WebProNews

Tag: boycott Oscars

  • Chris Rock Feels Pressure To Boycott Oscars, No People Of Color Nominated For Second Straight Year

    Chris Rock has been tapped to host the 88th Academy Awards on Feb. 28, although reports say that he is feeling some pressure about whether to proceed with his hosting duties or drop the gig.

    The pressure comes from his fellow actors and friends in Hollywood who have hinted that he should boycott the awards show for not letting actors of color be nominated.

    On Thursday, the Academy Awards released the list of nominees for the annual awards show. However, not a single person of color was included.

    As a result, several Hollywood celebrities have expressed their disappointment with the decision, and decided not to attend this year’s event.

    Jada Pinkett Smith, was among the first to announce that she and her husband, Will Smith, will not be going.

    In a video that Smith posted on Facebook, the 44-year-old actress hinted that if there’s one person of color that can truly convey express their disappointment, it’s Chris Rock.

    We must stand in our power. Posted by Jada Pinkett Smith on Monday, January 18, 2016
    “Chris, I will not be at the Academy Awards, and I won’t be watching, but I can’t think of a better man to do the job at hand this year than you, my friend. Good luck,” she said in the short clip. In an earlier post on Twitter, Jada Smith said that while people of color are often invited and welcomed to events to entertain, they are rarely recognized for their artistic performances. “Should people of color refrain from participating altogether?” she said. In addition, film director Spike Lee also said on Instagram on Monday that he and his wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, will not attend the awards night due to the same reasons. Lee, 58, said that every year, there has been a lack of black nominees at the Oscars. “For once (maybe), I would like the media to ask all the white nominees and studio heads how they feel about another all-white ballot,” said Lee, who in November received an honorary Oscar from the Academy. Will Smith, who starred in the film Concussion, was not included in the list of nominees, and neither were other veteran actors like Idris Elba, Benicio del Toro, Samuel L. Jackson, Abraham Attah, and Michael B. Jordan, who played Apollo Creed’s son in Creed. Meanwhile, Jordan’s co-star Sylvester Stallone, who played an older Rocky Balboa, was nominated for best supporting actor. After the list of nominees was released, the hashtag #OscarsStillSoWhite began trending on Twitter. It is the second straight year that no actor of color is nominated. Even Chris Rock tried to make a joke out of it in another tweet, labeling the Oscars this year as ‘The White BET Awards.” Unfortunately, his tweet brought some sour replies from other Twitter users, urging him to think what MLK (Martin Luther King) would do in the same situation. Another reply said the 50-year-old comedian should just give up his hosting duties instead of making jokes about it. However, a source close to Chris Rock told a report that the comedian believes that he will make a bigger impact if he does the show. “He thinks it is easier to make a difference from the inside. Chris has already started to write white people jokes for the show,” the source added. In addition, David Boone, who was the head writer for the Oscars in 2015, believes that Rock will not boycott the show because the stage gives him a great platform to share jokes that only he can make. Boone, who has written nine Oscar telecasts in the past, compared Chris Rock to Whoopi Goldberg when she hosted the awards.

  • Tracee Ellis Ross Pokes Fun At All-White Nominees For 2016 Oscars

    Black-ish actors Tracee Ellis Ross and Anthony Anderson poked fun at the Oscars after the award-giving failed to include a single black actor in the list of nominees.

    Ross attended the Critics’ Choice Awards on Sunday evening, and while doing her task as the night’s presenter, she addressed the #OscarsSoWhite issue in a clever way.

    In an attempt to encourage the nominees, Anderson pointed out that most actors who win a Critics’ Choice Award are likely to win Oscars. Tracee Ellis Ross then remarked, “Yes that’s true, so if you’re nominated tonight, give yourself a round of applause. You could go on to win an Oscar.”

    Taking a jab at the Oscars all-white nominees, Anderson joked that only half of Ross could attend the awards night.

    Realizing that the audience did not get what they were saying, Ross explained that she is mixed, “Yes, you didn’t get that. I’m mixed.”

    #OscarsSoWhite became a trending topic in Hollywood recently as a reaction to the Academy’s infamous lack of diversity. Other artists have also given their two cents on the issue. Jada Pinkett-Smith called on to people of color to boycott the Oscars, saying they should “refrain from participating altogether.”

    Gina Rodriguez lamented that the Academy’s board is “not as diverse as reflected in today’s society.”

    Ross reportedly stated that she “wasn’t planning on going anyway” but also made it clear that the ceremony does not apply to her, as she was not in any film this year.

    However, not all black actresses agree with Tracee Ellis Ross. Niecy Nash believes that snubbing the 88th Academy Awards is not a smart solution and that everyone should just focus on moving forward. “We have this awareness and this spotlight – we’ve got to look at other work. There’s other work out there that I think was missed. We’ve just got to do better,” Nash commented.