Emmys, Oscars, & Other Wins/Snubs

Quinta Brunson made Emmy history, winning Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy series for playing Janine Teagues— a character she created. This is her second Emmy after winning for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series, 2022. 

Eight years ago, I penned Sixty-Seven Years of White Women in the Lead. This essay reflected on the Emmys historical preference of rewarding the same actresses over and over again in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series category, leaving Black and other women of color nominees as their presenters. At the time, Isabel Sanford and America Ferrera were the only nonwhite winners. 

Legendary actress Marla Gibbs and Quinta Brunson present Niecy Nash with her first Emmy win. 

Yet, the seventy-fifth Primetime Emmy awards (held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and helmed by Black producers) promoted real change. Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson finally won the coveted prize— forty-two years after Sanford, seventeen years after Ferrera. Other feats included Ayo Edebiri, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for The Bear (who will be competing as lead next ceremony) and Niecy Nash, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series for Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Although former favorite actor Steven Yeun (and Ali Wong) also made history as the first Asians to win in their respective categories for the Beef miniseries, their terrible joint statement on the David Choe controversy has left little favor. 

Three women of color acting nominees— America Ferrera, Danielle Brooks, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

Unfortunately, it might take the Oscars another hundred years to catch up to what the Emmys did. There were only two Black women nominated for the ninety-sixth annual ceremony, both in the same category for Best Supporting Actress. Black/biracial women filmmakers were not supported despite wins at Sundance Film Festival and the Gotham Awards (the best awards voters after the Independent Spirit Awards).

“It can be very disheartening and draining because it’s like we’re not even given a shot,” A. V. Rockwell said of the film (via Vanity Fair), which has failed to generate buzz in recent months despite winning Sundance’s prestigious Grand Jury Prize. “Even with all the love that’s out there, I think people are kind of set in only certain movies, or only certain filmmakers, getting a chance to be a part of certain conversations.”

Yet, instead of solidarity for the true snubs: unrecognized filmmakers A. V. Rockwell, Ava DuVernay, Savannah Leaf or actors Fantasia Barrino, Teyana Taylor, Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, Will Catlett, or even Vivian Oparah (who scored a surprising BAFTA nomination for a romantic comedy when we know how they feel about the genre)— white women are collectively whining about Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie. As Barbie producers Gerwig and Robbie are nominated, Gerwig receiving an additional one for Best Screenplay with her husband Noah Baumbach. The only women of color filmmaker Oscar nominee writer/director Celine Song has one nomination for Past Lives. 

Whereas 2022 gave us strong performances in Danielle Deadwyler, Janelle Monae, Michelle Yeoh, Viola Davis, Tang Wei, Lashana Lynch, Angela Bassett, Stephanie Hsu— only three made it to the Oscars, one won. The Andrea Riseborough backlash (and nominating other mediocre actresses) as well as the problematic criticism from anonymous voters ruined its integrity. Meanwhile, the whole 2023 awards season has become tainted by the Barbie versus Oppenheimer film rivalry, poisoning the eighty percent of white voters who more than likely are going to give Ken— Best Original Song. This kind of media frenzy ensured that people of color films would become lost in the vacuum. They do not even support women of color to direct their characters, that’s how apparent these sexist nominations are. 

Ava DuVernay expressed sentiments that mirrored Gina Prince-Blythewood’s remarks: 

“[It’s] unfortunate because we (Black people) watch films from all over the world that have nothing to do with me, and we watch it because we don’t have to be centered, we are used to that because we are so often not centered. I don’t want this to be misconstrued—I’m just saying certain people need a certain kind of invitation, and those of us who are perhaps used to not being centered don’t need that invitation or else we wouldn’t be watching anything.”

To the foolish protesters centering two white women who actually have Oscar nominations for their white feminism film (just not in ALL the categories)— y’all are, once again, banding together for the wrong thing. Until we see certain actresses on the streets handing out “for your consideration” fliers like Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor did, Hollywood remains disrespecting Black women. 

Thus, 2024 promises an ongoing continuation of #OscarsSoWhite. 

The Problematic Andrea Riseborough Fray

 

White women are madly frolicking together to campaign for Andrea Riseborough’s work in Michael Morris’s For Leslie.

Low budget films get made every year. 

Yet, for some odd reason, Andrea Riseborough’s high value friends Kate Winslet, Frances Fisher, and Alison Janney (For Leslie costar) are campaigning viciously for Riseborough to take a wild card slot in the upcoming Oscars leading actress race— which has historically favored them since its inception ninety-plus years ago. 

Secondly, this worthwhile discussion of self-promotion campaign led by prominent voters (some who have won Oscars and Emmys) seems louder than any in recent years, especially in the digital age where this is happening in front of our very eyes on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Even Indiewire is writing about this strange supportive rise; Riseborough already moving up to the number five position on Gold Derby, the awards prediction site. Whereas the support of women of color is so quiet, that you could hear a pin drop and nobody would even race to pick it up. Have these same women vouching for Riseborough ever consider the years and years of injustice towards nonwhite candidates? How the Academy can travel all over the world for their nominees and still choose the whitest and brightest to compete for the biggest acting award of their lives? Were they vouching for Alfre Woodard (Clemency), Lupita Nyong’o (Us), Regina Hall (Support the Girls), Hong Chau (Downsizing), any of the Parasite cast, Ziyi Zhang (Memoirs of a Geisha), Maggie Cheung/Tony Cheung (In the Mood for Love)— an endless people of color snubbed for decades? Probably not.

These women’s dream nominees are extremely colorist and ill-favored, excluding the incredible performances of Till’s Danielle Deadwyler and The Woman King’s Viola Davis— whom Frances Fisher claims are locked votes, but this post does not reflect that. At least, Michelle Yeoh is still present— likely the only candidate they can tolerate. They’d probably swap her out for Anya Taylor-Joy’s work in The Menu. 

When white actresses win— do you know who they often call out in vapid, passionless speeches? White men. Think about Frances McDormand winning her third Oscar, talking about making opportunities for women. You wonder “what kind of woman?” Her kind? Or even Michelle Williams (the white actress), whose rarely worked with a woman of color, calling out the male system. Cate Blanchett— who will likely win her third Oscar anyway for playing the cold, talented, patriarchally benefiting conductor Lydia Tar— is another white actress calling out the system that benefits her. Recently, she disregarded white men at the Critics Choice Awards in a tone deaf speech not as passionately or heartily felt as the night’s other winners— first timers Ke Huy Quan, Angela Bassett, and Sheryl Lee Ralph. 

In this post-Trump era, we are witnessing why white women overwhelmingly voted to elect one of history’s most violent presidents. White women can spit on white supremacy until the cows come home, but the reality is that white supremacy has always adored them, cherished them as though they were the prizes of womanhood, of the very cinematic art that still has many firsts to conquer for women of color. In these white women winners, the predominately white voters either see themselves reflected or desired. At times, you question if these awards truly regard talent at all— because they only seem to celebrate each other. In the year 2023, Black women have yet to win Best Direction, Best Screenplay (adapted or original), Best Score, Best Cinematography as well as Indigenous, Latino, and non-binary women. Asian women, especially South Asian, have a longer journey to go. Chloe Zhao may have won many awards in her season, but what if the vehicle was not fronted by an Oscar winning white actress? Would Zhao have been so heavily honored, so riddled with award show firsts? Can you imagine the repercussions to happen if nonwhite industry bigwigs (sadly so few to begin with) campaigned as bravely and passionately as these white people are for Riseborough? Probably very severe in an industry where blacklisting can be so easily arranged. 

This Andrea Riseborough situation reveals a dirtier, uglier side to how powerful whiteness can be, how it can shift votes on the very pedestal that idolizes them. No matter how one feels about the Oscars— a questionable organization that still reeks of a certain privilege— it is very scary.  A nonwhite artist can possess so much talent and play that “working twice as hard as them” game. It doesn’t change the simple fact that someone white can always come out of nowhere and victoriously steal the spotlight, undeserving or not.