So, yeah, folks are all up in arms about the 2016 Oscar nominees being all white. I'm thinking, whatever. I don't care if they're all white. I don't care if they're all black. I don't care if they're all left handed. All Asian. All ambidextrous. All trekkies. All chaotic evil. All poopy diaper aficionados.
I realize race is a very delicate subject and should always be handled with kid gloves, but I'm just not seeing it in this situation. If anything, it says more about there not being enough good roles for black folks, but what else is new? That's pretty much Hollywood's modus operandi and has been since its inception. Not enough good roles for females. Not enough good roles for older females. For Native Americans. For leprechauns. For openly gay folks. For openly Christian folks. For library card-toting militant albinos.
From what I've been able to glean over a lifetime of watching movies, Hollywood tries to mirror its audience, its safest everyman demographic, while mixing in a bit romanticism. We can see this in action whenever they cast an over-the-hill white male actor with an up-and-coming young actress as his love interest, which is pretty much all the time. Sometimes it's so blatant its a little nauseating. It's all dreamy fantasy popcorn bullcrap and we usually accept it. Not only that, we expect it. We love it.
I feel for my fellow movie-goers of color. No, you don't always get well-represented at the Oscars or movies in general. But just imagine how a morbidly obese Christian Native American with a speech impediment feels. That poor guy NEVER gets represented. EVER!
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