Invisible: the Academy Awards, racism and aboriginals

By Kristin Grant

The controversy over all 20 of this year’s Academy Awards acting nominees being white has me questioning is this outcry itself racist or are the Oscars themselves, or is discrimination imbedded in the film industry?

A quick background; people are complaining because none of the actors who starred in civil rights era pic Selma got acting nods despite the movie getting several other nominations, including Best Picture. Comparatively every year First Nation’s presence at the Academy Awards other than the odd film like Dances With Wolves is virtually nonexistent (Ironically it has two people of white ancestry as lead characters). Strangely there wasn’t outcry when in a parallel situation an Asian film like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon got shutout for acting nods, but was nominated for multiple awards including Best Picture like there has been over Selma and I ask myself why? There is seemingly a racist double standard that it is acceptable to overlook one minority but not another. Ultimately I believe white, black, purple or green, if you are the best then you deserve to be nominated and win, colour/race shouldn’t be a factor.

This Selma controversy is especially troublesome when more people of ethnicity are being nominated and winning than ever before. If we examine the Best Supporting Actress category from 1980-1999 only four black women total were nominated in this category and only one won, comparatively since 2000 there have been nine nominated and four winners, one as recently as last year.

If we look at another ethnicity for comparison since the Oscars began only six women of Asian ancestry have been nominated in the same category and not since that first nominee in 1957 has anyone taken the prize. Since 2000 three women have been nominated, prior to that there was one nod each in the 50’s, 80’S and 90’s.

From what I have been able to find, in eighty plus years there have been two Native Canadians who received acting nods Chief Dan George in 1970 and Graham Greene in 1990, both for Best Supporting Actor. Singer Cher does claim some Cherokee heritage, so you could consider her 1988 Best Actress win that of a Native American, she definitely doesn’t immediately spring to mind as First Nations. Other than Adam Beach, it is really difficult to even name a mainstream Hollywood actor of Native decent.

Perhaps the problem isn’t the Academy itself, but systemic racism in the film industry that prevents minorities from garnering accolades? While there is a growth in minority driven films,  the Aboriginal voice seems to be very quiet, great movies like Dance Me Outside and Smoke Signals never seem to garner a mainstream audience. Having spoken with Native actors in the past a lack of roles is a problem.

It seems to me that you are more likely to see other visible minorities cast in supporting roles in mainstream films than First Nations people. It is a shame that our talented actors like Graham Greene, Dakota House, Tantoo Cardinal, Michelle St John, Jennifer Podemski  are typecast playing First Nations characters, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of those roles to begin with. If you have Dame Helen Mirren playing Prospera in a gender bending adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest on screen why can’t we have Graham Greene play Merchant of Venice’s Shylock on screen not just on stage like in Stratford in 2007?

I have come to the conclusion that ultimately it is not the Oscars that need to be more mindful of skincolour in awarding accolades, it is Hollywood that needs to be colourblind so all people are represented both on screen and off.

Kristin Grant is part Cree, lives in Central Ontario and in her spare time designs costumes for community theatre.