Boycott watching the Academy Awards next month

Jan 24, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I don’t think I have looked at three Academy Awards (the Oscars) in my lifetime. I am not big on movies as I am on music. I have one of the largest music collections as a layman. And the genres are numerous. My appreciation for cinema cannot compare to my love for music. I would pay an exorbitant ticket price to see ABBA perform again or to see Chuck Jackson sing the Burt Bacharach phenomenon, “Any Day Now.” Growing up in Wortmanville we used to argue as to who was the better soul singer – Jackson, Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett.
Without hesitation, I would attend a ‘Kool and the Gang’ concert. I would love to see a live concert by the Italian baritone, Patrizio Buanne, performing one of my Engelbert Humperdinck favourites, “Il Mundo.” Buanne is an extraordinary talent. Yesterday, Aubrey Baptiste of Matt’s Record Bar secured his top CDs for me. I wouldn’t even think of paying for a ticket to see a movie star live, even those that I think are fantastic, like Michael Caine. It wouldn’t interest me.
I doubt I would have any interest in looking at Oscar night in the foreseeable future. But this year’s Oscar ceremony is under intense scrutiny. For the second consecutive year no African-American actor, male or female, is nominated. No film with a Black leading lady or leading man is nominated. Many Black American entertainers are enraged. Celebrated director Spike Lee says he is boycotting the ceremony. Will Smith and his wife Jada, are doing the same. Whoopi Goldberg is against the boycott.
Speaking as someone who is against all forms of race discrimination, I would support the boycott. Last year and in 2013, some really top class movies with Black actors were overlooked. Has it got to do with Hollywood or the United States of America itself? Some sociological trends in the US have become disturbing. With the election of an African-American President, it was expected that the US would have had a greater appreciation for people of colour. It doesn’t seem that has happened
Could it be the right-wing rejection of Obama? The Republican Party has not come to terms with an African-American President. It may not do so in the foreseeable future.
What the right-wing zealots, the Tea Party fanatics and the Republican Party have done is that in their denunciation of Obama, they have instigated a huge ethnic backlash, and it is beginning to haunt the US. Some may argue that an openly biased candidate like Donald Trump could not have been possible if this backlash wasn’t as penetrating as it is. To hear the racist things that come out of the mouths of American lawmakers from the Republican Party is literally mind-blowing.
This huge right-wing ascendency with its attendant race-baiting seems to have permeated key institutions in the US, particularly the white-dominated police force. Is it possible that we are seeing its manifestation in the film industry?
Some Black film critics have argued that Black films that were not recognized in 2013, 2014, and now in 2015, are far superior in both historical and sociological content than those who were given Oscar nominations for 2015. One would like to think that people like Spike Lee, Will and Jada Smith would argue that you have to fight back. If you don’t, then the bias can become institutionalized. This is an argument I find persuasive, because it is not only strategic but commonsensical
Had Indian politicians, academics, writers, activists and film critics way back in the fifties denounced the all-whiteness in Hindi films, maybe many darker-skin artists would have had flourishing careers.
Race discrimination is an abomination to the soul of humankind. It is an evil attitude that once seen, must be dealt with fiercely. No one should have his/her talent stifled because of the texture of their hair, colour of eyes and hue of their skin. In places like the US and India, among other countries, think of the countess numbers whose hearts were broken because their colour prevented them from being an airline attendant, movie actor, singer, corporate executive or model.
I have seen the race thing all my life growing up in Guyana – at the Catholic Standard where I was a columnist (with the fantastic exception of my editor, Father Andrew Morrison); in shameless forms at the Stabroek News where I was a columnist. Last week I showed my KN colleague Dale Andrews, an advertisement for a supervisor in a Guyanese-owned business and a white man was in the advertisement. Dale, with a thin smile said, “But an Indian or African will get the job”.

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Boycott watching the Academy Awards next month

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