Why Selma needs no Oscars
It seems silly to get cross about Selma being 'snubbed' by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. For one thing, the Oscar is a mostly-tin trophy that a bunch of privileged entertainers ritually give each other, so no sensible person should care.
Selma garnered critical acclaim after all, and despite no nominations for director Ava DuVernay and lead actor David Oyelowo, it wasn't entirely ignored. However, given the artistic and technical elements that make a film, it is rather odd that it would be considered good enough to vie for Best Picture without any other nomination to justify inclusion apart from Best Original Song.
The film, which is based on the 1965 Martin Luther King-led voters rights marches from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama, is objectively excellent. DuVernay's narrative sensibility is evident throughout, in the composition and pace of a scene, the grit and tone of dialogue, the choice of music. The most seasoned actor would have been intimidated by the monumental role of Dr Martin Luther King Jr but Oyelowo inhabits King, as a friend of mine put it.
It is impossible to stifle the resonance that the film holds for black Americans in the tumult following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. In fact DuVernay and some of the cast appeared at a protest in New York when a grand jury declined to charge the police officer involved in Garner's death. In other words, Selma speaks for itself not just as a well-made cinematic oeuvre but as a well-timed polemical piece. It needs no Oscars.
This doesn't mean that it hasn't been cheated. This year, not a single acting nominee among 20 is black or even not-white. The last time this happened was in 1998, almost two decades ago. Only three black directors have ever been nominated in the 86-year history of the Oscars, all male. It only makes sense in the context of Academy membership: it is nearly 94 per cent Caucasian and 77 per cent male. Blacks comprise only two per cent. As DuVernay herself said last December, 'It's math'. She saw it coming.
Yet the adverse reception is apparently not about race but whether the most powerful white man in her film was fairly portrayed. The discourse that Selma might have ignited regarding racialised policing and the tactics of protest was doused by claims that her characterisation of President Lyndon B.