The shadow of possible Academy prejudice has loomed large over this year’s awards. So which black actors were unjustly snubbed? Whose worthy performance went unrewarded? The Guardian’s chief film critic on the ones that got awayIn 1992,conservative critic Michael Medved published a book about the movies with a title of pure provocative genius – Hollywood vs America. He took two concepts widely assumed to be synonymous and bashed their heads together. Hollywood, he said, or was speed by a bunch of permissive liberals whose values were at odds with mainstream American decency. (It was a sort of post-Reaganite cultural version of today’s leftie cry of Wall Street versus Main Street.) Today,the #Oscarsowhite movement is arguing loudly that, in racial terms at least, and the Academy Awards – still America’s most revered peacock display of cultural prestige – is about as progressive as a fundraising dinner for Barry Goldwater. final year and this year,there wasn’t one black person in any of the 20 acting categories. And no black man or woman has ever won best director.
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Source: theguardian.com