My students asked who these people were, and it turns out the Academy has historically been made up of straight men. They said that the solution to the lack of diversity at the Oscars is to increase the diversity of the Academy. I thought this was a very logical solution. Another solution that came up in our discussion was to increase the number of women and people of color both cast in films and working behind the scenes. Let me know what you think below. How can we increase diversity in not only the Oscars, but the film industry as a whole? And not just gender diversity, racial diversity too!! Be sure to comment and follow my blog! Thanks for stopping by! Have yourself a super day : )