Women of Color Snubbed Again During Oscars Nomination
Fans say that Oscars has continued its history by omitting artists of color during its annual nominations. An example of this is the exclusion of Jennifer Lopez, Awkwafina, Lupita Nyong'o, and also Eddie Murphy.
Matthew Rodriguez, a writer, tweeted "One Black acting nominee ... despite a plethora of chances to reward so many amazing performances from Black, Latino and Asian actors this year and One nominee doesn't excuse this #OscarsSoWhite lineup."
Cynthia Erivo is the only minority nominated for an Oscar.
One of the most noticeable snubs observed is the exclusion of Jennifer Lopez from any of the nominations. It can be remembered that J Lo was nominated at the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Award because of her exemplary performance in portraying her role as Ramona Vega, the leader of a group of women who swindle rich men in Hustlers.
Lopez was expected to be nominated for best actress. However, actresses Erivo, Saoirse Ronan, Charlize Theron, and Renee Zellweger were nominated for the award. Meanwhile, Kathy Bates, Laura Dern, Florence Pugh, and Margot Robbie were nominated for best supporting actress. While Scarlett Johansson was nominated in both categories as expected.
The nomination is trending worldwide. One of the fans tweeted, "Jennifer Lopez was snubbed from her first-ever Oscar nomination so others could be recognized for playing the same basic white women characters."
Many fans were questioning why Lopez was not included in the lists as a nominee in the best actress category. Fans believed that this is not the first time that Jennifer Lopez got snubbed in the Oscars. If Lopez was nominated in the best acting category, she would be the first U.S.-born Latina to win an Oscar.
Lopez's nomination could have been very historic as she will be competing with the leading actresses in Hollywood. Moreover, she could have been the fifth Latina nominee and could have been the first Latina to win the award.
#OscarsSoWhite gained international prominence in 2015 after all 20 actors nominated in the lead and supporting actors category were all white two consecutive years. This means, that it is not only Lopez who was snubbed because of her color and race.
According to the journalist Kareem Yasin, "I saw more conversations about how good these 3 performances were than all of the Oscar nominees combined and the Academy is dooming itself to irrelevancy." She is referring to the performances of Jennifer Lopez, Nyong'o, and Awkwafina.
One fan tweeted also that the performance of the Latinas and other women of color are better compared to the nominated actress. The netizen also added that Oscars are racist. Fans also have an issue that the nomination of Erivo who is a black woman and portraying a slave in Harriet is a clear manifestation of discrimination.
One fan said, "As usual, the only black woman (and women of color overall) they nominated was someone playing a slave and I'm not knocking her performance or the movie but this is so typical of them."
Meanwhile, Nyong'o who is expected to be nominated in the Oscars after she was nominated as the best actress in the SAG award but suddenly she was not included and according to the fans that one of the reasons why she was snubbed because of the lack of favor towards horror movies.
The nomination became a surprise after it changes its membership and voting rules and this is after the all-white acting nominees issue in 2015 and 2016. This time they tried to increase the Academy's people of color from 8 percent in 2015 to 16 percent in 2019. However, with the results of the recent Oscars nominations, it is very evident that the numbers of people from different colors are still not enough.