by Brielle Diskin
This past Sunday evening at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, the Academy was confronted with a conversation they have long been avoiding.
It was a lively hostless show full of firsts, surprises and sexual tension? (@Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper). Black Panther went home with three Oscars including Hannah Beachler and Ruth Carter becoming the first black women to win in their categories (Carter for Costume Design and Beachler for Production Design). Rami Malek gave a rousing speech mentioning that his parents immigrated from Egypt, making him a first generation American—an important moment for a global audience to see. Not to mention the success of Alfonso Cuaron’s low-budget (Mexican) Netflix sensation, Roma leaving the ceremony with three golden statues. And the legendary black filmmaker, Spike Lee finally won his first competitive Oscar for best adapted screenplay (deservedly so). The world bore witness to progress. This was all true until the final award of the night brought us back decades.
Close to 30 years ago a movie called Driving Miss Daisy won the highly coveted best picture award. It beat out Dead Poets Society, My Left Foot, Born on the Fourth of July (highly recommend), and Field of Dreams. One film that did not even make it to the list was a small film called Do the Right Thing. People were not happy about this. At one point during the ceremony, presenter Kim Basinger called out the Academy for not including the now iconic Spike Lee classic. That was 1990 and now in 2019 the same conflict presented itself once again.
Green Book winning the award for best picture was a surprise to most and an upset on many oscar ballots. Personally, I was not too happy losing my betting pool to a film that lacks artistic value as well as a regard for factual accuracy. Despite the feel-good sentiment of the film as well as the brilliant performances by two great actors of our time, Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, the film is highly problematic. It is one of the far-too-many films about black history told through the white gaze.
It’s undeniably a Driving Miss Daisy in reverse, where instead of an African-American driving, he’s driven by a white person. It follows the classic trope where a white character, who at the beginning of the film is racist, prejudice, bigoted, etc. is forced into a furlonged journey with an African-American person. And by the film’s end, the white character has developed some empathy and respect and we’re supposed to forget (forgive) their social faux pas of the past.
You can’t have a conversation about race in America without having a conversation about agency. Films like Driving Miss Daisy, The Help, The Blind Side, Hidden Figures, and now Green Book exhibit a narrative that shows whites at a vantage point and blacks not. These films are inherently flawed in their unbalanced interpretations of the black experience. They praised for their messages of equality when in reality, the characters in these films are in unequal positions of power and privilege form start to finish.
Let’s also note how most of the “black” films in which the Academy recognizes are almost always rooted in the past. And most often the awards given to black actors are for roles that center around race and the past. The past three years for example, Viola Davis for Fences, Mahershala Ali for Moonlight and now Greenbook, Regina King for If Beale Street Could Talk—all supporting roles. Meanwhile white actors shine in films with dynamic characters from all—sometimes fictional—realms of life.
When white people tell black narratives misrepresentation is imminent. The fact is, they have little to go off of. They’re not inside the house they’re only on the outside looking into something to which they do not understanding. White people can only understand the black experience to a fault. You can tell the difference when a black person is behind the storytelling—it’s textured, real, and everything we need right now.
Take this year in film as exhibit a, b and c. We saw successful movies like BlacKkKlansman, If Beale Street Could Talk, Blind Spotting, Sorry to Bother You, Widows, and Black Panther. Movies that were, for lack of a better word, black. On their own these were great films but it’s important to note that they were made by black filmmakers with black protagonists in varied roles.
We are in need of stories told by the people who have the correct lens to tell them.
My entire life I have loved movies with an intense and abundant passion. I am a woman and growing up I never looked at the fact that most of my favorite movies were directed by men—it was the norm.
At last year’s Oscars, the Academy played a short video about the evolving inclusion and intersectionality of filmmaking. In it Kumail Nanjiani, a Pakistani-American said, “some of my favorite movies are movies by straight white dudes about straight white dudes. Now straight white dudes can watch movies starring me and relate to that, it’s not that hard I’ve done it my whole life.” And I struggle to find a better way to put it than that.
The Oscars are flawed but they’re not broken. It’s a ceremony that celebrates the movies and the movies have to be celebrated. Movies speak volumes to which little else can. They speak of dreams, of fears, of pain, of joy and of the people who encompass what it means to be human. They have the power to plant us in another person’s shoes, in another person’s skin.
Movies are a vehicle for empathy and understanding. We need films to use that power to reflect humanity in the light it’s long deserved.