The Oscars
A brief history
The Oscars, or The Academy Awards, were established in 1929 to celebrate the 5 branches of filmmaking- directors, actors, technical staff, producers and writers. Currently there are 24 categories, ranging from costuming, song to animation and documentary films.
Getting an Oscar can help the winner in many ways from increasing their box office earnings, higher salaries, media attention and better film offers. Oscars serve as peer recognition, as it is your fellow peers that vote and nominate you to win.
How to get an Oscar?
Adopted in 1930, but more seriously enforced in 1934, The Hays Code was a set of rules that shaped American filmmaking over 3 decades- coinciding with the Golden Age of Hollywood. Here are some of these rules:
Nudity, overt portrayals/references to sexual behavior not shown- no pregnancy, childbirth, or the word "virgin" was allowed.
Religion could not be mocked.
Topics considered "perverse" could not be shown in any way
homosexuality, interracial relationships
Anna May Wong (right), the leading Chinese American actress during this time, was rejected in female lead roles due to this code, since most female roles at the time were tied to romance. Luise Rainer, a white woman, replaced her and the entire film, The Good Earth (1937), had the entire cast in yellowface and was nominated for 5 Academy Awards.
The Academy: people who are part of the film industry who vote and nominate someone in their field for an Oscar.(ex, writers nominate writers, directors vote for directors, etc.) The Academy contains more than 7,000 members.
Since 1939, only nineteen Black Actors and Actresses combined have won an Oscar.
Halle Berry in 2001 is the only Black Actress/POC to have ever won an Oscar for Best Actress.
The last time an Asian Actress was nominated for Best Actress was Merle Oberon, who was Part-Indian and Maori in 1935 for The Dark Angel.
The last Asian Actress who won an Oscar was Miyoshi Umeki, for Sayonara in 1957.
No actor of Asian descent has taken home an Oscar since Haing S. Ngor, a Chinese Cambodian for Best Supporting Actor 1985 for his work in The Killing Fields.
Problems of the Voting Body
The hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite has trended on social media platforms to demand for more representation within Oscar nominations. This hashtag started in 2015 by April Reign, as a response to the 2015 Oscars lack of black nominees.
"Congratulations to all those men."- Issa Rae after reading the Oscar nominees for Best Director in 2020.
A majority of the membership of the Academy is consisting of white males, and although there has been efforts to increase diversity within the voting body, progress is slow. As of 2019, less than 40% of women make up the voting body, and less than 20% of the Academy is non-white.
And although film casts have become more diverse than in years past, this does not equal in validation that comes through with Oscar nominations. From the latest Oscars that happened in February 2020, Cynthia Erivo was the only black actor nominee out of the 4 categories. What were considered the biggest snubs for Best Actress/Supporting Actress this year were Awkwafina for The Farewell, Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers and Lupita Nyong'o for her performance in Us.
Scarlett Johansson, who was criticized for yellowface for playing the role for Ghost in the Shell, (a movie whose source material comes from a Japanese manga) had double Oscar nominations for Best Supporting and Lead Actress for her work in Jojo Rabbit and Marriage Story respectively. In the British Academy Film and Television Awards (BAFTAS), Margot Robbie got double nominations in the Lead Actress category while zero people of color were nominated across all four acting categories.
Currently, only 32 Oscars have been handed to actors of color out of the 336 acting Oscars in total.
