Oscars
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#OscarsSoBlack: Finally, Some Melanin-Proficient People Receive Nominations
After two straight years of #OscarsSoWhite, in which black actors were shut out of all the acting categories, this year’s Academy Awards nominations featured so much blackness, some racist trolls on Twitter might just start calling the Oscars the BET Awards. Moonlight, director Barry Jenkins’ stunning coming-of-age tale, received a total of eight nominations (the…
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Watch: Ava DuVernay on 13th, Her Life's Work and Magnifying the Beauty of Black People
Some might call Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th prophetic. In just over 90 minutes, DuVernay traces the decisions, going as far back as the end of slavery, that led to the creation of the monstrosity known as the prison-industrial complex—and, thus, explains how it is that modern-day slavery exists. Telling the stories of black and brown…
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Nate Parker Bashed for Sexual Assault Allegations, but What About Casey Affleck?
Recently, on Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club, co-host Charlamagne tha God asked guests Jamilah Lemieux and Amber Phillips about Nate Parker. Among his varying questions on the controversial subject, Charlamagne referenced the notion of a double standard in that Parker can’t evade backlash over accusations of sexual assault the way that white celebrities such as…
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#OscarsNotSoWhite? Here’s a List of the Black Invitees to the Academy
Cheryl Boone Isaacs is one film industry leader who is taking the #OscarsSoWhite criticism to heart and instituting change. Back in January, Isaacs, president of the Oscar-granting Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, publicly announced the academy’s plan to double the number of women and members from diverse backgrounds by 2020. And on Wednesday, the…
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Why Won't Hollywood Let Black Movies Be Great?
I’ve long been of two minds about Kevin Hart. On the one hand, I appreciate that he’s a seemingly bonhomous young brother who’s built an empire for himself by selling out shows and racking up receipts at the box office. There’s little more gratifying than a black man starting from the bottom (the actual bottom, Drake) and making…
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Chris Rock Was Really Bad Last Night, And The #OscarsSoWhite Skits Were Even Worse
I’ve started and stopped writing this three times already; scribbling a few sentences out and deleting them as soon as I was finished typing them. Because, as the title suggests, I am going to talk about how bad Chris Rock was at the Oscars last night, and how bad the #OscarsSoWhite skits were — skits…
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Dear Stacey Dash, You Are Fine. I Hate You.
Dear Stacey Dash, You are fine. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I just might hate you. Here’s why: the things that you say make my ass itch. I do not like it when my ass itches. Alas, as I scroll my decidedly Black-as-fuck Facebook feed, you and your recent comments about…
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Why Awards Like The Oscars Matter To Black Artists, Explained
Who is Janet Hubert? Janet Hubert is a veteran actress best known for her role as Vivian Banks on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” In season four of the show, Hubert was replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid; an act that upset so many Black people that an professed affinity for the “First Aunt Viv” has become…
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#OscarsSoWhite That Even Their Feminism Is Translucent
So, the Oscars were a thing that happened yesterday. I’ll be honest, I turned it off about 30 minutes after the red carpet fashion show – Neil Patrick Harris joked about how white the audience was and everyone laughed at acknowledging their privilege in a way that was too “yes I’m an asshole but at…
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Zoe Saldana And Lupita Nyong'o Need To Make A Movie Together
And this movie needs to be titled “OMFG DID YOU SEE ZOE AND LUPITA LAST NIGHT???” And it needs to star Zoe Saldana and Lupita Nyong’o. And whoever the hell else wants to be in it because whoever the hell else wants to be in it doesn’t matter as long as Zoe Saldana and Lupita…