Hollywood Regression: #OscarsSoWhite
Within minutes of the announcement of the Academy Award nominations January 15, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite began to sweep social media. It was an understandable response: For only the second time in nearly twenty years, no person of color was nominated in either a performance or director category. (No woman was nominated in either the screenwriter or director category, either.) In a year in which racial inequities have seized the nation, the exclusions were especially tone-deaf.
For many, this is a sad confirmation of how unreflective the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, the voting body of the Academy Awards, is of the United States overall. “The Academy is about ninety percent white and seventy percent male and we’re seeing the sad result of that in voting,” said Tom O’Neil, founder of awards tracker site Gold Derby.
“On one hand, it’s not surprising … The Academy Awards have been historically whitewashed and male-dominated. On the other … as a beautifully crafted period piece about real-life events, ‘Selma’ feels like prime Oscar bait,” said Bust’s Holly Trantham. Continue Reading →
‘Broad City’ and ‘Girls’ on Their Own Terms
My friend Hopie has an acronym that I love: “TMTM.” It stands for “The More, The Merrier,” and back in our twenties we used it when assembling invitation lists for club outings and dinner parties. These days, I’ve found a different application for the term: to nip female competition in the bud. Which woman is prettiest, funniest, smartest? Why choose? TMTM!
I mention this because, with the season premieres last week of both “Broad City” and “Girls,” comparisons between the two shows are flying fast and furious. In a way, it’s inevitable. Both are half-hour TV comedies about young women stumbling through New York City. But strike the “women” from that premise, and we’ve got the description of many of TV’s most successful sitcoms over the last fifty years, from “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” and “Will and Grace” to “Taxi” and even “I Love Lucy.” So rather than pitting them against each other, “Broad City” and Girls” deserve to be lauded for their individual merits. An either/or binary is a scarcity model that assumes only a limited number of females should be allowed to shine. And if there’s one thing these two shows do have in common, it’s that both deserve their moment in the sun. Continue Reading →
Space Crone at the Movies
All week I’ve been in a low-grade bad mood about my upcoming birthday. Normally I don’t mind aging; I consider my age a badge of honor in that way that 18-year-olds lord their senior status over freshmen in high school, and I’ve happily anticipated the stylistic and intellectual freedom of the self-realized space crone. But this has been a challenging year full of problems I’d hoped to have outgrown by now, and it’s given me a case of the What’s-It-All-About-Alfies. Anyway, last night I had to pay to see a movie whose press screenings I’d missed–a movie I was ambivalent about reviewing even when seeing it for free–and I decided to take back the whole situation. So I requested a senior citizen discount from the snotty-looking 19-year-old in the ticket booth, and, without blinking, he gave it to me. I know, I know. Members of the AARP would justifiably bludgeon me for such deceit but in that moment I needed a tangible payoff for getting older. The universe, g-d love it, gave me one.