By Dan Cirucci | Dan Cirucci’s Blogspot
The controversy over the movie Selma and its failure to garner a significant number of Oscar nominations continues. There weren’t any Oscar nominations for director Ava DuVernay or lead actor David Oyelow. And, all of this year’s nominees for best actor and best supporting actor are white.
To be sure, last year’s Oscar winner was 12 Years A Slave and its African-American director, Steve McQueen was also nominated. Lupita Nyong’o also won the Best Supporting Actress award last year for 12 Years A Slave and Chitwetel Ejiofor was also nominated for the same film. So, it’s not like blacks have been routinely ignored in Hollywood.
Black Oscar nominees have included Sidney Portier (won), James Earl Jones, Paul Winfield, Dexter Gordon, Denzel Washington (won), Morgan Freeman, Laurence Fishburne, Will Smith, Jamie Foxx (won), Don Cheadle, Terrance Howard, Forest Whitaker (won), Chitwetel Ejiofor, Dorothy Dandridge, Diana Ross, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bassett, Halle Berry (won), Gabourey Sidbe, Viola Davis and Quvenzhané Wallis. And, these are just the African-American best actor nominees. There are many more who have been nominated for best supporting actor over the years and several have won, including: Denzel Washington, Louis Gosset, Jr., Cuba Godding, Jr., Morgan Freeman, Hattie McDaniel, Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Hudson, Mo’Nique, Octavia Spencer and Lupita Nyong’o. In fact, black women won the supporting Oscar three years out of five recent years: 2009, 2011 and 2013. Bravo!
But you’d never know all this from the recent news reports which have painted Hollywood as racist.
So, let’s grant what seems to be a predominant liberal argument: Hollywood has been unfair to African-Americans. The Oscars are racist.
What can we do about it?
Well, last we checked that well-known liberal Meryl Streep had four Oscars. Surely, she’d be happy to turn one over to an African-American. She’d hardly miss an Oscar.And everyone would love her all the more. She could start a trend.
And Jack Nicholson has three Oscars. He’s a likeable, go-to sorta guy. We’re sure he wouldn’t mind giving back one of his Oscars for the cause.
Jane Fonda has two Oscars and she’s about as far left as they get. She should make one of those Oscars available for a worthy African-American.
Ditto Sean Penn and Dustin Hoffman who each have two. They could spare one each. Likewise, Robert DeNiro and Kevin Spacey, each of whom have two Oscars.
And, with three Oscars, Daniel Day-Lewis may be British but why wouldn’t he want to show an act of gratitude to the former colonies?
That gives us eight extra Oscars – a great bounty of appreciation from uber-liberal Hollywood.
That should do the trick, huh?
