Quota Plan May Destroy Oscars | Hacker News Reader

Quota Plan May Destroy Oscars

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36 pointskvee30 comments

Recently heard a great quote if woke culture is being enforced by China. The shift from meritocracy-ish to 'woke' opens the door for china to swoop in.

Consumers don't care if a movie's cast is diverse. They might care if every actor is of the same race/gender/ethnicity. Diversity is not a primary factor for purchasing for the large majority of America or the world. For example Squid games was a huge hit, even though it was not a diverse cast.

The latest iteration of 'woke' Ghost busters is a prime example of how this can spectacularly backfire.

I'd put it more positively, men, women, black, white, gay, straight whatever, everybody is equal - most people feel this way and don't give a shit about the irrelavant personal attributes of the actors. They want to see a good movie, period.

Lemme guess, you’re Caucasian.

Imagine growing up and not seeing a single superhero who looks like you. It matters.

I'm not going to make any assumptions about you, but when I was growing up (I'm 41), off the very top of my head, Samuel L Jackson was the essence of cool, Bruce Lee movies were awesome, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) was an organically good action hero. My favorite movie for the last 25+ years is Bad Boys. I feel ridiculous even trying to go through movies to separate who is non-white which I guess you're after. It seems a more recent phenomenon that we've started to pretend that somehow movie heroes are all white (caucasian in whatever classification system you use) men, but that's a recent thing that came with the modern "progressive movement". I can't speak for your experience (or the experiences of others that maybe your imagining empathizing with), but in everything I've seen, we had a normal period where race etc didn't matter and then people decided to pretend it did again. I can't think of any instance in which the change has actually been for the better. People are more polarized than ever, nobody is actually getting treated better, and movies are worse.

Also, FYI, your comment is racist garbage, how about leaving participants race out of the discussion instead of "lemme guess"ing,

Yes you enjoyed Bruce Lee and Bad Boys because they were a novelty. Now ask yourself why were they a novelty. Because it's a medium full of white people.

>Also, FYI, your comment is racist garbage,

Not a stretch to assume someone who believes everyone else has the luxury of worrying about the same trivial things you do is white.

May I ask, if you are not Caucasian, which I don't know if you are not, how watching movies, with a non diverse cast, affected you in your life and thinking?

When I was growing up, my superheroes looked like chipmunks, ducks and turtles.

And now we have furrys.

By "looks like" you actually mean "shares superficial traits with".

Hollywood isn't dumb, they make creative decisions based on money. Ghostbusters may have been a flop, but Black Panther grossed $1.3 billion.

There is a preponderance of evidence that more diverse cast and crew leads to higher profits, that's why studios do it. There are also the second order effects, where more diverse writing rooms, directors' chairs, and cast members leads to content that resonates with more people (rather than the traditional approach of creating content just for the average American)

> There is a preponderance of evidence

Where?

They aren't dumb but there are also social pressures to conform which could influence their decision making just as much as success.

Alternatively it becomes a play to thwart Chinese cultural ascendency. If you make a set of rules that a film’s cast an crew must have certain demographics which are only really attainable in the US, then it would exclude pretty much all East Asian cinema from winning best picture. Parasite won a few years back, but it could be made ineligible based on its homogeneous racial composition. It is hard to beat America when at a diversity contest, reframing the rules so that the contest is about diversity may have strategic benefits.

> if woke culture is being enforced by China

Don’t they mandate Chinese lead actors on movies filmed in China - regardless of merit

> Diversity is not a primary factor for purchasing for the large majority of America or the world.

Is the opposite true ? If they don’t care either way - does it matter?

> The latest iteration of 'woke' Ghost busters is a prime example of how this can spectacularly backfire.

Are you sure it failed because of its wokeness ?

FWIW 2022 “woke” Dune did a lot better than 1984 white Dune

Question: why should the average person care about these award ceremonies like the Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys?

They shouldn't. This is just a televised industry convention.

I'll sometimes glance at the annual Steam awards lists for video games I didn't notice.

Maybe someone would do the same for movies.

Really they shouldn't, but many people like to watch celebrities and hear their opinions.

From what I understand, in Roman times people had very different views on actors and these people would generally not be taken seriously [0]. However these days whenever a big movie actor has something to say on say ... COVID or Russia or Climate, people listen.

---

[0]: http://ancient-romans.com/actors-the-lowest-social-class-in-...

Right. Movie actors are one of the lowest tiers of art with a few exceptions. The real force are the scenarists, then maybe directors.

Short term the results are irrelevant. But long term they play a role in who gets access in Hollywood. Winning an Oscar means that you have more opportunities in terms of roles/budgets/resources etc. The things that happen at the academy awards have an effect on what people have an option to see in the future.

Results are interesting - especially if they put a spotlight on something you hadn't seen - but can't come up with any reason to watch the ceremony.

It would be like a soccer fan watching The World Cup, but instead of a watching soccer actually being played, they just flash up an unattributed final score, and then the winner is invited to make a speech about how they and their team played.

Ceremony isn't about TV, films or music - its just a chance to watch the celebrities.

This can be enhanced greatly my a host (I'm thinking Ricky Gervais at golden globes) just skewering both the organizers, presenters and recipients - but that's just a "baited roast"

"There’s no shortage of theories to explain why viewers are turning off to the Oscars: ...the growing chasm between the esoteric tastes of the Academy’s voting members (who this year nominated Drive My Car, a Japanese drama about a grieving theater director putting on a production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima) and the preferences of the wider theatergoing public (who likes Spider-Man)."

baffling comment. there are nine other nominees, including a sci-fi fantasy movie and several streaming releases you don't even have to drive to a theater to watch. and Spider-Man was nominated! for visual effects, like many big budget popcorn movies before it.

is the answer to "best picture nominees are out of touch with what the public actually watches" to just have a standing nomination for the top grossing movie of the year?

To anyone who knows enough about cinema to be vaguely familiar with any large cinema festival, the suggestion that the Oscars somehow promote "esoteric tastes" is hilarious.

I posted a story about the Oscars losing viewers last week and arrakis2021 linked a Bill Maher video about why nobody watches them:

https://youtu.be/4AK-vrk9R-s

Ayyyyyyy

Biggest problem the erosion of talent and money from movies to series. Add in the zillions of entertainment options, and movies just are not what they used to be. Less value in movies the less people are invested in who wins.

I think Oscars have already been destroyed when they stopped caring about art and started enforcing trendy political agenda.

The Oscars are from an era where you'd rent a movie based on what critics had to say. Critics are irrelevant today. We have IMDB and Netflix ratings. The utility is gone. Now it's just a bowling trophy for the sake of tradition.

>An Oscar is now just a bowling trophy from the racist old guard.

It really seems that part of the problem is not the fact that they are racist, but instead their white guilt if anything. They go out of their way to be performative and that seems to be part of what makes this gestures seem not genuine to viewers

I’m curious: why did this get flagged?

If it is because the submitted title is different from the title in the article, that doesn’t seem totally right, because the submitted title is a more useful/accurate summary than the actual title.

Would appreciate any insight into that, thanks!

Incidentally, I just noticed that pg also posted it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1507757801854181381?s=21&t=...

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