"Racist" "Oscar"

On February 28, the annual ceremony of the Academy Award was held. The specificity of this event this year is that two weeks before it a scandal erupted: all the actors nomineed up for the prize turned out to be white, and for the second year in a row. Some representatives of the film industry - in particular, the director Spike Lee - in connection with this announced their intention to boycott the ceremony. The English -language media commented on this moment.

Ny Times writes that the award ceremony this year was complicated by the fact that this procedure was supposed to somehow veil or, conversely, beat the obvious fact that not a single representative of racial minorities among the actors had been among the nominees for the second year in a row. Partly the situation was saved by the fact that the Black Actor Chris Rock was appointed the leading ceremony before the scandal. Partly the same moment exacerbated awkwardness. Indeed, the presenter during the ceremony has repeatedly caused about the "racist" behavior of the Academy. Nevertheless, due to this pronunciation, the situation turned out to be balanced than it could be.

The Economist, on the eve of the award, published material on the racial bias of this event. An analysis of data on films and bonuses of the XXI century shows that the ratio of the number of white and non-white laureates (and actors) fully meets the ratio of the white and non-white population in the United States. However, many criticize the academy for bias.

Distribution of juice on the award "Oscar" Photo: Facebook.com/OSCAR

One of the reasons, the author of the publication believes is that, despite the formal observance of the proportions, there are many informal manifestations of bias. For example, the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (USA), which is engaged in the selection of nominees and then presenting a bonus, systematically, according to the author, ignores films in which a black actor appears as a protagonist. Or ignores this particular actor. In particular, only Sylvester Stallone became the nominee (and then a laureate) from the participants of the film, continuing the Rocky Heritage (2015), and then the B. Giordan, the Black Film Explorer, as well as the Black Director of the film, despite the success of the film among American spectators, became the nominee (and then the laureate).

Critics, the author comments, explain this by the fact that 94% of the 6,000 more voting participants, following which lists are formed, are white. Of course, it is stipulated in the article, the current situation with the presentation of Oscar is strikingly different from what happened, what happened earlier: for example, once there was a five-year period (1975-1980), when there were no non-white nominees.

The analysis of the nominations also showed that among racial minorities, representation is uneven. So, for example, since 2000, black actors, if compared with the share of the black population of the United States, are represented even in a greater proportion: black US citizens make up 10% of the population, while black actors make up 12.6% of nominees. At the same time, there are only 3% of Latin American people among nominees (16% of the population).

This corresponds to the representation of Latin American actors in the main roles. In turn, this indicates that the grounds for the ratio are laid not at the level of the nominations of the Academy, but earlier, at the level of theater schools. A similar situation is observed with black directors.