Spike Lee will boycott this year’s Academy Awards after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated exclusively white actors in top categories for a second consecutive year.
In an Instagram post Monday morning, the Chi-Raq director said he meant “no disrespect” toward ceremony host Chris Rock and Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, but felt compelled to act after seeing this year’s nominations.
“How is it possible for the second consecutive year all 20 contenders under the acting category are white?” Lee wrote in a lengthy post. “And let’s not even get into the other branches. Forty white actors in two years and flava at all. We can’t act?! WTF!!”
Lee added that it was “no coincidence” that he made his boycott announcement on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Dr. King said, ‘There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it’s right,’” Lee wrote. “For too many years, when the Oscar nominations are revealed, my office phone rings off the hook with the media asking me my opinion about the lack of African-Americans and this year was no different. For once (maybe), I would like the media to ask all the white nominees and studio heads how they feel about another all-white ballot. If someone has addressed this and I missed it then I stand mistaken.
The #OscarsSoWhite controversy, which emerged for the first time last year, was renewed again last week when critics pointed out that films featuring black actors — Concussion, Straight Outta Compton, Beasts of No Nation, Creed — had failed to garner any acting nominations for its stars.
Chris Rock, who will host the Oscars on February 28, joked about the controversy, calling the ceremony the “white BET Awards.” Others, like Straight Outta Compton producer Will Packer, called the snubs a “complete embarrassment.” The Rev. Al Sharpton blasted Hollywood for perpetuating what he called a “fraudulent image of progressive and liberal politics and policies.”
On Saturday, actress Jada Pinkett Smith suggested that minorities boycott the Oscars this year: ““At the Oscars… people of color are always welcomed to give out awards… even entertain, but we are rarely recognized for our artistic achievements. Should people of color refrain from participating all together?” she asked.
In his Instagram post, Lee said that the “‘real’ battle” for diversity in the film industry is not in the Academy, but rather in the executive offices of film studios, where gatekeepers still decide which films get made. The director said much the same thing at November’s Governors Awards, where he picked up an honorary Oscar for his decades-long career in film.
“People, the truth is we ain’t in those rooms and until minorities are, the Oscar nominees will remain lily white,” he concluded.
Check out Lee’s full Instagram post below.
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