Tag Archives: oscar

I Have Thoughts About the Oscars

by DanteVidahi Posted on February 27, 2017

Mother Jones

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The Oscars! They are tonight! I went to them once and my dad lost to Nicolas Cage and then took us to McDonald’s and I had 20 McNuggets and many hot mustard sauces. (But like dad already had an Oscar so like it was totes political; Dad totally should have won).

Anyway! I’m going to watch the Oscars and put some thoughts about them in this here post. The kids, they used to call this live blogging, but Twitter sort is a running live blog and it kind of killed that whole thing, so instead of doing proper live blog time stamp stuff I’m just going to continually update this article and we’ll see where it goes! Maybe tomorrow morning this will just be a Reuters post I copy and pasted in.

Buckle up, friends! This baby is about to get cooking. (Don’t cook your baby. Unless it’s not a human baby and you are referring to a Boar’s Cut piece of meat as ‘baby’)

• This Jimmy Kimmel monologue is either a) not great and totally forgettable, or b) i have not been paying enough attention because I was making that art of me in the grass with Julie Andrews and the Oscar statue.

• The first Oscar is Best Supporting Actor and it goes to Mahershala Ali from Moonlight! He’s apparently the first Muslim actor to ever win an Oscar, which is nuts. That’s insane. That it took this long for Hollywood to give a performer of the second largest religion in the world its highest recognition is insane.

• Suicide Squad, an unwatchable film, just won some technical Oscar. Think about that. Suicide Squad is an Academy Award winning film and Donald Trump is president. God is dead.

• You know what was really great this year but wasn’t nominated for an Oscar because it is actually not a movie at all and thus not eligible? The Amazon Original television show Mozart In The Jungle! It’s better than like 90% of this crap. Do you like it? They’re so cute together, the weird conductor and the weird oboist! I hope they fall in love. I mean they are in love but I hope they admit it to themselves, get together, and stay together. Relationships are hard, but when when you put in the effort they can be really rewarding. Anyway, it’s not a film so it wasn’t eligible tonight.

• OJ: Made In America won best documentary! I haven’t seen all the other nominees but I have seen that and it was great. It was a great companion piece to the similarly great The People Vs OJ Simpson. My colleague Edwin Rios actually wrote a great thing about how OJ: Made In America is great.

• Mel Gibson is nominated for Best Director tonight. A story:

• LOL at this prophetic Trump tweet

• Viola Davis won! And she gave a really sweet speech.

• The film The Salesman from Iran just won best Best Foreign-Language Film. The film’s director Asghar Farhadi announced a few weeks ago that he was going to boycott the ceremony because of Donald Trump’s stupid fucking Muslim ban. A statement was read in his absence.

• The dude from Mozart in the Jungle just appeared at the Oscars to present some animation award! Is he reading this post? If you are reading this, star of Mozart In The Jungle, please know that I am a big fan and would love to hangout sometime. Do you go to SoulCycle? I love SoulCycle. Let’s go to SoulCycle!

• The guy from Mozart In The Jungle came back to present some second animation award but first gave a really eloquent little speech about how Trump’s wall is dumb and evil. Sir, sir, sir, I love you. I want to be your best friend. I should probably learn your name.

• I’m tired. I have to be up early tomorrow to interview someone :(. I might just stop watching this. But I also might not stop. You know what they say, “life isn’t a song you’re playing, it’s a song you’re writing.” No one knows what the next brick on your path is even though you’re the one who lays the bricks, you dig? I dig. And I might keep updating this…or i might not.

• I personally don’t really care for Seth Rogen’s films but he seems nice?

• Michael J Fox just said he wanted to point out how much “we all owe to editors.” Indeed. This rambling ramble could probably use one.

• Some British dude won some Oscar. Finally, the British have arrived.

• Oh the British dude who won was the editor of Abortion, I mean Arrival. Arrival was about abortion.

• Hahaha the We Bought A Zoo thing was great.

• The cat who directed La La Land just won Best Director. It could have gone to the dude who did Moonlight. I don’t know who should have won and believe “should have” is a question for the poets, but I really liked La La Land and I say that as a person who went to theater camp and, i don’t mean to brag, had their first sexual relations backstage at a musical.

• Emma Stone won Best Actress! I don’t personally care if she was better than whoever, but she seems like such a sweet person. I really think that she at least appears to be maybe the most lovable Hollywood celebrity. I hope and believe that she probably is. Anyway, my main point is: congrats for this actress who seems objectively wonderful.

•HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT Warren Beatty just gave Best Picture to La La Land but then they came out to say he fucked it up and it was actually Moonlight!!

This was just so nuts

A post shared by Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) on Feb 26, 2017 at 9:34pm PST

• i’m going to bed, but the real winner tonight was Marisa Tomei.

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I Have Thoughts About the Oscars

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Why Does a White Guy Always Have to Be the Hero?

by RuthieMoeller Posted on February 18, 2017

Mother Jones

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Chinese director Zhang Yimou, of Hero and House of Flying Daggers fame, made his English-language debut with The Great Wall, which opened Friday. But in a story set in ancient China, Matt Damon’s character sticks out like a sore thumb. The presence of his pale mug in movie posters and trailers drew backlash even before the film’s release. “We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that only a white man can save the world,” Fresh Off the Boat actress Constance Wu wrote in a Twitter tirade. “We don’t need salvation.” Damon and Yimou felt compelled to publicly defend the film, with Damon calling it “historical fantasy.”

The lack of people of color in starring roles is a longstanding Hollywood problem, and things are especially bad for Asians. A 2016 study (PDF) by the Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism at the University of Southern California found that more than half of films and TV shows had no speaking roles for Asian characters—and it’s exceedingly rare to see Asians in lead roles. Producers often claim there just aren’t enough roles for Asian actors, which is true—or vice versa, which is not. Often, when the opportunity arises to cast Asian characters, Hollywood decision-makers hire white actors to portray them. Sometimes they simply rewrite nonwhite characters as white ones. These things are called whitewashing.

The Great Wall exemplifies a related Hollywood trend wherein white characters play a dominant role in a foreign situation, while nonwhite locals are reduced to sidekicks or people “to be killed or rescued—or to have sex with,” as the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen put it recently. Vogue recently added to the outrage over cultural tone-deafness by presenting Karlie Kloss, an American model of German and Danish descent, as a geisha—for the magazine’s diversity issue, no less. Vogue later removed the photographs from its website and Kloss apologized for her participation, but it was yet another episode in America’s long history of whitewashing Asians. We’ll leave you with this brief history of the same. Dig around and you’re sure to find plenty more.

1926

The first Charlie Chan film is released, starring Japanese actor George Kuwa, but the films fail to win large audiences until Warner Oland, a Swedish actor, takes on the role. The Chan films become extremely popular, with more than 40 made, but are later criticized for racist stereotypes.

Wikimedia Commons

1935

Merle Oberon, whose partial Indian ancestry she keeps a secret for most of her life, is nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. She is later credited as the first (and only) Asian-American ever nominated in that category.

1944

In Dragon Seed, Katharine Hepburn, plays Jade, a Chinese woman who stands up to Japanese invaders. Turhan Bey, who is of Turkish and Czech descent, co-stars as her husband.

Katharine Hepburn and Turhan Bey in Dragon Seed. Wikimedia Commons

1945

Rex Harrison portrays a Thai king in Anna and the King of Siam, the film adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. A 1951 remake continues to use non-Asian actors in the role—Russian-born Yul Brynner is the new king.

1956

Marlon Brando plays Sakini, a Japanese translator on the island of Okinawa after World War II, requiring hours of daily makeup work. “It was a horrible picture,” he later writes, “and I was miscast.”

1961

Mickey Rooney dons yellow-face, prosthetic teeth, and taped eyelids for his role as Audrey Hepburn’s temperamental landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. (His “bucktoothed, myopic Japanese” is “broadly exotic,” the New York Times writes.) Rooney is later taken aback to learn that his portrayal is considered racist. “It breaks my heart,” he tells the Sacramento Bee in 2008, adding, jokingly, “Those that didn’t like it, I forgive them.”

Breakfast at Tiffany’s Wikimedia Commons

1967

Sean Connery, 007, goes undercover Japanese in You Only Live Twice. (His makeup job would fool nobody, let alone a Bond villian.)

1972-75

In the TV series Kung Fu, David Carradine plays Kwai Chang Caine, a Buddhist monk versed in the martial arts. Bruce Lee had originally pitched the series and hoped to star in it, but the producers went with Carradine instead. Kung Fu became one of the most popular shows of its day.

David Carradine in Kung Fu. Wikimedia Commons

1981

Asian actors and artists in California protest Hollywood’s attempt to revive Charlie Chan with Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen. “I don’t think racism is funny any more,” San Franciscan Eliza Chan tells the Washington Post. “We have been called “Charlie” for so many years. We have been made fun of—the way we speak, the way we act—people expect us to be like Charlie Chan, and we can’t stand that any more.”

1982

British actor Ben Kingsley, whose father is Indian, wins a Best Actor Oscar for Ghandi. He is the first—and as of 2017, the only—actor of Asian descent ever nominated in the category, much less win.

Director Richard Attenborough, left, and actor Ben Kingsley pose with their Ghandi Oscars. Reed Saxon/AP

1984

Japanese-American actor Gedde Watanabe portrays the (ostensibly) Chinese exchange student Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles. Mainstream audiences find the caricature hilarious, but many Asian-Americans cringe. “Because there were so few Asian actors onscreen at that time, people were looking for Kurosawa in a comedy,” Watanabe recalls in a 30th anniversary interview. “Sixteen Candles wasn’t that kind of movie.”

Gedde Watanabe as Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles.

1990

A British theater production of Miss Saigon, a retelling of Madame Butterfly in the context of the Vietnam War, almost doesn’t make it to Broadway after a union protests the casting of British actor Jonathan Pryce in a Eurasian role. Although Pryce, who wears eye prosthetics and bronzer for the performance, wins a Tony and the play goes on to become one of Broadway’s longest-running hits, Miss Saigon continues to be criticized for its stereotypical portrayals.

2003

Edward Zwick’s The Last Samurai features Tom Cruise as Capt. Nathan Algren, a guilt-wracked former Union Army soldier who gets to be the hero when he helps some rebel samurai fight a corrupt Japanese empire—it’s all about Cruise, of course. Washington Post critic Stephen Hunter savages the film: “Basically what Zwick has done is to take Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves and insert it into the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, with a samurai clan in the role of an Indian tribe.”

Warner Bros.

2006

Ang Lee is the first Asian director to win an Oscar, for Brokeback Mountain.

Director Ang Lee accepts his Oscar from Tom Hanks. Chris Carlson/AP

2010

White actors play the leads in the live-action film adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, previously an animated series with characters of Asian and Native American descent. Fans pan it and the movie flops.

Avatar: The Last Airbender series. Nickelodeon

The Last Airbender movie. Paramount Pictures

2012

White actor Jim Sturgess dons yellowface and doctored eyes to play a Korean character in Cloud Atlas. Director Andy Wachowski defends the casting: “The intention is to talk about things that are beyond race. The character of this film is humanity.” It’s not Sturgess’ first brush with whitewashing: In 21, a film based on the true story of college card-counters who gamed the casinos, he plays a student who in real life was Chinese-American.

2015

Emma Stone stars as a half-Asian character in Aloha, which flops at the box office. The role, she says later, opened her eyes to Hollywood’s diversity problems and “flaws in the system.” Director Cameron Crowe also apologizes, calling the casting “misguided.”

Feb. 2016

In an otherwise spot-on monologue—”I’m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People’s Choice Awards”—Oscars host Chris Rock rips Hollywood’s lack of diversity, yet manages to stereotype Asian Americans, who are all but invisible in American films

April 2016

The creators of Ghost in the Shell, adapted from a Japanese manga and anime film, face backlash after casting Scarlett Johansson as the Japanese main character. Tilda Swinton also gets hit with criticism for her role as the Ancient One, a Tibetan character, in Dr. Strange.

Ghost in the Shell, 1995. Production IG

Ghost in the Shell, 2017. Paramount Pictures

May 2016

Comedian Margaret Cho, Nerds of Color blogger Keith Chow, author Ellen Oh and other Asian Americans start a monthlong #WhiteWashedOut campaign that calls on Hollywood to stop whitewashing Asians and urging white actors to reject Asian roles.

Nov. 2016

Hong Kong actor and director Jackie Chan accepts an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards in an emotional speech: “After 56 years in the film industry, making more than 200 films, breaking so many bones, finally this is mine.” He is one of four filmmakers to receive the lifetime achievement award.

Jackie Chan at the Governors Awards. Chris Pizzello/AP

Feb. 2017

Matt Damon plays a European mercenary who saves China from monsters in The Great Wall. Actress Constance Wu takes issue: “We like our color and our culture and our strengths and our own stories,” she writes. “Hollywood is supposed to be about making great stories. So make them.”

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Why Does a White Guy Always Have to Be the Hero?

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Leonardo DiCaprio attacks climate change deniers running for president

by VicenteSommers Posted on March 24, 2016

Leonardo DiCaprio attacks climate change deniers running for president

By on 24 Mar 2016commentsShare

Famed person Leonardo DiCaprio stunned audiences in Japan recently by discussing climate change at a press event in Tokyo. Just kidding! He talks about it all the time — sometimes with an e-cigarette or a model hanging from his mouth.

DiCaprio — who was in Japan promoting his Oscar-winning film about a bear cape — used the occasion to slam Republican presidential hopefuls. “We should not have a candidate who doesn’t believe in modern science to be leading our country,” the actor said in Tokyo. “Climate change is one of the most concerning issues facing all humanity and the United States needs to do its part.” The GOP electorate pays this no mind: Their frontrunner has repeatedly said that climate change is a hoax created by the Chinese to steal American dollars and make the U.S. look like a yuge loser. Donald Trump says he’s not a “big believer in man-made climate change.”

In recent years, DiCaprio has matured from a young international playboy to an older international playboy, and he has increasingly focused on activism. In his Oscar acceptance speech last month, DiCaprio said, that climate change is “the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.” DiCaprio attacked “corporate greed” of the fossil fuel industry at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. “You know better,” DiCaprio said. “The world knows better. History will place the blame for this devastation squarely at their feet.”

Expect to hear more from DiCaprio soon enough. His upcoming documentary about climate change, a collaboration with Fisher Stevens, producer of the 2010 Oscar-winner The Cove. DiCaprio visited both the North and South Poles, as well as China and India, for filming. No word yet if the bear cape will make a cameo.

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Leonardo DiCaprio attacks climate change deniers running for president

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5 Biggest Controversies of the 2014 Oscars

by Amy R. Eddy Posted on February 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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The road to the Academy Awards is littered with scandal and smear campaigns—efforts on behalf of studios and producers that can be just as nasty and coordinated as political campaigns. (In 2010, rival studio operatives actually tried to peddle to reporters a rumor that Pixar made an “It Gets Better” video just to win over Academy voters for Toy Story 3.)

But Oscar time also means real controversy, and this year is much darker than most. Here are the biggest controversies and outrages of the 2014 Oscar season, ranging from the petty to the absolutely terrifying. The ceremony airs on ABC on Sunday at 7 p.m. EST.

1. Decades-old sexual-abuse allegations come back to haunt Woody Allen. Woody Allen’s film Blue Jasmine, starring Cate Blanchett, is up for writing and acting awards (Allen was nominated for best original screenplay, Blanchett best actress). But that probably isn’t the first thing on his mind right now.

In February, Nicholas Kristof’s blog at the New York Times published an open letter by Dylan Farrow, the adoptive daughter of the celebrated filmmaker. The letter describes, in horrifying detail, sexual assault she claims to have suffered at the hands of Allen—when she was seven years old. Allen has always denied the allegations, which surfaced in the early 1990s, and he was never charged. This was the first time Farrow shared her claims publicly. “What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis CK? Alec Baldwin?” she wrote, calling out Blue Jasmine‘s stars and other actors who have worked with Allen. “What if it had been you, Emma Stone? Or you, Scarlett Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton. Have you forgotten me?” (For responses from Allen and Allen’s representatives, click here.)

These accusations matter far more than any awards ceremony. Regardless, you’ve probably seen too many headlines like this recently: “Will Woody Allen scandal cost Cate Blanchett an Oscar?” For what it’s worth, Blanchett already has an Academy Award.

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5 Biggest Controversies of the 2014 Oscars

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