During my showbiz writing days one of the nicest things about
interviewing British actors was how down to earth and normal they seemed
compared to many of their American contemporaries. That's why the
current kerfuffle over the annual American Academy Awards nominations
offers such a stark contrast.
A few Black American actors angry at
there being no Black nominations for this year's awards, say they are
pushing for a boycott of the awards show.
That
there are no Black nominees is regrettable, but not part of a racist
conspiracy. In the end it's just business. The box office and hype rules
when awards are considered. A UK director such as Ken Loach would have a
snowball's chance in hell of winning an Oscar these days.
Not so in Britain. The annual BAFTA awards next month, which always
precede the Oscars, are traditionally more aesthetically artistic in its
view of films, big and small. Tiny budget indy productions often get
nominated and occasionally win. That's because nominations and judging
is done by professionals, not by thousands American academy members,
many with vested interests in films under consideration.
Yet, even
the BAFTA's are part of what is now called the entertainment award
season which begins in the autumn and continues through to the dead of
winter with the Oscar telecast. The main goal of the season is to
televise as any red carpet events as possible to bring in millions of
dollars in advert revenue and promote the films as well. That's largely
because most American TV networks are part of the same multimedia
corporations that own the film studios.
You see while the BAFTA's
are suppose to be mainly about celebrating British films, there really
is no such thing anymore. Films today are largely international, tied
together by major studio distributors and being listed in the stock
market. Their success is no longer based on word of mouth, but on
massive media promotion much of which is hype generated by award shows
such as the BAFTAs.
The simple fact of life that some irate
Black Hollywood actors ignore, or are ignorant of, is there's no equal
opportunities in Hollywood. This holds true for women actors as well.
With major film productions costs running into the tens of millions,
studios go after the big buck that good broad based stories and actors
will bring...and those for the most part are still hunky white men.
Jennifer
Lawrence made news about her campaign for gender equality in Hollywood.
Now that she has established herself as a bankable A-List star, her pay
cheques will go through the roof. The same would be true if stories
about Black people had wide enough appeal such as "12 Years a Slave," or
"Jango Unchained."
