Excerpt
SUMMARY: For the first time in 20 years, all of the Academy Award nominees for leading and supporting acting roles are white. Gwen Ifill asks Mike Sargent of Pacifica Radio and Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post about the surprises and snubs of the 2015 Oscar nominations, and what it says about power and diversity in Hollywood.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): It took only minutes after this year’s Oscar nominations were announced this morning for the criticism to begin.
Much of the reaction centered on what was missing, namely, diversity among nominees for actor, actress, directing and screenwriting. For the first time since 1995, all of the actors nominated for lead and supporting roles are white. One prominent snub, the civil rights film “Selma,” which snagged a best picture nod, but nothing for its director, actors or writers.
What, if anything, does any of this tell us about the Academy or about the films themselves?
For that, we turn to two film critics, Mike Sargent of Pacifica Radio and Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post.
Welcome to you both.
So, Ann Hornaday, what do today’s nominations tell us about the kinds of films that Hollywood is making and the kinds of films that Hollywood is awarding?
ANN HORNADAY, The Washington Post: Well, at least for today, it looks like it’s kind of a boys show.
And even when you look at the best picture nominees — and, gratifyingly, “Selma” did make it into the best picture — to be nominated for best picture. But so many of those are movies are journeys undertaken by men, either the great men of “The Theory of Everything” and “Imitation Game” or the young man of “Boyhood” or the actor of “Birdman.”
So it is a striking sort of tableaux of men and their stories being represented in that group.
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