Lack of black is just the tip of the iceberg

  
Much has been made of this year’s Academy Award nominations as 2017 sees a complete absence of African American for the second year running. However, while much has been made of this, with threats of boycotts from black actors and renewed scorn for oversights from years gone by, very little discussion is being had over some more significant absences.
When you actually crunch the numbers the number of nominations for black actors is not that disproportionate to the actual US population (13%), especially when compared to that of Latino and Asian Americans who make up around 16% and 5% respectively. African Americans have won a total of 15 best actor/actress and best supporting actor/actress with a total of 66 nominations. Admittedly when you stack that up against roughly 1,600 total nominations it is depressing. Now compared this to 17 nominations and 4 winners for Asian Americans and 20 nominations and 6 winners for Latino/Hispanic Americans in those same categories and we see a far bleaker picture emerging. 

Unfortunately no one seems to be speaking out for these groups, partly because they lack the big hitters like Spike Lee and Jade Pinkett-Smith to fight their corner, and partly, and far more disturbingly, because it would seem that Americans are far more at ease under-representing some minorities more than others. 

It is possible to argue that this is not some cynical attempt by the Academy to undermine minorities, but simply a case that they are only judging what is put in front of them. The fact is, white males dominate the box office and fill most of the top roles within US cinema. The real issue of concern is when we look at the industry hierarchy. When we look at the CEOs of the big studios we see that 96% are white and, even more concerningly, 100% are male. Taking this into account it is hardly surprising that minorities and women have such a small sphere of influence behind camera and in the script writing suites. As long as this remains the case then it is unlikely we will see any significant changes to the media landscape.