Afternoon Open Thread: The 2012 Oscars

By Arturo R. García

Academy Awards? More like Academy of Awkward.

But seriously, what kind of group spends nearly all of 210 minutes squeeing over love letters to movie houses from the 1910s and silent movies?

Oh. Never mind.

That study by the Los Angeles Times, which revealed (or confirmed) that the Oscars electorate is 77 percent male and nearly 100 percent white, gives us the only context in which Billy Crystal’s return as the show’s host could possibly be explained. Otherwise, he couldn’t have been more of a creative anachronist if he’d showed up cosplaying Tyrion Lannister.

Come to think of it, that would’ve been a better idea than him bringing back his Sammy Davis Jr. impression. On Facebook, Racebending’s Michael Le aptly summed up what made this old gag such a miscalculation on Crystal’s part, particularly compared to Robert Downey Jr.’s stint as Kirk Lazarus in Tropic Thunder a few years back:

Robert Downey Jr’s blackface extensively satired the use (and abuse) of blackface by Hollywood. It demonstrated the utter ridiculousness of a white actor attempting to represent and embody a person of color.

In contrast, Billy Crystal’s bit was superfluously included in a national broadcast, in an awards show that has consistently snubbed performers of color – and, I believe, only rewarded a single black actress tonight, for playing a maid.

In an opening shockingly absent of anything remotely funny, Crystal also managed to resurrect blackface on national television. That’s not an accomplishment. It doesn’t demonstrate how “postracial” we are, it just provides fodder for another polarizing discussion on race, with the “get over it” folks ever more firmly entrenched and a genuine dialogue on race totally absent from the national forum.

The offense implicit in blackface is NOT about specificity and never has been. It’s about the historical abuse of blackface portrayals to reduce and control how people of color are viewed in media and society.

The decision by Crystal and producer Brian Grazer to go with this bit for the sake of a 10 or 20-second long sight gag becomes more problematic when you factor in that Crystal really only scored this gig because Eddie Murphy quit in a huff. Moral of the story: Brett Ratner’s to blame for all of this. Or maybe he was luckier for not being there.

But, there were positives last night. Octavia Spencer’s Best Supporting Actress nod for The Help might have been the least-surprising result of the night. But her win especially resonated with the members of the National Domestic Workers’ Alliance, which has organized a Bill of Rights campaign around the film:

Now the question for both Spencer and Viola Davis – who lost the Best Actress category to Meryl Streep – becomes, where do they go from here? And will the Oscar voters be as willing to pay attention to them when they’re not playing the conscience of idealistic white people?

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