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Oscars
Sept 9, 2020 13:54:41 GMT
Post by mllemass on Sept 9, 2020 13:54:41 GMT
Have you read about the changes announced for Best Picture category for the 2024 Oscars? Apparently, many outraged twitter users haven’t read about it, either. There are hundreds of angry comments from people who didn’t bother taking a minute to read the information.
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Post by sgev1977 on Sept 9, 2020 14:33:29 GMT
I think a lot of people think it's only about actors but clearly a lot of films would qualify just based in having a combination of women, LGBT or racial minorities in their crew. Still, it sounds awkward, performative and shallow to me. The only good idea is the apprenticeship thing: give opportunity to people who doesn't have them. That's the clue! Also it would be better if those kind of apprenticeship programs were implanted by studios or guilds, not by awards! Why the obsession is always about awards anyway? Almost no one care about the Oscars nowadays but Social Media activists somehow think that's the ultimate obstacle against oppression!
Also according to the LA Times , they plan to enforce this with "spot checks". In other words, they plan to have some kind of racial inspectors going to sets checking that people have the right racial heritage! That's kind of creepy!
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Oscars
Sept 9, 2020 15:20:08 GMT
Post by mllemass on Sept 9, 2020 15:20:08 GMT
I read the information, and I don’t remember anything about spot checks or inspectors. It seems to me that it’s up to those submitting their movies to prove that they’ve met the requirements, and not for a group of inspectors to determine it. I find it hard to believe that movies weren’t already following these hiring practices.
All the fuss is ridiculous because people seem to think that are no eligibility requirements in place already. When Oscar nominations are announced, the nominees have already met the requirements. I don’t find anything creepy about it.
The most common comment by far has been “I haven’t watched the Oscars in years, but here’s my opinion . . .”.
Other than that, most of the comments are from people not reading the information and then commenting that these new rules are going to ruin movies, and that the best movies are no longer going to win: “So now you can make a terrible movie that follows the rules and you can win an Oscar!” Isn’t reading comprehension taught in schools anymore?? How can so many people think that a movie will be ruined by hiring someone with a disability to work in the makeup department?
This is only for the Best Picture category anyway, The eligibility requirements for the other categories won’t be changing. And the Best Picture nominations still have to meet the other requirements that were already in place.
I had to get off of twitter because I kept wanting to scream at all the idiots out there!
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Oscars
Sept 9, 2020 15:48:47 GMT
Post by sgev1977 on Sept 9, 2020 15:48:47 GMT
I think that's the main problem: this new rules aren't even changing anything. They are just designed to make the Academy look good in certain progressive quarters. It's performative and nothing more! The thing that they are doing is create divisiveness and a backlash as many of contemporary pseudo-activism do. This doesn't help the people they are claiming to help, they are just giving arguments to extremists on the other side! www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/movies/oscars-diversity-rules-best-picture.html
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Oscars
Sept 9, 2020 16:17:35 GMT
Post by mllemass on Sept 9, 2020 16:17:35 GMT
Yes, it was a valid comment by a number of people: the Academy is actually setting the standards so low that nearly all movies already meet them. They say that these changes won’t have an impact on how movies are made. And others are wondering why the changes won’t be in effect until 2024 (I think I know the reason - movies take years to make).
I want to point out that I began working way back when Affirmative Action was such a big deal that workplaces had to have an Affirmative Action department. Workplaces were required to show that they were promoting women to management positions - jobs traditionally held by men. If you’re too young to remember what that was like, I’ll tell you.
I started working at the bottom because I was brand-new. My first manager was a woman, and I was reminded regularly by my male co-workers that she only got that job because she “didn’t have a penis”. Affirmative Action was considered a joke. Everyone seemed ok with men with few qualifications and little experience being quickly promoted for decades, but thought that highly qualified and experienced women were only being promoted to fulfill a quota. Many of my female coworkers also disagreed with Affirmative Action because they felt it diminished their achievements. They thought they should be promoted because they deserved it, not because of some legal requirement. Many years later, it all seems so quaint. We now take it for granted that the boss could be a woman, but that wasn’t always the case.
If hiring practices in the film industry can’t meet these very bare minimum requirements, they should be worried.
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Post by sgev1977 on Sept 9, 2020 17:29:50 GMT
The things is that they meet them as you said so this is just a shallow act.
I agreed that it's important to give opportunity to those who doesn't have them so I think it's better to create programs to help minorities and that should be supported. And this brings me to one example that the LA Times gave about a movie that they considered wouldn't have been nominated by these new rules (and they weren't criticized them! A lot of left wing people applauding them are claiming on Twitter that WW1 movies or films about white straight people are boring and shouldn't be made! More divisiveness that doesn't help anyone!): The Irishman. Of course, surely Scorsese had minorities behind the scenes. He very obviously has the wonderful Thelma Schoonmaker on his side during his whold career! But this mainstream newspaper is claiming it wouldn't do the cut (fabricating more polemic!) and he was indeed criticized last year for not having relevant female characters in his film and for a career that centers in (actually toxic) male characters but he is actually doing much more that a lot of his critics do to actually promote minority filmmakers! He actually has a fund and he actively promotes the work of female directors and even did a program exclusively to promote and restore African cinema! His experiences are those of a white straight male (who also happens to be Italian, Catholic and someone who grow up in a violent NY neighborhood) and that's reflected in his films and that's alright. He doesn't need to talk about other's experiences if he doesn't want to (although he actually did a movie about the experiences of a single mother and another one about the Dalai Lama's life). Still, he tries to help others to do films about their very own experiences. That's the long way, the one that ask for investment of time and money and not exactly the cool thing on Twitter (because Twitter is frivolous) but the kind of thing that actually is giving opportunities to minorities. Something that actually works but somehow he is one of the "villains" according to the LA Times. That's not good!
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Oscars
Sept 10, 2020 3:40:36 GMT
Post by mllemass on Sept 10, 2020 3:40:36 GMT
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Oscars
Sept 10, 2020 4:39:00 GMT
via mobile
Post by roverpup on Sept 10, 2020 4:39:00 GMT
While I heartily agree with three of the changes of the format for promoting diversity in the Best Picture category I have a philosophical problem with one of them.
The B,C, and D categories I have absolutely no problem with. They deal with an evening of the playing field in areas of employment opportunities and should be instituted immediately IMO.
It's the A category that gives me pause.
It seems to interfere with the creative progress. Within the structure of the outlined points listed as the criteria of selection there seems to be an advocacy of negating some creative experiences. That goes against my idea of the very foundations of what artistic expression should be.
The points presented by Sgev in the previous post covered my concerns nicely. I would like to see EVERY creative artist's story be told regardless of whether he/she was a visible minority, an "invisible" minority or... a white, straight male.
And perhaps this just indicates that the whole concept of the Oscars/awards should be scrapped or radically altered.
I see how Netflix has promoted minority/women films so much better than this new diversity awards format.
Or take Amazon Prime. The series Dan and I are watching now (Little Fires Everywhere) is a project that centres around, in part, socioeconomic racial themes and is the poster child for a "woman's" project (from producers, writers and actors). It's given an opportunity for exposure by the streaming format that it might not be given if it had been just thrown out into the marketplace in a theatre or network TV.
I want to see Black stories, women's stories, gay stories, Asian stories, etc.
All they have to be is GOOD stories with good acting!
It's a complicated topic.
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Oscars
Sept 10, 2020 5:43:48 GMT
Post by mllemass on Sept 10, 2020 5:43:48 GMT
If the new rules only had category A as criteria, I could understand how it could limit the creativity and artistic expression in the movies being made. But it’s only one of four categories, so filmmakers can still tell whatever stories they want, even with an all-white all-male cast, and still be eligible for a Best Picture Oscar.
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Oscars
Sept 10, 2020 13:10:53 GMT
via mobile
Post by roverpup on Sept 10, 2020 13:10:53 GMT
That's why I said it gave me pause, not that I was adamantly opposed to its inclusion.
I think there is good intention contained within it but it is a bit of a double edged sword in that it (on its own) has an element of creative preclusion.
And the fact that it is only one of four elements AND that only any two of the the four are needed to qualify (and additionally these qualifications ONLY apply to Best Picture category) begs the question - what good is the whole exercise? If it can be easily worked around, how is it going to really change anything? Doesn't that strengthen Sgev's point that the whole exercise is perfunctory?
Another point that gives me "pause" is that if creative "interference" isn't intended then why include in this "A" element the dictates about the CONTENT of the stories? That smacks of creative control.
Like I said, it gives me pause. Maybe it's because of Dan being a writer and the idea of someone dictating what an "acceptable" topic or story is, just doesn't sit well with me.
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