Congressional Black Caucus member supports Oscars ‘diversity’ boycott

Last year, Davis became the first black actress to win an Emmy for best actress in a leading role on a TV drama, for her performance in How to Get Away With Murder.

“It has me thinking about unconscious prejudice and what merits prestige in our culture”, she wrote.

The Academy has been subject to criticism and calls for a boycott over its all-white line-up of acting nominees, with its president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, now pledging “big changes” to bring about “much-needed diversity”. The 2015 ceremonies were marred by accusations from film critics that the academy snubbed the stars and director of “Selma”, a celebrated film depicting a landmark 1965 civil rights march.

A day after calling for an Oscars boycott, Lee, who has an honorary Oscar, said Hollywood had fallen behind music and sports in reflecting racial diversity. A slew of celebrities – including Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, director Michael Moore, and Spike Lee – have said they’re refusing to attend or view the February 28 awards show.

Sidney Poitier did not even receive a nomination.

Actors Mark Ruffalo and Dustin Hoffman have backed colleagues boycotting the Oscars, while Quincy Jones has demanded to “speak for five minutes on the lack of diversity” at the ceremony, or he will refuse to fulfil his role as a presenter. I’m just not sure they’ll be able to move the needle much. “We need to do more, and better and more quickly”. He described the Academy Awards as being like the Rocky Mountains – always white at the top. And since most Americans happen to be white, that’s what the awards generally reflect – the films that best mirror the world as seen through the eyes of white folks. Women are not represented equally and fairly. That’s where I’m at right now.

If Clooney expanded the sample a bit – say, to the last 15 years – he’d find that the number of black actors nominated for Oscars in that period is 29 out of 300, or 10 percent.

Smith, a past two-time Oscar nominee, told “Good Morning America” on Thursday that he and his wife won’t be in the audience at the 88 annual show, saying, “I think that I have to protect and fight for the ideals that make our country and make our Hollywood community great”. “After all, there has been exactly one black Nobel laureate in economics and exactly zero in sciences”.

Spall, who is the son of actor Timothy Spall, said he thought the voting demographic needed to be looked at, adding: “The people that vote for the Oscars, the people who vote for the Baftas, that’s the thing that needs to change”.