Having few voices in Hollywood and little representation in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, African Americans are unable to vote in proportional numbers for industry awards, which play an integral role in enhancing visibility and bolstering careers. A Los Angeles Times survey of 6,028 Oscar voters in 2012 showed that 93 percent of Oscar voters were white. Future predictions project the Academy membership to be 89 percent white, at its most diverse outcome, by 2023—which still means that Black, Asian, Latino/a, and Native Americans, who currently stand at 36 percent of the U.S. population, collectively would have only 11 percent of Academy votes.31 With few Oscar ballots, these groups have diminished rights to representation in the voting process for the film industry’s annual awards ceremony.
On several occasions, the dearth of racial minorities recognized at the movie industry’s annual awards ceremony has raised protests, in both the physical and virtual worlds. During the 2015 ceremony, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite became a trending topic on Twitter, as social-media users reacted to the dearth of Black, Asian, Latino/a, and Native American nominees.32 Some Academy members did not empathize with the calls for inclusion. In response to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, one disgruntled white female Academy member ranted anonymously, “When a movie about Black people is good, members vote for it. But if the movie isn’t that good, am I supposed to vote for it just because it has Black people in it?”33 With criticism and approbation for popular cinema come high levels of subjectivity—which is all the more reason why it is important that African Americans and members of other marginalized racial groups realize their rights to include their subjectivities on decisions made in the Academy Awards program in particular and in Hollywood more broadly.
Methods of acquiring membership to the Academy, and thus attaining voting power, are problematic, in that they privilege whites who have existing connections to Hollywood and to the Academy. Directors and other creative personnel can become members by receiving an Oscar nomination, getting a recommendation from two existing members, or getting an endorsement from an Academy membership committee or staff. Barriers to entry make it difficult to achieve racial equality in Academy representation.
Recent amendments to the voting rules have led to more diverse incoming cohorts, though diversity in leadership at the helm of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also affects who is able to vote for awards and ultimately shapes who is nominated and wins. Cheryl Boone Isaacs was the first African American president of the Academy, elected in 2013 to serve for four consecutive one-year terms. During her tenure, she prioritized increasing diversity in the Academy, inviting a record 683 people, 41 percent of whom were racial minorities. During this wave, more Black talent received invitations to join, including several Black directors: Keenan Ivory Wayans, Dee Rees, Ice Cube, Ryan Coogler, and others. The viral #OscarsSoWhite hashtag of 2015 described an extreme lack of diversity, with white actors receiving all twenty acting nominations. Subsequently, as a result of critical changes in the Academy’s organizational structure, with an infusion of people from various racial backgrounds as members of the Academy with voting power, Academy nominations and awards have become more diverse.
The sociologist Darnell Hunt lauds the changes that have taken place to enable a more racially inclusive awards program and organization. Hunt says, “The Academy is now talking about the issues in major ways as opposed to apologizing for them, which is what they had done prior to that. They actually made some changes in terms of the voting rules, and they’ve been bringing in much more diverse new members every year, and a lot of that was under [Cheryl Boone’s] leadership. There’s no question she’s made an impact. The question is, will [the Academy] continue to move in this direction under new leadership, and will they continue at the same pace?”34 Black representation in key leadership positions proved to be of immense importance for achieving greater recognition at the Academy Awards. Boone’s leadership demonstrates that racial representation has tangible outcomes with regard to opportunities for people of color. It remains to be seen, however, whether the momentum for inclusion can continue after Boone’s tenure as president comes to an end and other presidents preside over the Academy.
Cultural citizenship includes the right to participate in shaping a nation’s cultural narratives. The ability to contribute to the nation’s dominant cinematic cultural narratives is as much an inalienable claim to citizenship as is any other right. However, Jim Crow systems result in marginalized groups’ loss of basic citizenship through political disenfranchisement. Barriers to attain equal rights to produce popular cinema resemble exclusions from citizenship that characterized the experiences of Black people during previous Jim Crow eras. Lacking the capabilities to contribute to cinematic expression in an ideal fashion, African Americans achieve only an incomplete cultural citizenship and belonging in the United States.
Black Directors: Then and Now
The quest for representation in Hollywood for Black directors has run the gamut from full exclusion to a growing inclusion. Throughout the vast majority of the twentieth century, African Americans were barred from directing Hollywood films. In the onset of the American film industry and the Hollywood system, African Americans were excluded as directors at major Hollywood studios. Barred from the mainstream film industry, African Americans such as Oscar Micheaux and Spencer Williams labored outside Hollywood studios, starting independent film companies and disseminating “race movies”—films that, from the 1910s through the 1950s, centered on Black themes, featured Black casts, and targeted Black audiences.35 Some producers especially stood out from the bunch. During the silent-film era, Bill Foster’s Chicago-based Foster Photoplay produced short films such as The Railroad Porter (1912) and The Fall Guy (1913). Soon after, the Universal Studios actor Noble Johnson founded the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, which likewise produced short films, its first being The Realization of a Negro’s Ambition (1916).36
Following the production of short films, African Americans ventured into feature filmmaking. By far, the most prominent filmmaker during the silent era was Oscar Micheaux, who in 1918 started the Micheaux Film & Book Company and in 1919 directed the first feature-length film by an African American filmmaker: The Homesteader, a film adaptation of his second novel. Over the course of his prolific career, Micheaux made twenty-six silent films and seventeen sound films.37 In the late 1920s, however, Black cinema’s progress faced strong obstacles including the depletion of financing in the time of the Great Depression and a lack of resources during the transition from silent to sound films. Still, independent Black filmmaking and race movies thrived up until the 1950s, with filmmakers such as Spencer Williams, who started the Lincoln Talking Pictures Company. Despite early filmmakers’ successful careers outside Hollywood, all the while, Black Americans remained entirely excluded from directorial work within mainstream film companies. Like the racial order of the broader society, this situation was bound to change in the coming decades.
During the 1940s, the top priority for Black Americans in the film industry became the push for integration into Hollywood. These aspirations followed a growing integration ideology of antidiscrimination rhetoric, spurred by African American troops fighting for equal treatment in the armed forces during and following World War II.38 Increasingly, African Americans brought pressure on institutions to end racial discrimination and integrate schools, communities, and workplaces. Led by the Hollywood chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), African American directors challenged their exclusion from white Hollywood companies.39