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I usually don’t pay attention to the Oscars and other such award shoes. Playing League of Legends, tweezing my eyebrows, cleaning the tiles in the bathroom all are significantly higher on my to do list that giving a frack about the Oscars. This story caught my attention though, provocatively titled “Academy Responds to Diversity Firestorm“.
Unaware that diversity comes in firestorms and how mega-rad that would be, I read on.
“Responding for the first time to the firestorm of criticism over the lack of diversity in this year’s Oscar nominations, film academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs says the all-white acting slate inspires her to accelerate the academy’s push to be more inclusive. She also hopes the film industry as a whole will continue to strive for greater diversity.”
Inspires the push to be more inclusive in for the striving of greater diversity… *bleh* I need to strive toward the chamber pot to cleanse my system of the above-mentioned overtly-florid way of saying nothing at all.
All 20 of this year’s acting contenders are white and there are no women in the directing or writing categories. After the nominations were announced Thursday morning, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite started trending on Twitter.
Now there is an oopsie. But we need to hear some more doublespeak about the situation first.
“Yet Boone Isaacs insisted the academy is “committed to seeking out diversity of voice and opinion” and that outreach to women and artists of colour is a major focus.
“In the last two years, we’ve made greater strides than we ever have in the past toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization through admitting new members and more inclusive classes of members,” Boone Isaacs said. “And, personally, I would love to see and look forward to see a greater cultural diversity among all our nominees in all of our categories.”
I’m not sure what is worse, outright lying or the baffle them with bullshit tactic that Boone Isaacs has clearly perfected. Before you rush me with market theology lets look a bit further…
“A 2012 survey by the Los Angeles Times found the academy was 94 per cent white, overwhelmingly male and with a median age of 62. A more recent survey determined the percentage of older white males had dropped by one point, the Times said. But with nearly 7,000 members and no requirement to retire, diversity is going to take some time.”
Oh damn. Certainly looks like the market deciding in a free and unfettered environment. The sample bias is juuuust about right considering that 94 percent of the US population is comprised of middle aged white dudes.
And here…here is the crux of every fucking debate about thinning out white hegemony in our society. The people who are the movers and shakers – the culture elite – the people that make things happen are predominantly dude and white. Their preferences are translated, projected and ensconced into what gets attention and what doesn’t. The orthodox market argument naively contends that if a good product is made that the people like it will sell well and therefore be popular.
Bullshite. The market is always, always, always, skewed and that bias happens not to favour your particular entry – no matter how qualitviely good your product is, it will fail – too fucking bad for you chum.
I get this argument about the “market deciding” when it comes to video games as well. If women just make video games than weren’t andro-centric testosterone fuelled killing sprees and get them to market then the market would “decide” whether or not the product was good.
Bullshite. This argument is bollocks precisely in the same way the Oscar argument for more inclusiveness is bollocks with its 94% white dude voting pool. The preexisting structural conditions dictate what gets out the public and what is ignored. No frakking market involved in that. You may have the bestest game evar!!! (movie to be produced) just waiting to be published, but if it goes against the status-quo (racism,sexism etc.) you’ll need a lot more than “the market” to see chance of success.
This is what feminists struggle with all the damn time. The standards and norms that implicitly and explicitly favour one sort of discourse/behaviour over another that are almost always conveniently ignored, and instead, “merit” is discussed vis-a-vis the free and open market place of ideas, and if non-status-quo game/movie is actually good, it like creme will rise to the top.
They never-ever mention the 12 filters that the creme has to pass through before even seeing the light of day.
Feminist rants aside, back to Boone and her not particularly pauciloquent way of obfuscating the issue:
“It behooves Hollywood — as an economic imperative, if not a moral one — to begin more closely reflecting the changing face of America,” the statement said.
Boone Isaacs agrees, saying that as the academy “continues to make strides toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization, we hope the film industry will also make strides toward becoming more diverse and inclusive.”
Though she repeatedly stressed the Oscars are a competitive process and that she’s proud of the year’s nominees, Boone Isaacs acknowledged that diversity needs to be mandatory in both story and storyteller.”
If you need to see an example of apologia in action, you need not look further that Boone Isaacs and her statement about the great white wave that is the Oscars in 2015.
P.S. I would categorize “The Birdman” as something one would fling over the wall, along with diseased corpses and flaming pitch to scare, horrify and bewilder one’s enemies. Watch it at your own risk.
From Yale Scientific Magazine:
“The researchers created a fictional student and sent out the student’s application to science professors at top, research-intensive universities in the United States. The professors were asked to evaluate how competent this student was, how likely they would be to hire the student, how much they would pay this student, and how willing they would be to mentor the student. All of the applications sent out were identical, except for the fact that half were for a male applicant, John, and half were for a female applicant, Jennifer. Results showed that, with statistical significance, both male and female faculty at these institutions were biased towards male students over female students.”
How does that translate to dollars?
Data from the study shows that on average, science faculty was willing to pay the male applicant about $4,000 more per year. Courtesy of Corinne Moss-Racusin.
Yah. So perhaps we need to take another look at the negative ways that gender classification affects our society.
So, shall we take a peek at the new character and his outfit from Final Fantasy Mevius?
Now wait for it…
Huh, so getting the ‘female fantasy treatment’ isn’t all smiles and chuckles? Oh, the obliviousness of gamers is so darn precious.
Many thanks to the radicalfeministuprsing tumblr.
Domestic violence is an issue that deserves more time in the basket labeled “things society cares about.” I am only one generation removed from a time when women were widely thought as of the property of their fathers, then their husbands. Then Radical Feminism got into the mix and started to analyze, deconstruct and protest this unacceptable situation. Andrea Dworkin from Women Hating Right and Left:
Putting ideas and concepts together so that they can be shared, and more importantly passed on, to the next generation is so frightfully important, yet it is not being done. I did not even know about Andrea Dworkin and her writing till very recently. Outside of a few tumblr’s and few Woman’s Studies courses that haven’t drunk too much of 3rd wave kool-aid you just won’t find mention of one of the key figures in feminist history.
I’ve read a lot of Dworkin and sometimes it is really all over the place, but at others (see the above quote) she focuses in like a laser to give words and then understanding to the the problems facing women. Dworkin’s insights must be handed down and shown to the next generation(s) of women – lest we invoke another historical chestnut – those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it blah blah blah.
Are we repeating?
I’d like to see in my time the quote from above (and others like it) get into the history books and stay there.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
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