The Academy Awards voting process gets more depressing the more we learn about it. It’s becoming more apparent that some of the people given the opportunity to have a say in the Oscars race don’t really care about movies that much.
Bradley Cooper [L] and Sienna Miller [R] in American Sniper
In its latest series of interviews with Academy members, the Hollywood Reporter published an insider commentary with one “anonymous female Academy member”, who starts off by addressing the apparent “snubbing” of the Ava DuVernay movie Selma.
“First, let me say that I’m tired of all of this talk about “snubs” – I thought for every one of [the snubs] there was a justifiable reason. What no one wants to say out loud is that Selma is a well-crafted movie, but there’s no art to it. If the movie had been directed by a 60-year-old white male, I don’t think that people would have been carrying on about it to the level that they were. And as far as the accusations about the Academy being racist? Yes, most members are white males, but they are not the cast of Deliverance – they had to get into the Academy to begin with, so they’re not cretinous, snaggletoothed hillbillies,” she said.
More: did you know Chris Kyle’s alleged killer is portrayed in American Sniper?
So the Academy is mostly white and mostly male. Which we sort of already knew, right? There’s more.
“When a movie about black people is good, members vote for it,” the Academy member continued, “But if the movie isn’t that good, am I supposed to vote for it just because it has black people in it? I’ve got to tell you, having the cast show up in T-shirts saying “I can’t breathe” [at their New York premiere] – I thought that stuff was offensive. Did they want to be known for making the best movie of the year or for stirring up sh*t?”
Ok, so that’s just weird. Apparently the majority of black films just aren’t up to scratch. So the politics of it has nothing to do with the fact that Selma won’t win Best Picture this year. Or why Fruitvale Station wasn’t even nominated last time around.
More: Clint Eastwood persuaded to change gory American Sniper ending
On American Sniper, the Academy voter said: “American Sniper is the winner of the year, whether or not it gets a single statuette, because for all of us in the movie industry – I don’t care what your politics are – it is literally the answer to a prayer for a midrange budget movie directed by an 84-year-old guy [Clint Eastwood] to do this kind of business. It shows that a movie can galvanize America and shows that people will go if you put something out that they want to see. With regard to what it did or didn’t leave out, it’s a movie, not a documentary. I enjoyed it, I thought it was well done, and I can separate out the politics from the filmmaking.”
Yep, separating the politics for the white movie about the American military. Great.
Urgh.
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