The Academy Awards
and The Modern Social Revolution
Sofie De Wandel
March 3, 2015
Throughout history racial inequality
is a reoccurring issue. Slaves were brought over into the areas now known as
Latin America, South America, and the Caribbean by conquistadors during the
1500s. Slaves during the French and Haitian Revolution struggled to understand
why the ideas of the social contract theory did not apply to them. Despite the
87th Academy Awards, held on February 22, 2015, happening roughly 400 to 500
years after the first African slaves were brought over to the New World, racial
inequality is still present in today’s society. Having the Oscars highlight
inequality through a perceived lack of diversity in nominees, the performance
of the song “Glory”, and two musicians’ Oscar acceptance speeches brings to
light that society is still refusing to live up to it’s own standards set in
the social contract theories of the revolutionary time period.
The opening remarks of Oscar’s host
Neil Harris started off the theme of inequality. He joked, “Tonight we honor
Hollywood’s best and whitest. Sorry, brightest.” It turns out, in all four
acting award categories, not a single minority group was represented. Only one
director nominated for the Director Honors of Best Picture, Alejandro G.
Inarritu, wasn’t white. The director of best picture nominee “Selma”, Ava
DuVernay, an African American female, was left off the director honors list. The
fact that an African American was left off of the director’s honors list while
whites and a Latino man made it onto the list begs the question of how the
Academy of Film actually views African American directors. Such as in the casta
system of colonial Spain, whites were higher up and portrayed to be able to
have more privileges and obtain higher cultural knowledge than the indigenous
of the Americas and the African Americans were at the very bottom of the list
of ability to obtain such privileges and knowledge.
While Ava DuVernay was not able to
have her name on the list of director’s honors, the movie “Selma”, which she
directed, still got recognized in a unique way. Musicians John Legend and
Common performed the song “Glory”. The song itself talks about not giving up
the fight for equality. It touched issues from the civil rights movement and
issues that have been swept under the rug by the news media; issues like the
Ferguson trial. After the performance received a standing ovation, the song
received the Oscar for best original song. As if the performance itself did not
send out a message to the audience in the theater and everyone watching from a
television screen, Common and John Legend made sure to emphasis the need for
equality during their acceptance speeches. They compared how there are more
black men under correctional control today than were under slavery in 1850.
They didn’t focus solely on African American’s either. The also spoke of the
song and how it was meant to also be a call for equality concerning race,
gender, sexual orientation, religion, and social status.
John Legend and Common’s song
advocates one of the main points of the social contract theory; everyone has the
right to life, liberty, and property. Bringing up the Ferguson shooting, where
an African American man was reported to have been shot unarmed at night by a
white male police officer, allowed for both musicians to challenge that society
in a free country was preventing people of color from having life and liberty.
Bringing this issue to light during the Oscars was a way to peacefully grab the
attention of the news media and the audiences watching. It allowed the issue to
be presented to not just minorities but to majorities of the population. The
same way that the French Revolution took off by having the ideas of the social
contract theory spread through the populations of both France and Haiti, the
modern day social equality revolution achieved a modern parallel of that; it
spread through not just to the elite of Hollywood, but to everyone watching.
Najee Ali, head of a National Action
Network chapter that had scheduled a protest during the Oscars concerning the
lack of diversity, made the statement “Art can change the world…” With minority
directors becoming recognized in the Academy Awards and songs concerning
equality being performed on a stage with thousands of people watching, that
statement becomes a reality. John Legend, Common, and Alejandro Inarritu took
the meaning of art changing the world and set down a corner stone for a modern
day social equality revolution.
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