by Katrina Custardo
The nominations for this year’s Oscars came out this past week, and this year, the Oscars aren’t so white as they have been in the past. People of color are nominated throughout the categories, specifically in the big five: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Director. Not to mention, four movies that have people of color in their lead roles are nominated for Best Picture: Lion, Hidden Figures, Moonlight, and Fences. Denzel Washington, who stars in Fences, is nominated for Best Actor; Ruth Negga, who stars in Loving, is nominated for Best Actress; Barry Jenkins is nominated for Best Director for Moonlight; Naomie Harris, who stars in Moonlight, is nominated for Best Supporting Actress; Viola Davis, who stars in Fences, is nominated for Best Supporting Actress; Octavia Spencer, who stars in Hidden Figures, is nominated for Best Supporting Actress; Mahershala Ali, who stars in Moonlight, is nominated for Best Supporting Actor; and Dev Patel, who stars in Lion, is nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
This is a far cry from last year, when, with the exception of Alejandro González Iñárritu, who was nominated for Best Director, all the nominees for the big five were white, and the movies that were nominated for Best Picture were predominately white. This caused a huge uproar and prompted the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite across social media, for good reason. There were great films that year that had predominately people of color in their cast that got snubbed during the nomination process. But the point that people were trying to make last year was that there needs to be more roles for people of color in Hollywood films. And Hollywood took notice.
People of color are across the board in the big five awards and have four out of nine slots for Best Picture. This is amazing because it shows that Hollywood listened to the backlash and is trying to make up for it. Not to mention, these movies and these actors are all great and definitely deserve to be nominated in recognition for their work. But what’s sad is that we are celebrating something that should be normal. We are treating it as abnormal. People of color should always be nominated when their performances are deserving. Instead, we should admonish when only predominantly white movies and white actors and directors get nominated because that is abnormal.
People of color should always be nominated. These movies should always be apparent during the year. We no longer have a predominately white acting pool to choose from. There are people from all nationalities who want to be part of Hollywood and show us, the movie-goer, what they have. Hollywood needs to recognize this and have more screenplays and movies for people of color. This is an argument that has been going on for a while and this year’s Oscars are a step forward in that direction.
Last year’s Oscars were very abnormal. Only featuring white movies with white actors is not representative of who is in Hollywood. Hopefully, Hollywood has realized last year’s mistake, and it will start becoming “normal” to have people of all nationalities to be represented in movies and in Hollywood and represented for their amazing work during the awards season.