Campus Carrier managing editor Rachel Yeates believes we need to support those who create diverse casts.
Rachel Yeates, Campus Carrier managing editor
For the second year in a row, the Academy nominated an exclusively white selection of actors and actresses and an overwhelming majority of whites for all other categories. This is not a rare event in their history. There’s a flaw in the system, but the flaw is at the base.
The issue of race representation is a complicated cycle that needs to be addressed in all areas of life, but in America’s celebrity-driven culture, entertainment media especially needs to be held accountable for the lack of diverse representation at all levels of production.
The Academy Awards is one manifestation of America’s lack of support for creators who are people of color. When mainstream media still views content with multiple leading actors or characters of color as only suitable for a niche audience, we’ve got a long way to go.
Caveat: I am white. I’m constantly learning to recognize the ways in which I am privileged because of the color of my skin. Institutions of power and wealth like Wall Street, Capitol Hill, and Hollywood found positions of influence by being able to manipulate old money. White attracted white, and no one questioned the homogony because the majority didn’t feel that it was a problem.
The Academy exemplifies this euro-centric immobility. Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs issued a statement announcing their “goal to double number of diverse members by 2020,” but she must recognize that these words group the experiences of all minorities.
According to a 2012 Los Angeles Times study, the Academy is around 94 percent white and 77 percent male. This means that even doubling the “number of diverse members” could only lower the white majority by a maximum of 6 percent.
These changes are steps in the right direction, but they don’t get at the heart of the issue. Yes, the Academy is too white, straight, heterosexual and male, but the quality of the work done by POC creators gets stifled by the amount of work made by white creators. Movies seen as appealing to “niche” markets get less financial and commercial backing, so many POC-centric films never make it to the Academy vote.
Change from the top is going to be a long time coming. What we need to get at is change from the bottom. Whoopi Goldberg addressed this issue on “The View” on Jan. 19.
“There’s not a lot of support for little companies that make movies that may be more diverse than anything else,” Goldberg said. “The problem is the people who can be helping to make movies that have Blacks and Latinos and women and all that – that money doesn’t come to you because the idea is that there is no place for Black movies.”
Mainstream media doesn’t include diverse voices, in part because it wasn’t created to. Any minority characters accepted into popular canon are whitewashed of their cultural identity and community in order to “appeal to the masses.”
Brian McGee, master colorist of the Brotherman comics, wants to see more diverse creators take up the challenge and produce their own content.
“I would like to see more people creating within their own paradigm rather than taking what exists and just putting a black face on it,” McGee said at the Black Comix Arts Festival on Jan. 17.
As consumers and creators we have the power to question the rules. We can support voices different from our own. We can encourage artists and writers to create work that brings visibility to people of all cultures and creeds. So listen, absorb, open yourself up to knowledge and content you might not experience if you didn’t consciously leave your comfort zone.