Jada Pinkett’s outrage at Will Smith’s lack of a nomination was loyal, touching and heartfelt – it was also grossly misplaced. Smith was rumoured to be in the running for an award for his performance in the film Concussion where he plays Nigerian doctor Dr. Bennet Omalu
The problem is, awards are usually dished out for great performances or at the very least credible ones and Smith’s is far removed from either. The actors’ Nigerian accent is an abomination which completely detracts from his performance. It’s like listening to a comedian doing an impression of Will Smith doing an impression of a generic West African. Yet for some reason Mr and Mrs Smith felt the artist formerly known as the Fresh Prince had been robbed and such was their level of indignation they set of a chain of events that’s led to a shake-up of the entire Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
It’s not just Smith’s lack of a nomination that’s caused the storm in the latte filled tea cups of Hollywood, it’s the fact that Idris Elba in Beasts of No Nation and Michael B Jordan for Creed were also ignored. It seems had just one of the aforementioned thespians received recognition then the academy could’ve avoided being labelled a bunch of out-of-touch bigots and got down to the business of lauding over one another- and themselves of course. The shocking thing about all the furore isn’t that actors such as George Clooney, Don Cheadle and actress Halle Berry have criticised the academy is that this is the year they’ve decided to do it. David Oyelowo being overlooked in last year’s Selma was the real travesty and one that coming off the back of not a single black actor being nominated should have raised more than a few eyebrows. But Oyelowo doesn’t have the star power, or the wife of Smith so it’s taken another year of solely white acting nominations to move Hollywood into action.
There’s little doubt that Elba has been unlucky to be overlooked as he gives a masterful performance in Beasts of No Nation that for me is superior to both Michael Fassbender’s work in Steve Jobs and Eddie Redmayne’s in the Danish Girl. But it’s about opinions and it’s not hard to understand why both Redmayne and Fassbender received Oscar nods. Redmayne is playing a ground-breaking role as a transgender woman, while Fassbender is portraying one of the most important people of the past twenty years. These are the sort of roles that can lead to Oscar nominations if done in the right way and it shouldn’t be a huge shock that two actors who have been nominated in recent years – and won in Redmayne’s case- have been recognised. Bryan Cranston is superb in Trumbo just as he’s superb in pretty much everything he does. There’s a real romantic tale in the career of Cranston that while not quite ‘rags to riches’ is at the very least, ‘jobbing television actor to household name to revered movie star’ at a time when it looked like the chance of that had passed him by.
Leonardo Di Caprio should be nailed on for the Best Actor Oscar and if not then it’ll be the biggest shock since Shakespeare in Love trumped Saving Private Ryan to the Best Picture nod. Di Caprio’s performance in The Revenant is a triumph of not just an actor at the top of his craft, in a film worthy of his talents but also an exercise in endurance and pushing not just his talents but his body to the limits. Di Caprio literally lived and breathed the role for months, eating raw fish, surviving in freezing temperatures and climbing in out of animal carcasses. They don’t award Oscars for resilience otherwise Bear Grylls would have a shelf full but Di Caprio’s commitment to the role cannot and should not be ignored- nor should the fact he’s been nominated for an acting Oscar four times before- whisper it quietly but Leo is actually a talented actor and not just the bloke with the pretty face who dies at the end of Titanic- whoops forgot to put my spoiler alert in, apologies, in fact he lives- maybe.
It’s also worth adding Matt Damon is excellent in the Martian and while not quite reaching Leo levels of lunacy in what he put himself through for the role, did lose a lot of weight – remember weight fluctuation is loved by the academy, think De Niro in Raging Bull, Brody in the Pianist, Murphy in the Klumps, okay maybe not the last one.
All of the aforementioned actors deserve their nominations or have at the very least given a performance far better than the one Smith emails in for Concussion. I almost feel sorry for Di Caprio as you can already hear the snipes about him winning the ‘Academy Award for Best White Actor.’ In fact Leo may be best off practising his ‘laughing as Chris Rock accuses me of being part of the racist problem in America while I’ve actually given the performance of lifetime’ face. It can be the new ‘thing’ actors do instead of polite applause and smiles when they lose, they can now look disappointed when they win as it’s deprived a millionaire black actor of a bauble that would’ve looked divine on their Italian marble fireplace in their Beverley Hills mansion.
In many ways Smith reminds me of Jean Marc Bosman. Who? I hear you cry. Well Bosman was a relatively unknown and moderately skilled Belgian footballer who changed the face of the sport forever when he decided to take his club and the whole of the football establishment to court over allowing players whose contracts had expired to move teams for free. The Bosman ruling meant when a player’s deal with a club ended the club no longer ‘owned’ him. It was revolutionary, it was seminal, it affected millions of people and it came about because of a player who wasn’t nearly as talented as many of those who benefited from it the most. Smith’s performance in Concussion may lead to the biggest shake-up the academy has seen in decades, when what it should’ve led to was the actor taking some accent coaching.
Smith has put in far better performances than his one in Concussion, he’s actually been nominated for the Best Actor Oscar twice, losing to Denzel Washington and Forrest Whittaker, which begs the question ‘did the academy simply forget to be racist those years?’
The idea behind the actual shake-up is simple – replace the older presumably white academy members with younger black ones. Cheryl Boone Isaacs the academy President- who happens to be black, says the change in membership isn’t aimed at creating more diverse nominees, just diverse members but that doesn’t entirely ring true. After all the hundreds of millions of people who watch the Oscars aren’t going to know what colour the people choosing the nominees were- they’re only going to know what colour the actual nominees were and that’s how this whole debate got started.
Don’t get me wrong, society and the US in particular needs a good kick up the ass in the right direction now and again when it comes to moving forward on racially equality. Where would we be if Rosa decided to walk to the back of the bus or Martin kept his dreams to himself?
The reason I’m not fully embracing this new ‘diverse’ academy idea the way I would normally anything that encourages more lateral thinking is it’s actually encouraging racism amongst academy members not eradicating it.
The new diverse members are more or less getting the gig under the idea that they’re more likely to vote for non-white nominations the next time round, not simply the best performance, screenplay, direction or whatever. Nominations should be based on merit not colour and saying ‘there’s not enough black nominees so let’s get some more black people in the academy cos they’ll vote for their own’ is as racist as it is simplistic. The new black academy members now join under pressure to ‘recognise their own’ which isn’t fair on them or the people they nominate. If the academy really wanted to address the issue of equality in its nominations then it should encourage studios to start financing more black films, that’s how you get more diverse Oscar winners, you make more diverse films not voters.
