Image Description: An Oscar statuette
Joe and I go to a movie nearly every weekend. I spend time reading up on what’s coming out and, I’ll admit, about the stars and about casting for movies and about controversies that erupt, from time to time, about the script or the approach to the script. I love that stuff. It’s a real diversion for me.
And the Oscars?
I wait, eagerly, with my own list of who I think should be nominated clutched in my hand, for the announcement of the nominations. I like this stuff.
It was impossible not to notice, again this year, that the nominations were very, very white. I was both angered and disappointed. I knew immediately that I simply couldn’t watch the show, which I love doing, because Oscar is supposed to be about acheivement not about race. Shit.
I was glad that the controversy this year is louder and clearer and more people are making their voices clearly heard.
Then.
In response to this, Cheryl Boone Issacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released a statement in which she talks about diversity in the movies. She said: In 2016, the mandate is inclusion in all of its facets: gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation.
Do you notice who’s not on the diversity bus?
Do you notice who’s almost never on the diversity bus?
While I acknowledge the importance of what she said for other minorities, I am enraged that the cultural exclusion of people with disabilities continues to be acceptable. It’s not even worth a mention that people with disabilities are so despised by Hollywood that we aren’t even hired to play ourselves!! We have issues to.
But inclusion isn’t us.
But diversity isn’t us.
Our voices aren’t welcome at the table.
But maybe they don’t hire us, or tell stories about us, because they don’t want to have to ramp the stage.
Maybe that’s it.
