Denzel Washington and Viola Davis stars in the movie Fences. The movie is nominated for an Academy Award.
For the Oscars, it's going to be a tad bit diverse. After two consecutive years of all-White nominees, the Academy Awards has decided to get things right.
The Academy nominated 10 black actors and filmmakers. It also has six-African American themed films, an Indian adventure, and Pacific Islander-themed movie.
Name recognition goes to Barry Jenkins, who scored a nomination for Moonlight. Ava DuVernay's 13th was nominated for her documentary as well as Raoul Peck's I Am Not Your Negro and OJ: Made In America from Ezra Edelman.
The black themed movies for Best Picture include Moonlight, Fences and Hidden Figures.
Denzel Washington, Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, Ruth Negga, Mahershala Ali, and Naomie Harris were nominated for an Oscar.
Birth of Nation was snubbed. Nate Parker's hit movie was scarred by allegations of rape being brought to light.
Hollywood is trying to make strives in diversity. Of course, during the 2014-15 session, #OscarsSoWhite became a lightening rod in the entertainment industry. Many actors of color denounced the awards for not advocating diversity.
No disrespect to Chris Rock, I choose to not watch the 88th Academy Awards show. I am not interested in that stuff. I don't find no interest in watching entertainers show off their dresses, their new relationships, their new baby bumps or the social media buzzing about what happened.
I tend to be very reclusive when it comes to the social media and what people do. I get jealous of people bragging about their successes. Hollywood is a part of that.
Many others who struggle to get acting roles are often shunned because of their race, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, political and disability. Some say it's the talent that judges you!
But given that some of the most critically acclaimed movies being shunned, I figured that I wouldn't watch this regardless. Even if a Black comic who addresses racial issues hosted it, I find no interest in awards shows. I just going to summarize it and give an honest take to what happened.
The country's most notorious racial agitator splashed this on his conservative Criagslist today.
Chris Rock's performance at the Academy Awards was good. I mean it was brutally honest. It opened up a discussion to why no person of color being nominated for an Oscar for a second time in a row.
The comedian's monologue and skits were so funny and yes really straight to the point.
The junk food media was talking about it all morning. They were picking apart every skit. They had praised Rock for being upfront about the Academy Awards being inclusive.
He took on #OscarsSoWhite.
He took jabs at fellow comedians such as Kevin Hart.
He took jabs at Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. The Smiths were boycotting the event after Jada took to the internet to protest the nomination. She and Spike Lee became the most visible faces of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy.
Leonardo DiCaprio won an Academy Award for the first time.
"What happened this year? People went nuts. Spike [Lee] got mad. Jada went mad. Will [Smith] went mad. Everyone went mad!" Rock said about all the celebs wanting to protest the Oscars. "Jada said she's not coming. I was like, ‘isn't she on TV show?' Jada's gonna boycott the Oscars? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna's panties. I wasn't invited!"
People gasped and laughed at the joke. But when Rock when back to monologue, he sympathizes with Jada and Spike Lee's grievance.
"Her man Will was not nominated for Concussion. I get it. You get mad. It's not fair that Will was this good and didn't get nominated. You're right," he said. "It's also not fair that Will was paid $20 million for Wild Wild West!"
Chris opened his monologue with a jab at the montage that played at the beginning of the show, featuring all the movies the Academy is celebrating during the show.
"I counted at least 15 black people in that montage!" he laughed. "Well, I'm here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White Peoples Choice Awards."
"You realize if they nominated hosts, I wouldn't even get this job. Y'all be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now….I thought about quitting. I thought about it real hard. But I realized, they're going to have the Oscars anyway. They're not going to cancel the Oscars because I quit," Rock reasoned. "And the last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart!"
Rock was also quick to point out that a lack of diversity among nominees has always been a problem, long before this year's Oscars.
"Why this Oscars? It's the 88th Academy Awards, which means this whole 'no black nominee' has happened like 71 other times. You gotta figure it happened in the ‘50s, in the ‘60s...and black people didn't protest. You know why? Because black people had real things to protest at the time. Too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won Best Cinematographer. You know, when your grandmother is swinging from a tree, it's hard to care about Best Documentary Foreign Short."
"This year, things are going to be a little different at the Oscars," he promised. "This year in the In Memoriam package, it's just going to be black people who were shot by the cops on their way to the movies."
He also had a pretty easy solution for getting more nominations for black actors.
"If you want black people every year at the Oscars, just have black categories, like 'Best Black Friend.' And the winner for the 18th year in a row is Wanda Sykes!" Rock quipped, before finally turning serious. "What I'm trying to say is, it's not about boycotting. We want opportunity. We want the black actors to get the same opportunities as white actors. That's it! Not just once."
Chris Rock brought on Girl Scouts to sell cookies to some of the entertainers. That drew high the biggest applause of the night.
Well I heard that Leonard DeCaprio finally got his Oscar for the performance in The Reverent. From the days of being a teen actor, Leo has dreamed that day would come. He was nominated over five times and never earned an Oscar for them. Today, he is finally an award winner.
Leo's is a devoted environmentalist who believes that the time is now to get things done about climate change. And yes, he devoted his Oscar to those who struggled for this opportunity.
Vice President Joe Biden was there in attendance. He had an opportunity to introduce Grammy award winning/Oscar nominated singer/actress Lady Gaga.
Vice President Joe Biden gives message to America about sexual abuse.
Biden was pressing the audience to address sexual abuse on college campuses. This was a prime issue among the vice president and President Barack Obama.
“Despite significant progress over the last few years, too many woman and men on and off college campuses are still victims of sexual abuse,” the Veep told industry power players and the tens of millions watching on TV. “Tonight, I’m asking you to join millions of Americans including me, President Obama, the thousands of students I’ve met on college campuses and the artists here tonight to take the pledge.”
“The pledge says I will intervene in situations where consent has not or can not be given,” Biden said. “Let’s change the culture, we must and we can change the culture.”
Lady Gaga’s performance of the performance of Best Original Song nominee “Til It Happens To You” from the documentary The Hunting Ground.
Whoopi Goldberg was mistaken for Oprah Winfrey by Total Beauty.
She performed the song with victims of sexual and child abuse.
Total Beauty did the digital dash. Of course, they couldn't tell the difference between Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey.
Goldberg is an Oscar award winning actress who is the host of The View. The beauty brand company noticed that Whoopi is heavily tattooed. They expressed surprise that the person who they thought was in the photo, talk show host and actress Oprah Winfrey, had tattoos.
They said: “We had no idea @Oprah was #tatted and we love it.”
Social media went brutal on Total Beauty. The Independent reports that the hashtag “ThatsNotOprah” quickly went viral.
The mix-up prompted anger and frustration on twitter, with one user saying: “Are you fucking kidding me?!? The ONE black woman at the #Oscars and you fuck it up.”
Many people also took to social media to jokingly post pictures of white actors and deliberately name them incorrectly.
Total Beauty quickly went to social media to apologize for the error.
We’d like to apologize to Oprah and Whoopi, as well as everyone we’ve offended. It was our error, and there are no excuses. We’re sorry.
Goldberg will likely address this controversy on The View as well as her former friend who turned into a conservative agitator.
Washed up actress Stacey Dash puts her two cents into the Chris Rock performance. The actress who is also political commentator came onto stage shocking many in the audience. People didn't even recognize her. She was a part of the Rock skit for "minority outreach".
"I cannot wait to help my people out," Dash announced to a baffled audience. "Happy Black History Month!"
The reaction, both in the live audience where even Oscar nominated/Grammy award winning singer The Weeknd was like "What the fuck!"
While many panned her for even showing up, Dash basically laughed it off. "When they added ME to increase the diversity, I'm sure many Black people rolled their eyes. I'm not 'Black enough', they say. But guess what? I've heard that all my life. I would rather be a free thinking Black than a cookie cutter Black who thinks and votes---just like all my friends".
Well here's a clue for the "Clueless". Dash, you're the cookie cutter and you're baked!
Anyway when the Nielsen ratings come out, we'll find out if the viewership is high or low!
Again, the Academy Awards is facing harsh scrutiny over nominating only White actors, directors and producers over the Black and Hispanic talent.
None of the 20 main spots were given to any actors of color. Especially the Black ones.
The Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is about to be boycotted.
Straight Outta Compton, Creed, Concussion, Beasts of No Nation and The Hateful Eight were snubbed.
Me and S. Baldwin see this as a disgrace of talent and deliberate attempts to undermine the great feats of Black, Hispanic and Asian actors and actresses.
If this is supposed to be LIBERAL HOLLYWOOD, wondering who's in charge of the nominating committee?
There are four acting categories with 20 slots each. Not one of those categories have a Black actor or director nominated for the award.
Will the #BlackLivesMatter activists try to convince Chris Rock bow out of hosting duties?
Will Chris Rock address the controversy?
Does The Academy Awards Nominations Deliberately Shut Out Black Entertainers?
Check out this great movie trailers for the movie The Great Debaters starring Academy Award Winners Denzel Washington and Forrest Whittaker ( Denzel also directed ) The movie is based on the true story of Mel Tolson, considered one of the great African American poets and in the 1930's a professor at the historically black Wiley College in Texas. Washington will also play Tolson, who inspired his students to form the college's first debating team, which went on to defeat Harvard in national championships. Click the link below to watch:
