Hollywood Racism and Reaching for Klolored Socks: Overly Paranoid about Racism is Almost as Bad as Overly Feminist

There is hype flying around about how no people of color have been nominated for Oscars (not even supporting roles).

Obviously, this automatically makes Hollywood racist, right?

Well, me being the skeptic I am, had to discover if there is any backing behind this or if it is merely hype.

My discovery: If you are looking for a sock and you dig around long enough in your laundry hamper, you will inevitably find a sock. You are familiar enough with the texture and thickness, size, etc of your socks to identify them fairly easily without even seeing them. True, the sock must have been there before for you to make any sort of conclusion that a sock belongs in a hamper. Still, it is just a matter of time until you will find what you are looking for.

Such is the "resegregation of Hollywood" claim. People are looking for it, so they found it. I laughed out loud when reading a comment claiming the reason for the lack of Oscar nominations for people of color is because Obama was elected president and therefore Hollywood has deemed enough recognition has been given to the African American community at large. The rationale behind this "abomination" Hollywood is presenting to the media is in my opinion an attempt for frustrated individuals to locate a dirty sock.

I looked into several things for this blog entry. First, I began with the list of the nominees for the 2011 Oscar's. Here it is.

Looking at this, the films nominated for a considerable number of awards are: True Grit, The King's Speech, The Kids Are All Right, Social Network, 127 Hours, Winter's Bone, The Fighter, Black Swan, and Inception. I am going to assume from this point that these are, for one reason or another, what our society deems the "best" movies of the year (even if I think Black Swan was a bit too creepy to stomach).

What is my first observation of this list? The movies are themselves lacking in actors/actresses color. Okay, so maybe these people have something of substance to back their claim that Hollywood is racist. Or, what I think is much more likely, perhaps the films in the list simply didn't cast people of color for whatever random reason.

But, the roles in the movies are indicative of something else. Having seen most of them, I cannot imagine better people filling these roles. For instance: True Grit. This film's casting director should be given an Oscar. Instead of assuming Hollywood has it in for anyone who cannot mark "Caucasian" on a government form, perhaps each film cast their characters and it just happened to end up being predominately "white" on the sets of the best movies of 2010. Some of these you cannot really blame, like The King's Speech. For such a movie to be historically accurate enough to win an Oscar, Denzel Washington simply cannot play Henry VI, no matter how good he is at delivering motivational speeches and playing dramatic and powerful roles. Firth, therefore, is exempt from accusations flung about discrimination. And maybe not all the roles in these movies were filled in an attempt to maintain facts, but we must also keep in mind that perhaps it is better that Halle Berry was not cast in Black Swan (I am sure that would just add kindling to the racist fire).

Next I looked at the actors/actresses of color who have won Oscars in the past. I was several leagues away from shocked at the appearance of names such as Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. Looking at that list, I agree wholeheartedly with the decisions to give these people tiny, shiny statues of a blob-of-a-human shape for their respective roles.

After a bit of scrounging around, I looked up these actors/actresses recent roles in cinema following the reasoning that if an actor/actress wins an Oscar once, it is likely they are good enough to at least be nominated again.

The "best" actors/actresses of color were relatively dormant this year from major blockbusters. Washington was in Unstoppable and The Book of Eli (neither of which are quite the Oscar-type production). Freeman was in Red, true, but also notice that Red was not nominated for any Oscars, and one should be careful when introducing a movie to the list of nominees when it is for a single supporting actor and nothing else among giants such as The King's Speech. It must be nothing less than phenomenal. Will Smith's last role in a movie was Seven Pounds (for which he did win an Image Award). True these are all examples of African American actors, but it seems to be the dominant pattern.

Part of the racism claim is that Hollywood has awarded Oscars to people of color for "stereotypical" roles and not much else. Well then. Hollywood must actually be racist since Firth is in fact English and nominated for playing a role as --gasp-- a British king. I do hope my sarcasm drips heavily from those words.

I am simply not klonvinced Hollywood klonciously (or unklonsiously) decided to only nominate individuals with less skin pigmentation. Instead, I think the movies that were selected have merit behind their attached prestige and I will be awaiting 2011's movies with giddy anticipation. Sure, I hope Freeman gets another Oscar. Who doesn't? But really. Don't search for socks unless you want them. And, honestly, going barefoot for one award ceremony is not a crime, nor does it indicate racism.