tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/oscars-2016-24170/articles
Oscars 2016 – The Conversation
2016-03-01T10:29:39Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54422
2016-03-01T10:29:39Z
2016-03-01T10:29:39Z
The Big Short is a perverse Robin Hood parable – in which King John wins
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112957/original/image-20160225-15165-e4z6vo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">King Johns.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2015 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At heart, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596363/">The Big Short</a> – which just won Best Adapted Screenplay at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/oscars-2016-expert-reaction-55481">Oscars</a> – is a parable. Much like Robin Hood’s comment on the greed of King John, it warns of the dangers that come from taking from the poor for personal gain and power. It is a simple story designed to illustrate a moral lesson. And when the moral lesson in hand is calling out the financial establishment, you’d think we should be pleased the film is scoring so many accolades. </p>
<p>But this particular story has some issues. While the film attacks the moral architecture of Wall Street’s financial services industry, in doing so it continues to uphold the “virtue” and “sanctity” of the financial market. The outcome is another dramatisation of the events surrounding the financial crisis that leaves a sour taste and a questionable moral lesson.</p>
<p>In this parable, King John is represented by Wall Street (but the film could easily be set in the City of London or any other global financial hub), representing the bloated greed of wealth, entitlement and privilege. Built on asymmetric contracts of debt, what was once a staid and secure industry that offered a stable funding structure for homeowners has now become a toxic web of sub-prime mortgage lending. We learn how the financial services industry has generated its vast wealth and power out of overestimating the public’s ability to repay their debt. </p>
<p>At one stage, the film questions the moral line this raises between stupidity and criminality. “If stupidity is a crime, my brother-in-law should be arrested,” Ryan Gosling’s character retorts. Throughout we are told how complex financial instruments, such as <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cdo.asp">Collateral Debt Obligations</a> (CDOs), have a vice-like grip over society’s most vulnerable. </p>
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<h2>The Merry Men</h2>
<p>We follow various hedge funds operators, investors and “garage” traders – the film’s version of Robin Hood’s Merry Men – who have spotted the precarious foundations of this ivory tower. Their intelligence, cynicism and “outsider” status spot a gap in the market; one which, if they’re right, will wreak havoc for many millions of ordinary, low-income members of society. As in the Robin Hood parable, they take it upon themselves to take from the rich “fat cats” – but this is where the parallels with Robin Hood end. </p>
<p>We’re told at great lengths of the costs this systemic and reckless form of gambling has for many individuals. Brad Pitt’s character, a “reformed” ex-Wall Street banker now living a renewed life of earthy ethics and simplicity, serves as a moral compass to remind the audience of who is paying the true price of this greed and excess. In its conclusion, the film highlights how few individuals have been held to account. But the question of individual culpability fails to articulate the systemic extent of market capture that produces a unique brand of aggressive individualism and profit making. </p>
<p>This is a story that seeks to challenge how the financial service industry has succeeded in privatising wealth yet socialising risk – and yet the film upholds the sanctity and virtue of the financial market. The principal characters are, just like their Wall Street counterparts, market actors. They all play the same game. The only difference is that by the end of the film their actions are made legitimate and their gamble rewarded in the form of profit.</p>
<p>The Merry Men of The Big Short themselves adhere to the logic of the market; they make a high-risk play which yields a great return. In the financial services industry this is everyone’s dream. It is a competitive landscape that rewards a particular type of high-risk and combative intelligence. The market does not reward sheep, but selects and bestows wealth on leaders. In challenging the dominant assumption of housing market growth and betting on a downturn, these Merry Men have pitted their wits against the market, have been ridiculed for their stupidity and yet eventually they stand victorious.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112962/original/image-20160225-15165-1o3awup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112962/original/image-20160225-15165-1o3awup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112962/original/image-20160225-15165-1o3awup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112962/original/image-20160225-15165-1o3awup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112962/original/image-20160225-15165-1o3awup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112962/original/image-20160225-15165-1o3awup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112962/original/image-20160225-15165-1o3awup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Friar Tuck?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2015 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.</span></span>
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<h2>Through a glass darkly</h2>
<p>As an audience, we are being asked to follow and invest emotionally in their market strategy as if it somehow fixes the harms pressed onto those at the bottom of the complex CDOs. In essence, their actions are no different to those of the Wall Street “fat cats”. They may not have structured these instruments or traded in them, and their outsider status seemingly insulates them from the taint that infects bankers. But the entire premise of the film is one in which seven men bet on the destruction of livelihoods and win.</p>
<p>By asking us, the audience, to “be on their side” and follow them through the journey, the effects the financial services industry has on our everyday lives remain fundamentally unexplained. It is a parable in which Robin Hood steals from the rich and keeps all the proceeds for himself. </p>
<p>Brad Pitt reminds us of the social costs of this wealth and fortune, but the sheen of Hollywood glamour sticks. Rather than bringing the viewer closer and increasing a collective understanding of how we are all inextricably linked to this high-stakes world of greed, aggression and collusion, the film legitimises repatriating private wealth. And those who are paying the highest price are the ones who contributed the least to this crisis . </p>
<p>Without a greater focus on these social costs, as an audience we are in danger of becoming further removed from understanding the true causes and ongoing effects of the financial services industry. The “true story” of The Big Short is entertaining but, much like <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wolf-of-wall-street-is-a-howling-disappointment-22219">The Wolf of Wall Street</a>, it leaves a sour taste and unanswered questions. In fictionalising these events in this manner, the danger is that we come to view the lives of the wealthy and their actions through the same “soft focus” lens of fiction that they view ours.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Simpson has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>
Yet another dramatisation of the events surrounding the financial crisis that leaves a sour taste and a questionable moral lesson.
Alex Simpson, Lecturer in Criminology, University of Brighton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/55564
2016-03-01T05:38:30Z
2016-03-01T05:38:30Z
What do Mad Max’s six Oscars mean for the Australian film industry?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113353/original/image-20160301-8060-17ocz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mark Mangini and David White react after winning Best Sound Editing for "Mad Max Fury Road", backstage during the 88th Academy Awards .</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Blake/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The career of Dr George Miller reminds me of that of Charles Chauvel, one of the greatest showmen of the Australian cinema. Both men – though separated by many decades – have employed epic cinematic forms and nationalistic themes.</p>
<p>Chauvel, on returning from work in Hollywood in 1925, immediately adopted popular melodrama with strong sentimental themes of city versus country in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258819/">Moth of the Moonbi</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0352383/">Greenhide</a> (both 1926). </p>
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<span class="caption">George Miller while filming Mad Max: Fury Road.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warner Bros.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>He then moved to his more epic works, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024176/">In the Wake of the Bounty</a> (1933) and his nationalistic apotheoses, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033307/">40,000 Horsemen</a> (1940) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037212/">Rats of Tobruk</a> (1944), and finally to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048227/">Jedda the Uncivilized</a> (1955), which was groundbreaking both technically and thematically.</p>
<p>George Miller and his late creative partner, Byron Kennedy, did not have to go to Hollywood. Their short film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067953/">Violence in the Cinema Part I</a> (1971) (there was never a sequel) obtained a rare commercial release, such was its cinematic engagement with form and content. </p>
<p>It divided the critics, not really a bad thing to do in the Australia of the 1970s. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079501/">Mad Max</a>, which followed in 1979, was a worthy successor for audiences already blooded by Sandy Harbutt’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072209/">Stone</a> (1974), in an age of Australian cinema when costume designers used crinoline or moleskins more than crash helmets.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113355/original/image-20160301-8087-1nwn7sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113355/original/image-20160301-8087-1nwn7sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113355/original/image-20160301-8087-1nwn7sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113355/original/image-20160301-8087-1nwn7sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113355/original/image-20160301-8087-1nwn7sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113355/original/image-20160301-8087-1nwn7sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113355/original/image-20160301-8087-1nwn7sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113355/original/image-20160301-8087-1nwn7sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Mad Max (1979).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kennedy Miller Productions.</span></span>
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<p>Miller and Kennedy took a detour into television, producing a series of politically engaged nationalistic works such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085006/">The Dismissal</a> (1983) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0135848/">Cowra Break-out</a> (1984) as well as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096540/">Bangkok Hilton</a> (1989). </p>
<p>For a while, Kennedy Miller Productions in the former ABC studios in Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross, had something of the atmosphere of Crawford Productions in Melbourne. </p>
<p>But unlike Crawfords, which paid the bills with reliable series production for television, Kennedy Miller was nurturing a generation of independently thinking writers and directors. Many still work in the industry.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190/">Mad Max, Fury Road</a> (2015) furrows the same terrain as Violence I, Max Max and its successors, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082694/">Mad Max 2</a> (1981) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089530/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome</a> (1985). The thematic continuity is provided, in part, by the character of Max Rockatansky, who is central to each of the Max Max manifestations.</p>
<p>The film’s impact is enhanced by a budget that allowed the epic scale of action, six months of rehearsals, and a grandeur of landscape. The intensity is amplified by the complexity of the female characters, first emerging in Thunderdome. They are monstrous and nubile, ever changing.</p>
<p>But any human scale is overwhelmed by the intensity of the cinematic vision. That’s why it was not applauded as Best Picture at this year’s Oscar awards. Despite Samuel Goldwyn’s (alleged) <a href="http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/if_you_have_a_message_call_western_union_theatre_adage">adage</a> that, “If you have a message, call Western Union”, Best Pictures leave audiences with something to think about on the way home. </p>
<p>With Mad Max, Fury Road, we are just pummelled by the experience and invigorated by the knowledge that a sequel must be planned.</p>
<p>A world away from the mammalian or avian inspiration of Babe or Happy Feet and their sequels (all directed by Miller), Mad Max, Fury Road is a huge advertisement for the scope and skill of a range of technical aspects of film making. </p>
<p>It collected Oscars in <a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/awards/oscars/mad-max-fury-road-becomes-australias-most-successful-film-at-the-academy-awards/news-story/8986afbbb5d0cccee465edae41569ee7">Film Editing, Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and Production Design</a>, essential elements in the crafting of good cinema.</p>
<p>In the late 1980s, academics Helen Dermody and Susan Jacka ventured a model of the Australian industry with two distinct wings: Industry 1 – culturally inclined – and Industry 2 – commercially inclined. </p>
<p>The success of Mad Max, Fury Road raises new questions about the nature and future of a film industry in Australia. It is further evidence that there is now a firmly established Industry 3 – internationally focused, footloose, but still Australian in some degree in its bleak aridity (despite having been shot in Namibia because the lands west of Broken Hill, the location of Mad Max 2 and Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome, was too verdant). </p>
<p>Other recent examples of this trend towards Industry 3-style productions include <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2058107/">The Railway Man</a> (2013) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343092/">The Great Gatsby</a> (2013).</p>
<p>Miller has been crucial to this transformation and has in recent time amalgamated the roles of producer and director. While the production on Mad Max, Fury Road was the work of Australians P.J. Voeten and, especially, Doug Mitchell, Miller’s influence is strong. </p>
<p>Given this new kind of industry – straddling local and global; high and low-brow culture – the question of whether we want a film industry that is an offshore resource for Hollywood or Pinewood, or a culturally relevant Australian one must again be asked.</p>
<p>Under the Industry 3 model there are massive advantages: technical excellence remains a core strength; projects are attractive to overseas enterprises; employment for many is reasonably assured, even if it means six months in Namibia.</p>
<p>It also means that facilities and post-production houses can remain open and are able to support less profitable work such as the Industry 1 Australian productions.</p>
<p>What remains thin on the ground under this model is steady employment for a wide range of writers, actors and directors on whose talent and vision an Australian production industry rests. </p>
<p>At present, television is providing some outlet for Australia drama production, but with shrinking commercial TV revenues, it must be asked, “For how long?”</p>
<p>If the people engaged in Industry 3 were to return to making television shows here for the rest of the world, an Australian industry would be assured. Would a return to television production for Kennedy Miller Mitchell Productions provide some answers? </p>
<p>Footnote: There are two George Millers in the annals of modern Australian cinema: Dr George Miller of Mad Max fame and George T. Miller of Man from Snowy River fame. The latter was an alumni of Crawford Production. This article concerns the former, Queensland-born, like Chauvel, Dr George Miller.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55564/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vincent O'Donnell is a member of AACTA, the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, accredited to vote as a member, producer and cinematographer.</span></em></p>
Mad Max is Australia’s most successful Oscar winner, scooping six statues. This testament to Australian filmmaking will have a big impact on the domestic industry.
Vincent O'Donnell, Honorary Research Associate of the School of Media and Communication , RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/55572
2016-03-01T05:24:42Z
2016-03-01T05:24:42Z
Why Australians should care about Hollywood diversity
<p>This year’s Oscars ceremony has been rightly called the most <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/29/oscars-politically-charged-oscarssowhite-hollywood-race-issues">politically charged</a> of the Awards’ 88 year history. Much of the focus has been on Chris Rock’s <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/02/29/chris_rocks_oscars_monologue_stuns_when_your_grandmothers_swinging_from_a_tree_its_really_hard_to_care_about_best_documentary_foreign_short/">powerful opening monologue</a>. Rock met criticism of the Hollywood film industry head on when he said “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/29/movies/chris-rock-monologue.html?_r=0">you’re damn right Hollywood’s racist.</a>” </p>
<p>But for all the hard-hitting moments of the monologue, it also defended the ceremony. Rock took several swipes at critics, notably at Jada Pinkett Smith and the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/askhermore?src=hash&lang=en">#askhermore</a> hashtag, which protests the red carpet focus on what women are wearing.</p>
<p>Another of his statements showed how difficult defending the ceremony without using the rhetorics of racism can be. In the 1950s and 1960s, he said,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>black people didn’t protest because we had real things to protest at the time. We were too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer. When your grandmother’s swinging from a tree it’s really hard to care about best documentary foreign short.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Embedded in this stark and important indictment of historical reality is what <a href="https://fds.duke.edu/db/Provost/clacs/silva">Eduardo Bonilla-Silva</a>, a leading theorist of 21st century racism, terms “<a href="http://ann.sagepub.com/content/634/1/190.short">minimization</a>”. This happens when the harm of contemporary racism is downplayed because the situation was worse in the past. </p>
<p>In defending the ceremony, Rock’s monologue implies that race-based violence in America is a thing of the past, and that the racism and exclusion embedded in the Hollywood film industry are somehow not quite, as he termed it, “real things to protest”. </p>
<p>Civil rights leader the Reverend Al Sharpton and the crowd of protesters he addressed on Oscars night know that entertainment does matter. Words are connected with acts, sometimes violent ones. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/29/al-sharpton-this-will-be-the-last-night-of-an-all-white-oscars">Sharpton said</a> “this will be the last night of an all-white Oscars.” The protesters held signs and chanted slogans of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/blacklivesmatter-and-the-myth-of-a-postracial-america-46491">Black Lives Matter</a> movement, which was first organised in 2012 in response to the killing of Trayvon Martin.</p>
<p>Lack of representation on screens and in the film industry reflects much wider imbalances of power that reach right across culture and society, and not just in America.</p>
<p>Hollywood’s lack of diversity runs much deeper than just its flagship awards ceremony and includes under-representation of all racial minorities, not just African Americans, as well as women, LGBQTI people, and disabled people. As <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/pages/DrStacyLSmithMDSCI/MeetTheTeam">Stacy L. Smith</a>, Director of the Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/06/study-on-hollywood-diversity-paints-bleak-picture-for-anyone-who-is-not-a-white-man/">told The Washington Post</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The only group thriving in film is white, straight, men.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given that the Oscars celebrate the American film industry first and foremost, and are clearly tangled in US politics (US Vice President Joe Biden appeared on stage there), one might ask why Australians should care about the question of representations of race in Hollywood. (Indeed when I <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-academy-awards-and-racial-diversity-what-are-the-odds-23777">wrote on this topic in the past</a>, I was asked that very question by people commenting on my article!)</p>
<p>There are multiple reasons for Australians to be interested in what happens in Hollywood. For one thing, we tend to celebrate when Australians win awards. This year’s success, Mad Max, Fury Road, was being <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/29/record-night-for-australia-as-mad-max-fury-road-wins-six-oscars">trumpeted in the media</a> even before the ceremony was over. Taking on only the good elements of the Oscars is disingenuous.</p>
<p>The Australian film production industry is closely tied to Hollywood, with multiple blockbusters including <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/10/27/australian-film-boom_n_8386736.html">Thor: Ragnarok and Alien: Covenant</a> (formerly Prometheus 2) set to film here in 2016. </p>
<p>Local film culture and industry are not completely separate to Hollywood. All of the top ten grossing films on Australian screens in 2015 were made by Hollywood studios.</p>
<p>Also, popular culture is an important way that people learn about the world, especially aspects that are outside their own immediate experience. Seeing the same kinds of stories and people over and again limits what we can know and imagine.</p>
<p>This is true for people of colour, for disabled people, for LGBTQI people, and for other minorities whose stories are only infrequently told in any form of mass entertainment. Tanya Denning-Orman has written eloquently in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/29/oscarssowhite-need-not-mean-logiessowhite-but-we-need-more-diversity-on-our-screens">The Guardian</a> about the need for more diversity on our screens. As she says, “black faces seeing black faces across the media is essential”.</p>
<p>Films validate people and their stories; making a movie about someone says that on some level they are important – not just to the individuals who see a movie, but to the culture in which it was made.</p>
<p>When the entertainment industry recognizes that stories matter, first by telling them and then by giving awards for excellence in the telling, the impact is at once much bigger and much more personal than saying “it’s just a movie” suggests. </p>
<p>Rock’s monologue was the most politically engaged and confronting of recent years, and the Oscars have come a long way from Seth McFarlane’s 2013 opening song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jwtenNl77w">We Saw Your Boobs</a>”. But the entertainment industry still needs to acknowledge that what it does is important, and act accordingly. And so do we as its audience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55572/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Young received funding from the Australian Research Council in 2012-2015 to research race in popular culture. </span></em></p>
The Oscars have become the focus point for a huge cultural conversation about Hollywood, race, gender, inclusiveness and diversity. Should Australians care? Well, yes.
Helen Young, Lecturer in English, La Trobe University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/55481
2016-02-29T07:26:25Z
2016-02-29T07:26:25Z
Oscars 2016: expert reaction
<p><em>The buzz leading up to this year’s Academy Awards was tempered with protests against an institution that has remained too white and too male for too long. How would host Chris Rock handle the issue of race? Would a theme emerge among the winners? Our panel of experts break down some of the night’s biggest questions, surprises and moments.</em> </p>
<hr>
<h2>In a social justice pageant, ‘Spotlight’ crowned</h2>
<p><strong>Kevin Hagopian, Media Studies, Pennsylvania State University</strong></p>
<p>When Morgan Freeman announced “Spotlight” as Best Picture, it was a fitting end for a pageant of inclusiveness and social justice – some of it awkward, some of it comic, most of it earnest. </p>
<p>The film’s producers, in accepting the award, called on the pope, no less, to acknowledge the international outrage of child sex abuse in the Church. </p>
<p>Earlier in the Oscar ceremony, we heard pleas for action against climate change, honor killings, LGBTA violence and corporate financial malfeasance. Most insistent were the calls for action to offer greater representation for people of color in Hollywood.</p>
<p>Indeed, in an age of media saturation and government paralysis, Hollywood finally acknowledged its pivotal social role. </p>
<p>When Vice President Joe Biden used the Oscars as a platform to denounce campus sexual assault, it became clear that the movies – together with sports and popular music – form a public sphere more influential than government can ever hope to be. </p>
<hr>
<h2>A few red carpet hits, and one sea green miss</h2>
<p><strong>Michael Mamp, Fashion Merchandising and Design, Central Michigan University</strong></p>
<p>With all the discussion of diversity at the Oscars, one would have hoped for greater representation of African-American designers such as Tracy Reese. Instead, most played it very safe: traditional Armani, Calvin Klein, Givenchy and Chanel.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the women were the stars of red carpet, with many exhibiting heavily encrusted, revealing looks. </p>
<p>Of particular note was the 1950s-inspired silhouette of Julianne Moore’s Chanel black ball gown with encrusted bodice and shoulder straps.
Moore, as usual, was timelessly elegant. Her earrings, unfortunately, distracted from her otherwise on-target look. </p>
<p>Rooney Mara was a vision in white. She complemented her <a href="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2C0FCIXII3UV9&SMLS=1&RW=1277&RH=700#/SearchResult&VBID=2C0FCIXII3UV9&SMLS=1&RW=1277&RH=700&POPUPPN=3&POPUPIID=2C0FQEDHVM0H">Givenchy encrusted gown</a> with equally impressive Fred Leighton jewelry (Ms. Moore’s stylist, take note). The simple [chignon hairstyle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chignon_(hairstyle) and rouge lipstick provided just enough contrast to the glowing ensemble. </p>
<p>But with all eyes on Cate Blanchett, her fussy <a href="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2C0FCIXI8EXY8&SMLS=1&RW=1277&RH=700#/SearchResult&VBID=2C0FCIXI8EXY8&SMLS=1&RW=1277&RH=700&POPUPPN=1&POPUPIID=2C0FQEDK1LCU">sea foam green dress</a> looked more like a bad bridesmaid gown than a choice befitting one of the world’s most impressive actresses. </p>
<p>Male looks – with the exception of Jared Leto’s <a href="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2C0FCIXI8OIRQ&SMLS=1&RW=1277&RH=700#/SearchResult&VBID=2C0FCIXI8OIRQ&SMLS=1&RW=1277&RH=700&POPUPPN=4&POPUPIID=2C0FQEDHUC5E">red piped Armani blazer</a> and red floral corsage tie – went the traditional (and, frankly, boring) route. Sylvester Stallone was another outlier: he had more style and sex appeal than men half his age walking the red carpet. </p>
<p>Mr. Stallone remains forever sly. </p>
<hr>
<h2>A monologue full of contradictions</h2>
<p><strong>Amberia Sargent, Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles</strong></p>
<p>During his opening monologue, host Chris Rock’s first applause break came after he asked why black people chose this year to protest the lack of diversity in film, as opposed to the 1950s or 1960s. </p>
<p>He attributed this oversight to civil rights-era blacks having “real things to protest.” But this year’s awards are taking place in the wake of a dynamic Black Lives Matter movement, #JusticeForFlint campaigns and activism decrying mass incarceration. Rock’s joke suggests that black people can’t be simultaneously discontented about a range of issues. </p>
<p>Why shouldn’t I be able to want access to clean water and also bemoan seeing Gerard Butler portraying an Egyptian in “Gods of Egypt”? </p>
<p>Rock commendably advocated dismantling gender-based Oscar categories. But he went on to reinforce racialized categorization by suggesting that the way to get black nominees every year is “to have black categories.” Perhaps the better way to see black actors represented would be to rid the Academy of the critical mass of members who have been around so long that they could have probably voted to secede from the Union. Rock’s gender commentary also fell short when he trivialized the “Ask Her More” campaign. </p>
<p>Yet, Rock’s consistent message was clear: “We want [the] black actors to get the same opportunities as white actors.” </p>
<p>Absolutely. But diversity means that the industry should represent everyone who has been systematically excluded: women and <em>all</em> people of color.</p>
<hr>
<h2>New directions in visual effects</h2>
<p><strong>Patti McCarthy, English and Film Studies, University of the Pacific</strong></p>
<p>While “Spotlight” and Leonardo DiCaprio’s wins were expected, one of the night’s biggest surprises was in the Visual Effects category, where “Ex Machina” bested favorites “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Star Wars: A Force Awakened.” </p>
<p>In the months leading up to the Academy Awards, many had <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-turn-against-digital-effects?curator=MediaREDEF">praised</a> “Mad Max” and “Star Wars” for rejecting excessive computer generated imagery (CGI) in favor of special effects that were grounded in the physical world. </p>
<p>In some way, that’s what may be happening with “Ex Machina”‘s victory. The film not only examines technology’s role in society, but also explores human relationships – specifically, gender bias. While “Star Wars” and “Mad Max” were high-octane, action-packed rides, “Ex Machina” is a more subtle, interior journey. Ava, after escaping the confines of her robotic existence, emerges as a woman who finally feels comfortable in her own skin – without the help of a man. </p>
<p>Working on a paltry US$15 million dollar budget, Sara Benette, along with fellow nominees Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris and Mark Ardington, did a superb job using digital visual effects to depict the transformation of a robot controlled by men to a woman controlling her own destiny. In the process, they turned Hollywood’s love triangle trope on its head. </p>
<p>It’s fitting, too, that Benette is the first female nominee in the visual effects category in more than a decade, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-oscars-vfx-woman-20160226-story.html">and only the third woman to be nominated for an Oscar in that category in 86 years</a> (the last was Pamela Easley, for 1993’s “Cliffhanger”).</p>
<p>Throughout dramatic and literary history, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina">Deux ex machina</a> has functioned as “a person or thing that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty.” </p>
<p>In an academy that is trying to diversify, “Ex Machina”’s surprising victory in the Visual Effects category fits the bill.</p>
<hr>
<h2>The guys behind the scenes get their due</h2>
<p><strong>Kathy DeMarco Van Cleve, Cinema Studies, University of Pennsylvania</strong></p>
<p>Oh, screenwriters – we do know you are “the backbone of the movie industry and we love you for it!” Or so said Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt when they presented this year’s award for Best Original Screenplay. </p>
<p>But do we really know that? Actually, one of the banal “truths” batted around the movie business is that writers are traditionally the least respected in the otherwise revered three-sided filmmaking triangle: director, actor and uh, that other, writer guy. (And yes, it is almost always a guy. Or two. This Oscars season was no different.) </p>
<p>Yet I would offer that this presumed lack of respect is (mostly) inconsequential. Screenwriting is a job, one for which the Oscar-nominated screenwriters are paid well. The winning screenplays tonight hold their own as a piece of art. The scripts can be read without seeing the resulting film, and the words themselves will grip the reader’s mind and not let go – just like all great literature, no movie required. </p>
<p>Both the winners – “Spotlight” by Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy (Original Screenplay) and “The Big Short” by Charles Randolph and Adam McKay (Adapted Screenplay) – fulfill the mandate of superior storytelling, and also manage to dramatize social issues that are more often explored in documentaries.</p>
<p>This isn’t always the case with Oscar-winning scripts. (Even “Birdman” – last year’s winner – is more of a cinematic extravaganza than a story-driven experience about something that genuinely matters.) And that’s what makes tonight’s winners so special. It’s impossible to celebrate “Spotlight” and “The Big Short” without acknowledging their stellar scripts as their backbone – indeed, their beating hearts.</p>
<hr>
<h2>And only three-and-a-half hours long!</h2>
<p><strong>Thomas Leitch, Film Studies, University of Delaware</strong></p>
<p>If there’s one thing every viewer of the Academy Awards ceremony agrees on, it’s that the broadcast, which routinely runs longer than “Gone with the Wind,” should be shorter, or at least seem shorter.</p>
<p>The festivities this year maintained the usual stately pace of six awards an hour, and there were stretches that seemed even longer. The animated clips of digitized heroes from “Minions” and “Toy Story” presented awards with even less efficiency than their live-action counterparts. Then there was Chris Rock’s Ellen DeGeneres moment, when he urged all the millionaires in the studio audience to support his daughters by purchasing Girl Scout cookies.</p>
<p>But there were signs of life amid the posturing, bombast and DOA humor. The clips from the eight Best Picture nominees were squeezed into four economical pairs, and only three of the five songs nominated for Best Original Song were treated to production numbers. The most hopeful sign of all was a crawl that ran below the screen as the winners of each category approached the stage, identifying all the dozens of people they wanted to thank. </p>
<p>Imagine the possibilities if we applied the same technology to presidential debates, relegating all the forgettable pontificating to the bottom of the screen!</p>
<hr>
<h2>Tired of hearing about #OscarsSoWhite?</h2>
<p><strong>Kellie Carter Jackson, History, Hunter College</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/oscars-2015-expert-reaction-37689">Last year</a> I was writing about the Oscars and the stark white cast of nominees. And here we are again. </p>
<p>Let’s be honest, the disappointing lack of nominees of color is compounded by the current political climate. It’s becoming eerily uncomfortable to see how many Americans are comfortable with ideas based on exclusion, division, and hate all under a banner of “Making America Great Again.” </p>
<p>Is Hollywood as racist as the Klan? No. But shouldn’t we be disturbed that an industry as powerful and omnipresent as Hollywood is on the spectrum? When did we become okay with something or someone being “race-ish?”</p>
<p>Frustration over the homogeneity of the Oscars is not limited to black Americans. It’s about reminding audiences that whiteness is not the standard; it’s not even the norm. (Forty-eight percent of Americans <a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html">in the last census</a> do not identify as white.) Certainly, there are other things to protest. But the battle over film is also about the presentation our imaginations and lived experiences.</p>
<p>Awards aside, I want a diversity of stories where people of color aren’t simply athletes, rappers, or warlords. </p>
<p>Did last night make you uncomfortable? Tired of being beaten over the head? Tired of hearing about the “great whiteout.” </p>
<p>I’m tired of seeing it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55481/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From Chris Rock’s opening monologue to red carpet hits (and misses), our experts analyze key moments from this year’s Academy Awards.
Kevin Hagopian, Senior Lecturer of Media Studies (Cinema Studies), Penn State
Amberia Sargent, Doctoral Student in Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles
Kathy DeMarco Van Cleve, Senior Lecturer in Cinema Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Kellie Carter Jackson, Assistant Professor of History, Hunter College
Michael Mamp, Assistant Professor of Fashion Merchandising and Design, Central Michigan University
Patti McCarthy, Assistant Professor, Film; Department of Theatre, Film & Communication Arts, Whittier College
Thomas Leitch, Professor of English, University of Delaware
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/55063
2016-02-26T14:50:51Z
2016-02-26T14:50:51Z
Oscars culture reveals our fascinating relationships with spectacle, fantasy and money
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112884/original/image-20160225-15160-1uvs3km.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">'Oscar' via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Shallow red carpet frippery? Blustery establishment voting? Obnoxious privileged millionaires? There’s plenty to dismiss about the Oscars, but no night reveals quite so much about the state of our relationships with spectacle, fantasy and money.</p>
<p>Here, five academics take a look into the cultures that intersect the awards and whether you love or hate the Oscars they’re well worth a read.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/from-the-revenant-to-mad-max-why-we-all-love-a-story-of-survival-53408"><strong>The films</strong></a></p>
<p>From Mad Max to The Revenant, this year’s nomination list is filled with brutal survival stories. What explains our fascination with these in 2016? Fellow Catherine Redford gets under the genre’s skin. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-louis-xiv-would-approve-of-fashion-at-the-oscars-54917"><strong>The gowns</strong></a></p>
<p>Dress historian Marie McLoughlin examines the culture of red carpet fashion and what we can learn. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/oscars-speeches-dos-and-donts-some-lessons-from-history-23527"><strong>The speeches</strong></a></p>
<p>What history can teach us about giving a good Oscar winning speech – and what to avoid, by communication lecturer Tom Clark. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-oscars-can-help-hollywood-crack-the-china-market-55414"><strong>The money</strong></a></p>
<p>Hollywood is eyeing the massive Chinese market as it looks to expand. But there’s another reason why it is pushing so hard. Economics professor Caroline Elliott explains how China’s own film industry, now second largest in terms of revenue, is seen as a major competitor.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/behind-the-curtain-of-the-academys-old-boys-club-53471"><strong>The diversity problem</strong></a></p>
<p>Like many before it, 2016’s overwhelmingly white nominations list has thrown up some difficult questions about race. Film and media studies lecturer Eddy von Mueller goes behind the curtain of the Academy’s old boys’ club to tease out deep-rooted diversity problems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55063/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Oscars really says a lot about us and the society we’ve built.
Khalil A. Cassimally, Head of Audience Insights, The Conversation International
Ally Kingston, Former Audience Engagement Manager
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/55414
2016-02-26T14:12:07Z
2016-02-26T14:12:07Z
How the Oscars can help Hollywood crack the China market
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112970/original/image-20160225-15145-a0vcrw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Worth their weight in gold.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-543709p1.html">MidoSemsem / Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Oscars are the Olympics of the acting world: as well as being the most coveted of awards for those in the business, they are the most watched of the entertainment awards shows globally – broadcast internationally since 1969, they are now <a href="http://www.oscars.org/academy-story">watched in more than 200 countries</a>. </p>
<p>The 2016 Academy Awards have been marred by a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-boycott-of-lily-white-oscars-might-just-start-to-change-the-film-industry-53518">lack of black nominees</a> and talk of a boycott. Not only does it raise moral questions, the negative publicity surrounding the Oscars is also something Hollywood should care about from a financial perspective. As an important marker of quality, the awards play an important role in boosting revenue.</p>
<p>The Oscars have become a <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11151-008-9181-0">fantastic marketing tool for the film industry</a>. Films often highlight the number of Oscar nominations and awards that they have received in their advertising. Some films will also be re-released onto cinema screens once nominated for Oscars to increase their revenues. Others enjoy extended box office runs once Oscar nominations are announced. </p>
<h2>Quality control</h2>
<p>Economists have long distinguished <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1830691?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">between “search goods” and “experience goods”</a>. With search goods, the key characteristics are easily identifiable before they are purchased. For example it is straightforward to find out the features, price, and warranty information when buying a new kitchen appliance. Films, however, alongside products such as books and restaurant meals, are experience goods. They differ to search goods in that some of their key features can only be discovered after they are purchased. </p>
<p>To inform our decision about which film (or book or restaurant) to choose to spend our money on, there is a host of information available to us. You can discover the genre and elements of the plot and can find out tings that will signal the film’s potential quality. Film budgets may be a sign of a film executives’ faith in a movie or the effort gone into it, while the actors and director involved – or whether the film is part of a movie franchise – may help you select between films. Newspaper and magazine critics’ reviews have traditionally been a signal of film quality – and online reviews of films by the general public on websites such as <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/">Rotten Tomatoes</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/">IMDB</a> are easily accessible.</p>
<p>The Oscars have long been recognised as a very important signal of a film’s quality and potential success. As well as having a huge focus of media attention, the awards are decided on by the nearly 6,000 members of the Academy who are active and important members of the film industry. And research has shown that both Oscar nominations and awards <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10824-005-3338-6#page-1">boost box office revenues</a>.</p>
<p>The effect is even more pronounced on films that do not start out with huge budgets for marketing. The King’s Speech for example seems to have benefited hugely <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/oscarnomics-2013-how-much-is-oscar-really-worth-2013-2?IR=T">from its Oscar nominations and success</a>. Initially projected to gross US$30m worldwide, its nomination for 12 Academy Awards led to a revised estimate of US$200m. It went on to earn US$427m at box offices around the world, not to mention DVD sales. </p>
<h2>The China market</h2>
<p>As films compete with the growing Chinese film industry, the importance of Oscar credibility is set to become even more valuable. China has the second largest film market in the world <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/mar/22/china-largest-film-market-outside-us">in terms of revenue</a>. And it seems only a matter of time before it will become the largest – the latest projections are that China <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21553486">could overtake the largest market, the US, by 2020</a>.</p>
<p>By 2010, China had become the world’s <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/paaf/paaf/2014/00000087/00000001/art00006?crawler=true">third-largest producer of films</a> behind only India and the US. Now that the Chinese government is allowing an increasing number of foreign films to be shown on cinema screens, the competition will be fierce to impress Chinese audiences. </p>
<p>Some of these imported films are Hollywood blockbusters such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens or Skyfall. But others have been nominated for and won key Oscars, such as The Artist, The Iron Lady and The King’s Speech.</p>
<p>With a population of 1.3 billion, the Chinese market will clearly continue to be very important for films produced outside China – and reputable signals of film quality to Chinese audiences will be invaluable. This is particularly true when <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/29/content_428933.htm">Chinese audiences are sceptical</a> of film awards in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. </p>
<p>Hollywood will be wary of giving this audience any reason to doubt the credibility of the Oscars as the major, internationally acclaimed awards.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences needs to work hard to make sure that next year’s awards are not marred by negative publicity, when the industry needs weapons to help it fight in the important Chinese film market.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55414/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Elliott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Awards – and the Oscars especially – play a crucial role in conveying the quality of a film.
Caroline Elliott, Professor of Industrial Economics, Director of Teaching and Learning - Business School, University of Huddersfield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54917
2016-02-26T13:29:16Z
2016-02-26T13:29:16Z
Why Louis XIV would approve of fashion at the Oscars
<p>If Louis XIV has taught us anything, it is that lavish amounts of luscious silks, big dresses and red-soled shoes equal wealth and power. This is as true today as it was in the 17th-century French court: all three will be much in evidence on the red carpet at the forthcoming Oscars – and they will indeed represent wealth and power. But power structures have changed somewhat in the past 400 years: what they will not represent are the wardrobes of the actors wearing them.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112926/original/image-20160225-15160-m783bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112926/original/image-20160225-15160-m783bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112926/original/image-20160225-15160-m783bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112926/original/image-20160225-15160-m783bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112926/original/image-20160225-15160-m783bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112926/original/image-20160225-15160-m783bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112926/original/image-20160225-15160-m783bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112926/original/image-20160225-15160-m783bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Louis XIV sporting his signature red heels.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those red-carpet looks are a manifestation of the coming together of two of the world’s biggest industries. LVMH alone, (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) the fashion conglomerate that owns Dior among others, had a turnover last year of <a href="http://www.lvmh.com/news-documents/press-releases/excellent-performance-of-lvmh-in-2015">€35.7 billion</a>; the film industry also makes “<a href="https://theconversation.com/behind-the-curtain-of-the-academys-old-boys-club-53471">shockingly large amounts of money</a>”. And with a television audience conservatively estimated at <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26430986">40m</a>, the Academy Awards ceremony is not only the film industry’s premier marketing event, but also a major event for the fashion industry.</p>
<p>While actors work on toning and tanning in the weeks before the Oscars, designers woo stylists – those professional fashionistas who know better than the actors themselves what looks good on them. It would be hard to overestimate the power of the stylist. There are anecdotes galore demonstrating this. In her <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1ve4l9C7MYgC">book</a> on the relationship between fashion and the Academy Awards for example, Bronwyn Cosgrave described one stylist calling in all yellow designer dresses for “consideration” so that no-one other than her client would be seen in yellow.</p>
<p>Now’s the time that the year’s furious networking really pays off. Widely considered the best Oscar dress of all time, the infamous vintage Valentino dress that Julia Roberts wore in 2001 came about simply because her stylist, Debbie Mason, had known one of Valentino’s employees in England in the 1980s.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"700549327794663424"}"></div></p>
<p>The dress became a worldwide sensation and was much copied. Valentino <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/2638802/Valentino-pays-tribute-to-Julia-Roberts-at-Venice-Film-Festival.html">described</a> the moment when Roberts collected the Best Actress award for Erin Brockovich, wearing his dress, as the high point of his career. </p>
<h2>The fashion police</h2>
<p>Winners and losers are declared, not just on the stage but on the red carpet too. For every Valentino/Roberts pairing there will be others, the “disasters”, which dominate the headlines. Last year it was the largely unremarkable green Versace dress worn by Scarlett Johansson that <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/oscars-2015-dresses-red-carpet-misses-10064005.html">came in for criticism</a>. But it is the real disasters, like Jennifer Lawrence, the face of Dior, tripping over her voluminous Dior gown – only chosen that morning and not made to measure – that really sells magazines.</p>
<p>Many actresses have lucrative advertising deals with the big couture houses. The word “advertising” is rarely mentioned, rather they are “the face of” a brand or sub-brand – such as Dior handbags. This wasn’t always the way – all credit must go to the first recipient of the award in 1928. Tiny Janet Gaynor wore a modest knee-length knitted dress that was reputedly bought in a childrenswear shop. Winning the Oscar made her the hottest property in Hollywood and sometime later she married <a href="http://vintagefashionguild.org/fashion-history/adrian/">Adrian</a>, one of the most successful Hollywood costume designers of all time.</p>
<p>This year the smart money is on Alicia Vikander, nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-danish-girl-all-skirt-and-no-substance-52613">The Danish Girl</a>, wearing Vuitton, as she did at the Golden Globes. Vikander is the latest face of Vuitton and one of the few that can wear Nicolas Geshquière’s uncompromising clothes with conviction.</p>
<p>Cate Blanchett, with a Best Actress nomination for Carol, will probably wear Armani Privé. The actress has had a relationship with the design house since 2006, wearing one of its gowns to collect her second Oscar, for Blue Jasmine, in 2014. In return Armani provided generous sponsorship to Blanchett and her writer director husband, Andrew Upton, at the Sydney Theatre Company. Blanchett is currently starring in the video for Armani’s latest scent, Si; she <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/cate-blanchett-interview-costumes-characters-and-red-carpets/">claims</a> it is the hardest role she has ever played.</p>
<p>There is one dark horse amongst the nominees. 70-year-old Charlotte Rampling, nominated as Best Actress for her role in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3544082/">45 Years</a>, is known for her French chic, designer wardrobe and her reluctance to play the stylist/borrowed clothes game. She is likely to wear something of her own choosing, possibly even (shock horror) something she already owns. It is likely to be black.</p>
<p>But the prize for originality is sure to go Jenny Beavan, nominated for Costume Design on Mad Max, Fury Road. She <a href="http://www.irishexaminer.com/examviral/celeb-life/bafta-bag-lady-jenny-beavan-is-going-to-the-oscars-in-an-outfit-from-ms-384246.html">intends</a> to wear M&S.</p>
<h2>Noble shoes</h2>
<p>And the red-soled shoes? Red-heeled shoes, as worn by Louis XIV, were traditionally the prerogative of royalty. Indeed, an edict of 1673 <a href="http://www.thefashionhistorian.com/2010/11/red-heels.html">forbade any but the nobility from wearing them</a>. Christian Louboutin, the French shoe designer, has effectively copied the move by patenting the red soles of his famed stilettos. It’s the equivalent of an edict: he brings <a href="http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2011/04/20/christian-louboutin-sues-yves-saint-laurent-for-red-sole-shoes">law suits</a> all over the world to protect the very obvious signifier of his brand.</p>
<p>At last year’s Oscars Louboutin’s stilettos could be seen on many actresses alongside other luxury brands such as Jimmy Choo and Stuart Weitzman. Louboutin’s distinctive red soles can even be seen on the flat black patent lace-ups of male stars such as Adrien Brody and Brad Pitt (sadly not with the accompanying red Louis heel … yet). </p>
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<p>Louboutin designed a bespoke shoe for Angelina Jolie to be worn on the promotional tour of Maleficent (white in London, black in Paris and gold in Hong Kong). She teamed up with him to produce a limited run of the shoes, a snip at around £1,000 – with all profits to go to one of Jolie’s charities for abandoned and orphan children. </p>
<p>Perhaps this offers a glimpse of a future where the symbiotic relationship of two of the world’s wealthy industries can be harnessed for the greater good. One can dream.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54917/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie McLoughlin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Luscious silks, big dresses and red soled shoes mean the same today as in Louis XIV’s court. But today, different people own them.
Marie McLoughlin, Senior Lecturer in Dress History, University of Brighton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54203
2016-02-23T16:15:05Z
2016-02-23T16:15:05Z
The man who began campaigning against #OscarsSoWhite – 74 years ago
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112603/original/image-20160223-16422-113pimn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/daverugby83/3893586483/in/photolist-6W4DBr-oE48W-qQV5YZ-Cp7juk-oyjAH-7HLr9f-byGDUV-9kRurU-bkMM4Y-bkMLU3-bkMM6E-bkMM8b-bkMLNw-byGDxe-9kRu7y-9kRu6Q-9kNqde-9kRur5-9kNqv2-4v2N3W-6vDQ2h-dTQ6Y-qZAv72-bxfZxP-9kNqct-6rkEqM-kzoomJ-65bqsg-34TJZ-bPDTJp-bAKeW1-bPDTNZ-F8uHN-6vDPJy-6vCXSd-bPrk7H-6vCXw1-3jmhu-6vDQnb-bPDTKt-nyQGh8-pN2Qdm-eXnGT3-9pJiiF-7S4Fm9-9P6EZM-ozV6q-69MP5u-kWjemn-rn8amV">daverugby83/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest raft of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/22/hollywood-so-white-diversity-report-us-film-industry-ethnic-minorities-lgbt-women">damning statistics</a> concerning diversity in Hollywood have revealed that only 12% of films or TV shows reflect the actual balance of ethnic minorities in US society. </p>
<p>These figures are particularly shocking if we consider that over 70 years ago, when African Americans were struggling for their civil rights, they were also engaged in a battle to improve their depiction on film. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112576/original/image-20160223-16459-1irmu06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112576/original/image-20160223-16459-1irmu06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112576/original/image-20160223-16459-1irmu06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112576/original/image-20160223-16459-1irmu06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112576/original/image-20160223-16459-1irmu06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112576/original/image-20160223-16459-1irmu06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112576/original/image-20160223-16459-1irmu06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Walter Francis White, 1942.</span>
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<p>In 1942 a man called Walter White travelled from New York to Hollywood, armed with a letter of introduction from the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. His aim was to try to persuade filmmakers to positively portray African Americans in movies.</p>
<p>White grew up in Atlanta. His parents, George and Madeleine White, had both been born into slavery. Many of their ancestors had been white, and they had fair skin. In his biography he emphasised this: “I am a Negro. My skin is white, my eyes are blue, my hair is blond. The traits of my race are nowhere visible upon me.” He became head of America’s largest civil rights organisation, the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Since its creation in 1909, the group had been concerned about African Americans in popular culture, believing that negative representations exacerbated racial tension and reinforced prejudice. As White told a meeting of film producers: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Restriction of Negroes to roles with rolling eyes, chattering teeth, always scared of ghosts, or to portrayals of none-too-bright servants perpetuates a stereotype which is doing the Negro infinite harm. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He wanted to convince the film industry to produce more positive images. For White and his organisation, this largely meant more middle-class, professional characters which would challenge white stereotypes of African Americans. White also wanted more black characters and faces in interracial settings. </p>
<p>He was helped in his campaign by the atmosphere of World War II. African Americans were quick to realise that the changing climate of a war against fascism might offer an opportunity to press for improvements at home. Additionally, government agencies put pressure on the film industry to produce films which would help the war effort. This included “selling” the war to African Americans and helping to improve black morale. White, who for many years had been monitoring the film industry’s effect on race relations, saw this as the moment to take his case to Hollywood. </p>
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<h2>Bright lights</h2>
<p>So it was that in early 1942 he travelled to the West coast. The trip was a rush of meetings and dinners. Lunching with actors like Jimmy Cagney, Melvyn Douglas and Jean Muir was glamorous but White recognised that they weren’t the power-makers he needed to reach. The breakthrough came on the last day of his trip when he was summoned to the Biltmore hotel to meet with a group of producers. White boasted that during the meeting leading producer Darryl Zanuck stopped “puffing a cigar” to claim he’d never thought of the issue until White had “presented the facts”. </p>
<p>White returned to Hollywood later that year for more meetings and further attempts at persuasion. He was confident that his message had hit home. But all he actually got were murmurs of agreement and promises. Most film executives were happy to support vague notions of improvements but were suspicious of any real interference or change.</p>
<p>There were a handful of films made during the war which gave White cause for satisfaction and which he cited as proof that his campaign was working. Three war films from 1943 – <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035763/">Crash Dive</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035664/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Bataan</a>, and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036323/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Sahara</a> – showed African Americans in uniform, serving their country and making a great sacrifice. These were the positive depictions White wanted to see on movie screens. Other films made during the war also suggested a relaxation of the racial codes which had governed Hollywood’s use of black characters. </p>
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<p>But these were the exceptions rather than the rule. In fact, opportunities for black actors may have even decreased after the war. Hollywood decided the best way to avoid controversy about the negative portrayals was to remove African-American characters all together.</p>
<h2>Not much headway</h2>
<p>So White’s early attempt at changing racial stereotyping in film fell rather flat. Given the nature of his strategy, this might seem unsurprising – he was drawn to the glamour and dazzled by the bright lights of Hollywood; he enjoyed the chance to mingle with celebrities and powerful people. His campaign boiled down to little more than luncheons and parties and chatting to important people, backed up with frequent press releases and letters. </p>
<p>But at the same time, White knew that he had little leverage and he believed that there wasn’t much to gain from antagonising Hollywood with radical demands. He was an experienced lobbyist; he had honed his skills on Capitol Hill, and negotiated for civil rights, and he knew how to deal with large egos. But his options were severely limited. White made the most of the opportunities which presented themselves and cleverly tied his demands into the broader conversation about the war. He was able to form an alliance between his organisation, sympathetic government officials, and liberals within the studio system. Together they established a more racially tolerant tone which would linger throughout the decade.</p>
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<p>The NAACP has continued to monitor Hollywood’s treatment of race. In 1967 it established the annual Image Awards as a necessary alternative to the almost exclusively white mainstream awards, such as the Oscars. And when this year’s Academy Awards were announced, the NAACP <a href="http://www.naacp.org/press/entry/naacp-statement-on-the-announcement-of-the-nominees-for-88th-academy-awards">issued a statement</a> explaining “our mission and efforts are as relevant today as they have been in the past”. Clearly much has changed in America’s racial landscape since Walter White went to Hollywood to press for improvements. Nevertheless, 70 years on, there are still far too few black people on the red carpet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jenny Woodley has received funding from the AHRC.</span></em></p>
In 1942 a man called Walter White travelled to Hollywood to try and persuade filmmakers to cut the negative stereotypes of African Americans in movies.
Jenny Woodley, Lecturer in Modern American History, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/53786
2016-02-17T10:46:17Z
2016-02-17T10:46:17Z
Hollywood’s piracy problem
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111559/original/image-20160215-22573-nwsfew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4608%2C3069&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The buzz surrounding Oscar-nominated films extends to illegal downloads. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-104783357/stock-photo-pirate-copy-written-on-a-dvd-next-to-a-clapper-board.html?src=vIqaG-rma9aL_aNUKUGUNg-1-20">'Piracy' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In December 2015, the FBI traced the leak of Quentin Tarantino’s “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3460252/">The Hateful Eight</a>” back to a Hollywood executive. According to <em><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hateful-eight-pirated-screener-traced-850899">The Hollywood Reporter</a></em>, watermarks on the leaked copy led to the office of Andrew Kosove, co-CEO of <a href="http://www.alconent.com/about/about-alcon/">Alcon Entertainment</a>.</p>
<p>This was no isolated incident.</p>
<p>Pirated copies of all feature films nominated for this year’s Oscars are online. Many are in high resolution, often sourced from “screeners” – copies sent out to reviewers or award judges. Observers found a <a href="http://irdeto.com/news-and-events/and-the-winner-for-the-most-pirated-motion-picture-is-.html">385 percent surge</a> in piracy worldwide after films are nominated for an Oscar. In seven out of the past 14 years, <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H8eds6jEe-BXoXIFH1RdbgigVtWdpyc8A9gyqHUt4Do/edit#gid=0">95 percent or more</a> of Oscar-nominated movies leaked online. </p>
<p>With leaks rampant during awards season, it is worth exploring how films are pirated, and whether illegally downloaded films may serve as free advertising for studios and distributors.</p>
<p>Piracy tracking firm Irdeto <a href="http://irdeto.com/news-and-events/and-the-winner-for-the-most-pirated-motion-picture-is-.html">estimates</a> that “Hollywood screeners accounted for 31 percent of the illegal downloads tracked” in 2015. Six movies nominated for 2015 awards were circulated online before becoming available for retail purchase: “American Sniper,” “The Imitation Game,” “Wild,” “Selma,” “Whiplash” and “Still Alice.”</p>
<p>So-called “release groups” will distribute popular films online. For example, in late 2015, the <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/piracy-group-behind-hateful-eight-851761">release group Hive-CM8</a> made headlines when it posted “Spectre,” “Legend,” “In The Heart of The Sea,” “Joy,” “Steve Jobs,” “Spotlight,” “Creed,” “Concussion,” “The Danish Girl” and “Bridge of Spies.” Over the holidays, other groups leaked “The Revenant,” “Straight Outta Compton,” “Brooklyn,” “Room” and “The Peanuts Movie.”</p>
<p>These groups may offer peer-to-peer downloads or streaming, funded by ads or subscriptions. Leaked films will often first appear on invitation-only sites before spreading to public venues like <a href="http://thepiratebay.se">The Pirate Bay</a> and <a href="https://kat.cr/">KickassTorrents</a>, where anyone can access them.</p>
<p>For the 2015 Oscars, voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received 68 screeners (59 DVDs, 9 Blu-Rays). Twelve of them <a href="https://medium.com/message/pirating-the-2015-oscars-hd-edition-6c78e0cb471d#.z6b5p27yt">reportedly leaked</a>, another 10 nominated films were distributed as “cam” copies, and only two weren’t leaked (“Song of the Sea” and “Glen Campbell: I’ll be Me”). Four even leaked before they opened in theaters: “Still Alice,” “Mr. Turner,” “Two Days, One Night” and “Captain America: Winter Soldier.”</p>
<p>The year 2016 has been more of the same. Half of all Oscar-nominated movies leaked from screeners well before Oscar night, and nine were online before opening in theaters. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2488496/">“Star Wars: The Force Awakens</a>” is the lone 2016 Oscar nominee leaked only as camcorder recording.</p>
<p><a href="http://variety.com/2016/film/news/oscar-piracy-digital-screeners-1201667493/">To combat piracy</a>, screeners usually have forensic watermarks: an <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5151434">invisible stamp in every frame</a>. Industry lawyers send out demands that leaked films be taken off infringing websites and omitted from Internet search results.</p>
<p>Still, Hollywood seems somewhat complicit in the practice.</p>
<p>Twelve years ago, a videocassette of “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337741/%22">Something’s Gotta Give</a>” intended for Oscar voters leaked. It had been sent to Academy member Carmine Caridi, an actor who appeared in “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071562/%22">The Godfather: Part II</a>” and who played Vince Gotelli on “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106079/">NYPD Blue</a>.” </p>
<p>The incident prompted the major studios to announce they would <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jan/13/business/fi-screeners13">stop sending out movies</a> to juries and reviewers. But the experiment was short-lived. In an effort to maintain good relations with critics and awards voters, within a few months the industry returned to distributing screeners. </p>
<p>The industry wants to control distribution, but too often, their penchant for promotion enables piracy. While leaks can be from manufacturing plants, distribution chains or just a camcorder smuggled into a theater (though poorer quality makes these copies less desirable), the most reliable source continues to be the Hollywood PR machine itself. And aside from review copies or award show screeners, an increasing shift to online distribution means an increasing supply of possible sources for piracy. </p>
<p>Furthermore, a movie leak does not necessarily impact the bottom line.</p>
<p>In 2011, director J.J. Abrams was interviewed on the Howard Stern show to promote “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1650062/">Super 8</a>.” Soon afterwards, the film leaked online with the “H Stern” watermark. As <a href="https://deadline.com/2011/08/pirated-super-8-print-points-back-to-howard-stern-show-154608/">Deadline Hollywood notes</a>, the US$50 million production nonetheless grossed $185 million worldwide. “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2310332/%22">The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies</a>” was downloaded over 500,000 times in the first 24 hours of being leaked (with watermarks painstakingly removed); yet it grossed over $956 million worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing film of 2014 and the 30th highest-grossing film of all time.</p>
<p>Despite all the leaks, <a href="http://investor.rentrak.com/releases.cfm">Hollywood earned $38 billion globally</a> at the box office in 2015, and a record <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/">$11 billion-plus</a> in the U.S. Five 2015 releases grossed over $1 billion, three earned over $1.5 billion, and four were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films">among the top 10 highest-grossing films of all time</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, leaks may act as a source of publicity. Hive-CM8, after leaking “The Hateful Eight,” argued that a leak predating a theatrical opening <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/hive-cm8-apologizes-for-leaking-hateful-eight-dvd-screener-151230/">generates free PR</a> that might increase the theatrical audience – and that people who downloaded it would also be eager to see it in the quality Tarantino envisioned (in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGg2N32Z-co">Ultra Panavision 70mm</a>).</p>
<p>No doubt the costly marketing, advertising and promotion campaigns for big-budget films are <a href="https://www.copyrightalliance.org/2016/01/sorry_not_sorry">far more sophisticated</a> than a simple leak that generates attention. Nonetheless, considering the crucial role PR screeners play in promoting films, the industry might see piracy as a cost of doing business, if neither <a href="http://deadline.com/2016/01/2015-11-billion-domestic-box-office-star-wars-universal-disney-1201674121/">the number of movies made nor their profits</a> are dented by piracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Krapp does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Illegal downloads proliferate during awards season. Are film leaks simply the cost of doing business?
Peter Krapp, Professor of Film & Media Studies, University of California, Irvine
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/53955
2016-02-02T19:05:37Z
2016-02-02T19:05:37Z
Review: Spotlight’s revealing story of child abuse in my home town – and maybe yours
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109916/original/image-20160202-32218-e64k9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nominated for six Oscars including Best Picture, Spotlight has won over critics with its compelling story and strong cast featuring Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Entertainment One Films Australia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Updated February 29, 2016:</em> It won <a href="http://oscar.go.com/">Best Picture</a> at this year’s Oscars – but I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t seen the critically acclaimed film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1895587/?ref_=ttrel_rel_tt">Spotlight</a> yet. In a summer dominated by the return of Star Wars, who wants to watch a movie about <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/spotlight-movie">Boston journalists</a> exposing the Catholic Church for decades of child abuse and cover ups?</p>
<p>After its Oscars success, I hope many more people will see it – because as the film’s final moments make clear, Spotlight is not just about historic wrongs in one US city. It’s based on the true stories of too many people, in too many countries, including my home town of Newcastle, north of Sydney, Australia.</p>
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<p>Australia’s current <a href="http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Royal Commission</a> into institutional child abuse was <a href="http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1775058/pms-letter-to-herald-journalist-joanne-mccarthy/">set up</a> after years of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/dogged-journalist-would-not-walk-away-from-abuse-victims-20140825-1082mu.html">dogged work</a> by survivors, supporters and journalists to uncover abuse across many institutions but particularly the Catholic Church. Like Boston, Australian towns where the Catholic church is dominant, such as Newcastle, Wollongong and Ballarat, have been badly affected.</p>
<p>When I went to see Spotlight in a Newcastle cinema on a Saturday afternoon, I wasn’t surprised by who else was in the audience: I recognised survivors, families and supporters of victims, and Catholic community members, including a number of priests. </p>
<p>But even as a researcher who’s attended and written about the Catholic Church at the Royal Commission and the NSW Special Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Spotlight’s finale came as a shock.</p>
<p>Just before the final credits roll, the filmmakers list dozens of other American cities affected by clerical abuse, which have all been tracked by the website <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/">Bishop Accountability</a>. That US list is followed by towns and cities worldwide. The names go on and on, over several screens: from Auckland, Beunos Aires and Cape Town, to Manchester to Manila and beyond. </p>
<p>Australia features prominently: Adelaide, Ballarat, Canberra – and then people around me gasped, as we saw Newcastle on the list. Somehow seeing our small city on the big screen bought home the reality of this crisis. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spotlight ends with lists showing where major abuse scandals have been uncovered, both in the US and worldwide, including these.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BishopAccountability.org</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BishopAccountability.org</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Clerical sexual abuse is not a minor issue on the periphery of social maladjustment. It’s a major crisis of institutional abuse of power that has affected millions of people across the globe. </p>
<h2>The story behind the film (warning: spoilers ahead)</h2>
<p>Spotlight shows how, <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/special-reports/2002/01/06/church-allowed-abuse-priest-for-years/cSHfGkTIrAT25qKGvBuDNM/story.html">in 2002</a>, a group of <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/spotlight-movie">journalists at The Boston Globe</a> revealed how hundreds of children had been abused by Catholic priests in the Boston area. It was the first major newspaper reporting on clerical abuse in the US. It shocked the nation, indeed the world, and bought to public attention the protection of abusers by senior clerics and the silencing of victims and their families by the church and its lawyers. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A snapshot of the 2002 Boston Globe story that broke open a global story of abuse and cover ups involving Catholic clerics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/special-reports/2002/01/06/church-allowed-abuse-priest-for-years/cSHfGkTIrAT25qKGvBuDNM/story.html">The Boston Globe</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But all that may not have happened at all without the arrival of a new editor from out of town, <a href="https://twitter.com/PostBaron?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Marty Baron</a> (played by Liev Schreiber).</p>
<p>Baron read a small article on a Catholic priest who had been abusing children but allowed by Boston’s Catholic <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/cardinal-bernard-law-disgraced-boston-child-abuse-scandal-vatican-haven-spotlight">Cardinal Bernard Law</a> to keep working with children in parishes and schools.</p>
<p>Baron directed the Spotlight team to investigate what Cardinal Law knew, and how many priests and victims were involved. Despite missing documents, recalcitrant church lawyers and a deafening silence from the staunchly Catholic Boston community, the Spotlight team eventually found about 200 priests had abused children in the Boston Archdiocese alone. (For more, read the reporters’ <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/11/29/spotlightfilm-intro/d8Tp3MQ4Y0OQA3JZgABkeO/story.html">story behind their investigation</a>.)</p>
<p>Even worse, they found evidence of a church hierarchy systematically moving pedophile priests between parishes and schools, setting up undisclosed “treatment centres” for them in suburban streets, and paying victims paltry amounts of compensation and binding them to silence. </p>
<h2>The true heroes</h2>
<p>While many critics have hailed Spotlight as a great journalism movie, in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/spotlight-joins-all-the-presidents-men-in-the-pantheon-of-great-journalism-movies/2015/11/12/a4e9e7a6-86ed-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html">pantheon of All the President’s Men</a>, the journalists are not the real heroes of this story.</p>
<p>As the film reveals, The Boston Globe and another local newspaper both ran stories back in 1993 about a lawyer saying he had found 20 priests in the archdiocese who had been accused of misconduct. But as the <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/10/the_boston_globe_s_walter_robinson_discusses_the_story_behind_tom_mccarthy.html">Globe’s reporters have conceded</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We published this story and we buried it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Other people’s attempts to get the church investigated – led by abuse survivor Phil Saviano (played by Neal Huff), representing the <a href="http://www.snapnetwork.org/">Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests</a>, and a lawyer for victims <a href="http://www.garabedianlaw.com/attorneys">Mitchell Garabedian</a> (Stanley Tucci) – were ignored for years.</p>
<p>Why did this happen? The answer to that lies in the dominance of the Catholic Church in the Boston area and the ways in which institutions create forms of social reality. Most of the city’s journalists were raised as Catholic; that made them insiders who were too close to see the story all around them. </p>
<p>It took two outsiders – new editor Baron, who was from out of town and Jewish, and Garabedian, an Armenian – to see the seriousness of the issue. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Newcastle Herald’s front page after an Australian Royal Commission into institutional child abuse was announced.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://cdn.fairfaxregional.com.au/storypad-32BMdhde3WuQNVaNVAFXm76/nheraldfp.jpg">The Newcastle Herald/Fairfax Media</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Compare that with our own journalists, particularly the award-winning <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/beforethestorm/">Joanne McCarthy</a>, who spent years uncovering Catholic clerical sexual abuse in the Newcastle-Maitland diocese and who was raised Catholic but has become <a href="http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2895407/joanne-mccarthy-ethics-and-religious-bias/">an atheist</a>. Her outsider status allowed her to be uncompromising in what she was uncovering.</p>
<p>We can also see this in operation in Australia’s Royal Commission, which is completely independent of any of the offending institutions. It is probably very important that the Chair of the Royal Commission, Justice Peter McClellan, was not raised in a religious family and attended a public school.</p>
<p>The true heroes in Boston, Newcastle and beyond are the victims and survivors, their families and supporters. They are the ones who suffered the abuse and its aftermath, whose stories were disbelieved and discredited.</p>
<p>They were often treated abysmally by the church, and stigmatised as troublemakers. They are the ones who have borne the psychological, social and financial consequences of major trauma, yet who have continued to raise this issue until it is heard. The Royal Commission is Australia’s chance to right this terrible wrong. </p>
<h2>‘It takes a village to abuse a child’</h2>
<p>Within the first two months after the original Spotlight investigation was published in 2002, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/10/29/452805058/film-shines-a-spotlight-on-bostons-clergy-sex-abuse-scandal">another 300 victims from Boston</a> came forward. Since the film’s release, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priest and others have <a href="http://www.insidesources.com/victims-of-catholic-sex-abuse-cite-impact-of-spotlight/">reported more calls for help</a>, with some people mentioning the film in their call.</p>
<p>The same thing is happening in Australia right now. So many people have come forward that the Royal Commission has nearly exhausted the time it set aside for private hearings. New cases continue to be reported, where principals, teachers and others haven’t followed the procedures that could have stopped an abuser.</p>
<p>But we also know that institutions are <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/who-abuses-children">not where the majority of child abuse occurs</a>. To quote a line from Spotlight: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Protecting children from sexual abuse by adults involves the whole community. Evidence from many inquiries shows that – as happened in Boston – many people have been bystanders to these crimes and remained silent.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Official advice on what to do if a child or young person tells you about abuse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/sites/default/files/disclosure-infographic.pdf">Australian Institute of Family Studies</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This raises challenging moral issues for us as we come to terms with how so many societies across the globe have failed to protect children from harm. How have so many people known but done nothing? What does this say about the ways in which we treat those who are situated as different and other?</p>
<p>If you can, see Spotlight, as it shows how one community came to be outraged and act on what happened to their children.</p>
<p><em>* If you or a child are in immediate danger, contact the police now. If you’re in Australia, you can tell your story and find many support services at <a href="http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">the Royal Commission</a> website, including <a href="https://www.lifeline.org.au">Lifeline</a>, which is free to call on 13 11 14.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53955/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen McPhillips does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
If you haven’t seen Oscar winner Spotlight yet, go. It tells the true story of how decades of abuse in one city was finally uncovered - followed by revelations worldwide, including in my home town.
Kathleen McPhillips, Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54003
2016-02-02T16:46:11Z
2016-02-02T16:46:11Z
Spotlight illuminates the unique power of journalism to uncover societal scandals
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109802/original/image-20160201-32222-rh86ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Spotlight team.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">eOne</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074119/">All The President’s Men</a> before it, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1895587/">Spotlight</a>, which was released recently to <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/spotlight_2015/">critical acclaim</a>, reassures its audience that the American mass media is not all soundbites and superficiality at the behest of owners. Both films are stories of speaking truth to power. Both remind us that those in power anywhere in society will, as and when required, ignore, cajole, bully and bribe anyone who seeks to expose injustice and corruption linked to the status quo. </p>
<p>But whereas the case of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/oct/10/all-the-presidents-men-watergate-conspiracy-richard-nixon-woodward-bernstein-redford-hoffman">All The President’s Men</a> is limited to the corruption of one president, Spotlight is the story of an investigation into what was ultimately a global child sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. At the end of this film, the director makes a point of printing a long list of all the places worldwide where the problem has been exposed, leaving the audience in no doubt as to the continuing pervasiveness of the scandal. </p>
<p>The historical capacity of the Catholic Church to weather such storms is one theme in Spotlight, which portrays Church leaders blithely maintaining moral authority and a faux noble silence about their own wrongdoing. The <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/spotlight-movie">investigative team at The Boston Globe</a> was offered one window into that hypocritical denial, tracing 87 paedophile priests in the city and taking testimonies from their victims. Given the litigious character of American society, it is not surprising that there, more than elsewhere, the Church is being bankrupted by the <a href="http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/The-Nature-and-Scope-of-Sexual-Abuse-of-Minors-by-Catholic-Priests-and-Deacons-in-the-United-States-1950-2002.pdf">scale of claims</a> against it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109803/original/image-20160201-32231-9acwvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109803/original/image-20160201-32231-9acwvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109803/original/image-20160201-32231-9acwvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109803/original/image-20160201-32231-9acwvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109803/original/image-20160201-32231-9acwvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109803/original/image-20160201-32231-9acwvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109803/original/image-20160201-32231-9acwvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The team.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">eOne</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Complicity</h2>
<p>Marty Baron arrived at as editor of the Boston Globe from Florida in 2001, having previously edited the Miami Herald. It was Baron (who is Jewish) pushed for the story and, as an outsider to the city, he was not as subject to Boston’s power hierarchy – of which the Catholic Church was, and is, such an important part. This reflects a pattern: truth-seeking whistle blowers are often newcomers with little or no partisan investment in a culture.</p>
<p>As the story began to unfold, journalists started to become aware of the many ways in which the Church had protected itself. Mothers trying to make complaints were visited by priests; God’s representatives on earth. As often as not they were offered tea and biscuits with a smile. Bishops moved offenders from parish to parish, rather than reporting their crimes to the police. A cottage industry of lawyers struck out-of-court settlements with no paper trail, allowing the Church to evade public scrutiny. And when there were protests from religious staff about colleagues, their evidence was ignored by the Church hierarchy. </p>
<p>This systemic feature of complicity recurs in such cases all over the world. The story of clerical abuse has entailed more police collusion in countries, such as Ireland, where there has been <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/pap/2011/00000039/00000003/art00002">more Church-State enmeshment</a>. Secularism mitigates, but does not prevent, the Church being a law unto itself.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109804/original/image-20160201-32244-d428m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109804/original/image-20160201-32244-d428m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109804/original/image-20160201-32244-d428m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109804/original/image-20160201-32244-d428m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109804/original/image-20160201-32244-d428m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109804/original/image-20160201-32244-d428m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109804/original/image-20160201-32244-d428m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Late-night research.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">eOne</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What all these points suggest is that the “bad apple theory” about child sexual abuse is not only empirically misleading, it also obscures the extensive complicity of third parties. It is not surprising that the “bad apple theory” is favoured by those seeking to cover up scandals and that “conspiracy theory” is a ready term of contempt from them. We need more credible theories of how conspiracies occur, rather being ashamed of our attempts.</p>
<h2>Moral panics</h2>
<p>The mass media has had a mixed attitude to paedophilia. On the one hand campaigns, such as those in the UK waged by The News of the World, have led to <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1709708.stm">legal changes</a> to protect children from potential perpetrators. On the other hand, at times the tabloids have <a href="http://www.jkp.com/uk/creative-responses-to-child-sexual-abuse.html">vilified child protection workers</a> for seemingly meddling in the private lives of harmless families. Social workers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. </p>
<p>A common assumption in social science is that child sexual abuse is a moral panic, <a href="http://csp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/08/28/0261018312457860">inflamed in large part</a> by the mass media. But the ambivalence of parts of the latter undermines such an argument, especially when the journalism is not sensationalist at all, but instead takes up an investigative role usually reserved for the police. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_ISeKp_I6d8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In the case of the Catholic Church, the focus of the Boston story is on the powerful as perpetrators and as colluding with the perpetrators. Typically the powerful gain at the expense of the powerless from a moral panic being “whipped up” – but in the case of clerical abuse, the powerful Church hierarchy has attempted to suppress the moral panic.</p>
<p>This has resonance with the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=71XKoAEACAAJ&">current scandals</a> in the UK surrounding the children’s TV presenter Jimmy Savile – and also <a href="https://theconversation.com/greville-janner-is-just-the-latest-twist-in-a-slow-burning-scandal-39527">allegations made against politicians</a> in relation to paedophilia. Such cases outline how powerful institutions can close ranks in an attempt to minimise damage. But thankfully, as Spotlight recounts in the case of the Boston scandal, journalists can still play a key role in uncovering wrongdoing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Pilgrim does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Spotlight tells the story of the investigative team at The Boston Globe which uncovered the extent of the child sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in Boston.
David Pilgrim, Professor of Health and Social Policy, University of Liverpool
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/53471
2016-02-01T11:08:00Z
2016-02-01T11:08:00Z
Behind the curtain of the Academy’s old boys’ club
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109725/original/image-20160129-3894-dyl7z2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The problems of diversity are deeply rooted, extending beyond an annual awards show.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-80479093/stock-photo-los-angeles-feb-oscar-statue-in-the-press-room-at-the-oscars-held-at-the-kodak-theater-in-los.html?src=pp-same_artist-79017166-4lD0oA8MOQG0Smle_kYvEA-6">'Oscar' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In what’s becoming an annual occurrence, we’re in the midst of a highly publicized debate over the lack of diversity among the Oscar-nominated performers and filmmakers. Outside groups, <a href="http://www.naacp.org/press/entry/naacp-statement-on-the-announcement-of-the-nominees-for-88th-academy-awards">including the NAACP</a>, are up in arms. Several celebrities – some of them Academy members – have announced their intention to boycott the big night.</p>
<p>It’s not the first time that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been taken to task for what seems to be ethnic or racial bias. </p>
<p>There was outcry in 1986 when Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple” was shut out, failing to take home a trophy in any of the 11 categories in which it was nominated. In 1989, Spike Lee’s iconic “Do The Right Thing” – which earned two nominations – was trumped by the relatively tame “Driving Miss Daisy,” which won best picture. </p>
<p>And last year, despite a best picture nod, “Selma” director Ava DuVernay and lead David Oyelowo were conspicuously absent from the lineup of nominees in their respective categories.</p>
<p>The current wave of criticism does seem to have hit a nerve with industry bigwigs. The venerable Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which selects nominees, is <a href="http://variety.com/2016/film/awards/oscars-diversity-academy-emergency-meeting-1201685630/">talking reform</a>.</p>
<p>But it would be naïve to expect any substantive changes anytime soon. Few bodies operate under such arcane rules, or are as widely misunderstood, as the Academy.</p>
<h2>Consolidating power</h2>
<p>Born in 1927, the Academy was the result of organizational efforts by the vertically integrated “majors”: firms that owned the studio complexes that made films, in addition to the chains of first-run theaters where they’d be shown. </p>
<p>In the early 1920s, these firms – which included Paramount Pictures and MGM – had already banded together under a single regulatory “Production Code” in response the threat of government censorship. </p>
<p>Self-regulation became the movie industry’s <em>modus operandi</em>. The ostensible competitors also needed to cope with the impending – and, ultimately, hugely expensive – shift from silent films to sound. To avert meddling by the state or chaos in the marketplace, studio heads came to the table to strategize an orderly transition that protected their common interests. </p>
<p>Censorship aside, the specter of organized labor may have been most instrumental in scaring the Academy into being. By the mid-1920s, musicians, projectionists and a number of technicians were already organized, some under the umbrella of the International Alliance of Theater and Stage Employees. Actors Equity, which had joined the AFL in 1919, was beginning to make inroads in the movie business. </p>
<p>The Academy, then, was a initially mechanism for collusion among the majors – a sort of “house union” that organized more white collar employees under the careful eye of their bosses.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109724/original/image-20160129-3913-1wk849a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109724/original/image-20160129-3913-1wk849a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109724/original/image-20160129-3913-1wk849a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109724/original/image-20160129-3913-1wk849a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109724/original/image-20160129-3913-1wk849a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109724/original/image-20160129-3913-1wk849a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109724/original/image-20160129-3913-1wk849a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Louis B. Mayer.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The awards part of the Academy, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Lion_of_Hollywood.html?id=q0ldNR7gZ1oC&hl=en">according to lore</a>, was the brainchild of Louis B. Mayer (the Mayer in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), an old-time mogul and one of the founders of the Academy. </p>
<p>Mayer originally thought the awards would be a way to incentivize employees. But the entertainment business also had long since learned the financial advantages of making a spectacle of itself. Attracting attention – the right kind, at least – elevated studio brands, while burnishing the profiles of the movie stars that were arguably the majors’ most valuable assets.</p>
<p>Radio coverage began in 1930, with the second awards ceremony broadcast live over network radio, effectively turning the movie business’ top competitor into a platform for promotion. In 1953, the Oscars came to prime time, with the first ceremony televised on NBC. (Media convergence was a thing long before we started watching videos on our cellphones.)</p>
<p>Whatever else the Academy Awards may or may not be, they are indisputably a triumph of canny public relations. Today, regardless of who wins or loses, every February – in newspapers and magazines, on social media and around water-coolers – talk turns to the movies. </p>
<h2>An insiders-only affair</h2>
<p>Still, for all the glare and chatter around the glamorous awards ceremony, the Academy remains a fairly shadowy presence that, since its inception, has been part trade association and part secret society. </p>
<p>It’s very much an “insiders only” affair. The only way in is by nomination: either nomination by at least two existing members, or, later, when the Academy began handing out prizes, nomination for an award. </p>
<p>Regardless, a Board of Governors – three elected from each of the 17 branches within the Academy – ultimately signs off on who gets to learn the secret handshake. And once you’re in, you’re pretty much in for life.</p>
<p>This means that while there’s considerable diversity among more recent inductees, the membership inevitably retains large blocs of members whose careers were in full flower and whose tastes were formed decades ago. </p>
<p>It’s also an eclectic bunch. Originally restricted to producers, directors, screenwriters, actors and “technicians,” the ranks have swelled to include casting directors, agents, editors, PR and marketing professionals, stunt coordinators and more.</p>
<p>But despite this variety of occupations – and despite a woman of color, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, serving as president – the Academy <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/03/oscar-voters-94-white-76-men-and-an-average-of-63-years-old/284163/">reportedly remains</a> 76 percent male and 94 percent white.</p>
<p>The average age? Sixty-three. </p>
<h2>Unwritten rules</h2>
<p>Politics, shifting tastes and trends, and the economics of entertainment all play a part in the nomination and selection process.</p>
<p>In the final round, every one of the Academy’s 6,000-plus voting members theoretically has a vote in each category. Inevitably, most votes will end up being cast outside the voters’ area of direct expertise: plenty of cinematographers have a say in assessing the work of their peers, but they’re joined by all the sound editors, who also weigh in.</p>
<p>No one could ever hope to see the hundreds of films eligible to be nominated. For this reason, even getting on the voters’ radar is a challenge unto itself, particularly for low-budget films lacking the industry connections and backing that can build buzz.</p>
<p>Studios and distributors woo critics and tastemakers, lobbying for votes and hatching ingenious movie release strategies. In the 1990s, the resourceful Weinsteins’ Miramax raised the Oscar campaign to an art form, repeatedly garnering Academy accolades for pictures whose quirkiness, paltry budgets and uneven box office receipts might otherwise have kept them out of the running. </p>
<p>Nostalgia plays a big role, too. There’s a tendency to hand out timely kudos to aging <em>artistes</em> before they face that last, long fade to black (and have to be cut into the following year’s tear-jerking “In Memoriam” montage). </p>
<p>When not racing the Reaper, the “members-for-life” sometimes play a long game: younger performers are sometimes told to “wait their turn.” In 1974, after his second go as Michael Corleone in “The Godfather: Part II,” Al Pacino lost the Best Actor award to Art Carney. Voters made it up to him for “Scent of a Woman” in 1992. </p>
<p>The Academy Award nominations, then, reflect the statistical consensus of a community of professionals, who lend their support to highly promoted work created by their most well-liked colleagues.</p>
<h2>Depressing parallels</h2>
<p>This year’s nominees aren’t really the problem; they’re merely a product of how the film industry’s oldest and most influential organization has evolved, and the biases that have endured within that industry.</p>
<p>The motion picture industry is a massive business, counting box office receipts <a href="http://variety.com/2015/film/box-office/box-office-has-record-year-as-few-share-the-wealth-1201668037/lo">by the billions</a>. Wound up within a network of media conglomerates more powerful than the majors of the 1920s ever dreamed of being, today’s film industry still excels at drawing attention to itself – to its triumphs and failures and festivals.</p>
<p>But behind the show itself, the business is – like so many others – stodgy, clubbish and opaque, a place where a tiny number of individuals make decisions that affect vast numbers of people – and make shockingly large amounts of money. </p>
<p>For reasons of race, gender and class, people with the bad luck to be on the wrong side of the privilege equation face odds as daunting as – if not more so than – those faced in most parts of American public and corporate life. </p>
<p>Among the top 500 firms in the United States, there are only <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/29/news/economy/mcdonalds-ceo-diversity/">five black CEOs</a>. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-bank-diversity-2015-8">More than 80 percent</a> of execs at the biggest investment banks are white, while and 362 of the 438 members of the Unites States House of Representatives are men (361 of them are white). By comparison, the demographics of AMPAS look positively progressive.</p>
<p>Show business, so willing to celebrate itself as the opposite, works depressingly just like all the other businesses we know. </p>
<p>Fixing the inequities of the Oscars – without addressing the inequities of the industry – is just more smoke and mirror, sound and fury.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eddy Von Mueller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Underneath the sheen of the Oscars is an arcane organization that’s historically sought to consolidate power.
Eddy Von Mueller, Lecturer of Film & Media Studies, Emory University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/53408
2016-01-25T10:11:04Z
2016-01-25T10:11:04Z
From The Revenant to Mad Max: why we all love a story of survival
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108884/original/image-20160121-9728-1fdni4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">20th Century Fox</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Quickly scan this year’s film award lists and a strong theme emerges: survival. In fact, the three films with the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/01/14/oscar-nominations-2016-complete-coverage/">most Oscar nominations</a> are all about survival. There’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663202/">The Revenant</a> (with 12 nominations), in which Leonardo DiCaprio fights to survive alone in a fierce environment after enduring a bear attack and being buried alive. <a href="https://theconversation.com/frenzy-on-fury-road-mad-max-faces-a-post-digital-apocalypse-41230">Mad Max: Fury Road</a> (with ten nominations) features Tom Hardy as a weird loner in a post-apocalyptic desert, attempting to avoid being used as a “blood bag” by its vampiric inhabitants. Finally, in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-martian-got-me-cheering-but-why-go-to-mars-48395">The Martian</a> (seven nominations), Matt Damon plays an astronaut who, left alone on Mars, must work out how to survive in an utterly uninhabitable environment long enough to be rescued.</p>
<p>All three films, then, depict figures battling to survive in hostile and seemingly hopeless conditions. Whether isolated mentally by the breakdown of society, or physically in the desolate landscapes of the wilderness and Mars, these men are united by an impulse to live on when hope seems lost. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108889/original/image-20160121-9725-7s2ak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108889/original/image-20160121-9725-7s2ak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108889/original/image-20160121-9725-7s2ak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108889/original/image-20160121-9725-7s2ak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108889/original/image-20160121-9725-7s2ak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108889/original/image-20160121-9725-7s2ak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108889/original/image-20160121-9725-7s2ak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mad Max.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warner Bros.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We can trace cultural responses to the fear of having to survive, alone, in a threatening world right back to the origins of English poetry. The <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Exeter-Book">Exeter Book</a> – an Old English manuscript that dates from around AD 960 – tells the stories of wanderers and seafarers (not unlike DiCaprio’s revenant) who must endure the deaths of kinsmen and travel the paths of exile, suffering frost-bound feet and being forced to paddle the ice-cold sea with their hands.</p>
<p>Tales of the hardships experienced by lone travellers, hermits, and strangers in foreign lands crop up time and again in literature. Arguably, the very first novel written in English, Daniel Defoe’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/poll/2013/sep/30/100-best-books-robinson-crusoe">Robinson Crusoe</a> (1719), depicts a shipwrecked man doomed to spend 28 years removed from civilisation on a desert island. </p>
<p>There are certain periods in history, however, during which the interest in survival seems particularly strong, and the beginning of the 19th century was one. Texts began to appear that imagined isolated figures who not only felt completely alone in the world, but were, in fact, the last man on earth. This fashion for depicting the last man even extended into the visual arts, with the painter John Martin creating several scenes in which a lone figure stands against an apocalyptic backdrop.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108888/original/image-20160121-9743-13qcil5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108888/original/image-20160121-9743-13qcil5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108888/original/image-20160121-9743-13qcil5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108888/original/image-20160121-9743-13qcil5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108888/original/image-20160121-9743-13qcil5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108888/original/image-20160121-9743-13qcil5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108888/original/image-20160121-9743-13qcil5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Martin, Pandemonium, c. 1825.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The last man</h2>
<p>This trend for the last man flourished throughout the 1820s, transforming the celebrated Romantic figure of the solitary into an individual who must survive alone in the world. One of the most famous responses to the theme is Mary Shelley’s novel <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18247">The Last Man</a> (1826), in which a ferocious plague sweeps the globe at the end of the 21st century, eventually leaving just one man, Lionel Verney, alive. Desperate to find other survivors, Lionel travels determinedly from city to city, driven by his fear that he will always “wake, and speak to none, pass the interminable hours […] islanded in the world”. </p>
<p>The figure of the lone survivor continued to be of interest to writers and artists in the coming centuries. In the late Victorian period, for example, H G Wells imagined a time traveller journeying to the distant future and having to survive in an unrecognisable world in which humanity has split into two distinct species: the childlike Eloi and the blood-thirsty, cannibalistic Morlocks. </p>
<p>Later, during the 1950s, Richard Matheson’s novel <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/jun/25/i-am-legend-author-richard-matheson">I am Legend</a> (1954) (a text subsequently adapted for cinema no fewer than three times) portrayed a single man battling for survival after a global pandemic turns all other humans into vampiric creatures. </p>
<p>More recently, Margaret Atwood has explored the lone survivor theme in her novel <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/may/10/bookerprize2003.bookerprize">Oryx and Crake</a> (2003), while Cormac McCarthy depicted the aftermath of the breakdown of civilisation following an unspecified disaster in his harrowing tale of survival, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/nov/04/featuresreviews.guardianreview4">The Road</a> (2006). Despite their dramatically different settings, these texts are united by their protagonists’ determination to survive in desperate conditions.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LoebZZ8K5N0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>New threats</h2>
<p>While the fear of being alone is a perennial concern, there are clearly periods in history when an interest in survival becomes part of the zeitgeist. Whether prompted by the new scientific theories of the early 19th century that highlighted mankind’s vulnerability in the universe, the anxieties concerning degeneration of the late Victorian period, or the prospect of nuclear war in the mid-20th century, there are certain threats to humanity that prompt a renewed fascination with tales of survival.</p>
<p>The three survival stories that have dominated the Oscar nominations this year reflect how we are currently living in just such an age of survival anxiety. In a time of threats from terrorism, potential ecological collapse, nuclear weapons, and genetically-engineered viruses, the human race faces, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/19/stephen-hawking-warns-threats-to-humans-science-technology-bbc-reith-lecture">according to Stephen Hawking</a>, “one of its most dangerous centuries yet”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108890/original/image-20160121-9728-1vile9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108890/original/image-20160121-9728-1vile9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108890/original/image-20160121-9728-1vile9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108890/original/image-20160121-9728-1vile9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108890/original/image-20160121-9728-1vile9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108890/original/image-20160121-9728-1vile9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108890/original/image-20160121-9728-1vile9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Martian.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">20th Century Fox</span></span>
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<p>This collective fear has certainly prompted a trend for a cultural output that considers survival in all its forms, but despite their differences, The Revenant, The Martian, and Mad Max all depend visually on the stark image of a lone figure in a vast and hostile landscape, responding to the vulnerability of humankind with the strength of the individual. Whether he finds himself in the dusty desert wasteland of a world ravaged by nuclear war, the immense and arid surface of Mars, or the freezing wilderness of the Louisiana Purchase, the survivor figure must fight on.</p>
<p>This results in the message of these films ultimately being one of hope: of rescue, of return, of revenge, and of potential new beginnings. No matter how bleak the conditions or how slim the odds, we cannot help but cling to the prospect of survival.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Redford received funding for her doctorate from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>
Quickly scan this year’s film awards lists and a strong theme emerges: survival. In fact, the three films with the most Oscar nominations are all about battling terrifying odds.
Catherine Redford, Career Development Fellow, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/53518
2016-01-21T11:44:30Z
2016-01-21T11:44:30Z
Why a boycott of ‘lily white’ Oscars might just start to change the film industry
<p>Each year, the Academy’s announcement of <a href="http://oscar.go.com/nominees">Oscar nominees</a> leads to an inevitable public outcry. Critiques of the Academy Awards’ lack of diversity have become a well-rehearsed response to the revelation of nominees. Last year, I wrote an <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-we-so-surprised-at-the-oscars-lack-of-diversity-36029">article</a> about the white, male face of 2015’s Academy Awards and the frustrations it evoked – and, at first glance, it seems like a very similar story can be told about this year’s event. </p>
<p>When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented this year’s nominees on January 14, we were, predictably, presented with a homogenous group of predominantly white, male contenders across all categories. The all-white line-up of this year’s acting nominees is perhaps particularly noticeable – but considering that only <a href="http://www.uticapubliclibrary.org/resources/literature-and-film-guides/african-american-oscar-winners-and-nominees-acting/">8% of nominations</a> in all acting categories have gone to black actors over the past 20 years, this is hardly news.</p>
<p>Following this year’s announcement, there has been the familiar (white) liberal handwringing, with broadsheet newspapers contemplating the marginalisation of women and racial minorities in particular. But there is also something different going on. Something more profound and potentially punchier.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"689930044093906944"}"></div></p>
<p>It is a more overtly angry, activist response from within the industry – from black directors and actors who’ve simply had enough. Most notably, director Spike Lee and actor Jada Pinkett Smith have announced that they will not attend the main Oscar ceremony in February. Pinkett Smith has also called for a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/18/jada-pinkett-smith-suggests-boycott-of-oscars-over-lack-of-diversity">boycott</a>: “people of colour” should not attend the event in protest of what Lee calls the “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BArm7C2Sqh_/">lily-white</a>” awards show. </p>
<p>The president of the Academy, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, even issued a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35348062">public apology</a> over the lack of nominee diversity. She also announced that steps would be taken to alter the Academy membership in order to address the lack of diversity among the group of people who vote and decide who is nominated. </p>
<h2>Changing awards culture</h2>
<p>Boone Isaacs is an African-American woman. She became president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2013. As the public face of the organisation, her presence is encouragingly refreshing. It seems to indicate progress, diversity and openness. The overwhelming majority of <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/oscars/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-20120219-story.html">Academy members</a>, however, are white (94%) and male (77%) – and only 14% of voters are under 50. </p>
<p>One argument goes that a more diverse group of voters will change voting patterns and lead to more diverse nominations, as well as public recognition of a wider range of filmmaking practices. And this may well be true. Awards are not “objective measures of excellence”. They reflect the values of those whose <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-0119-why-the-oscarssowhite-fuss-matters-20160119-column.html">voices (and votes) count</a>. </p>
<p>But attempting to change the faces of voters and nominees is a bit like treating the symptom rather than the root cause of the problem. It is the make-up of the film industry as a whole that needs to change – and Boone Isaacs has recognised this. Not only has she pushed for more diversity in Academy membership (she <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/02/27/283481445/new-academy-president-pushes-for-more-diverse-voting-members">removed restrictions on membership numbers</a>, leading to an influx of younger voters from a diverse range of backgrounds in 2014). She has also launched <a href="http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/academy-launches-5-year-diversity-initiative-20151116">A2020</a>, a new initiative that aims to increase diversity in Hollywood over the next five years. </p>
<h2>Changing the industry</h2>
<p>Especially when it comes to decision-making, gate-keeping and key behind-the-scenes roles within the mainstream film industry, women and ethnic minorities continue to be <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1676730-2015-hollywood-diversity-report-2-25-15.html">severely underrepresented</a>. This is not to say that an increase in black producers and directors, for instance, will automatically lead to more (and more prestigious and diverse) roles for black actors and, eventually, to more awards and other kinds of recognition. But the presence of a wider range of different perspectives and experiences will no doubt, over time, challenge the white, male norm that is intrinsic to Hollywood’s institutional structures and practices.</p>
<p>I am cautiously optimistic that the tangible sense of anger and revolt that seems to gather more and more momentum will speed up this process –- so, maybe next year, or the year after that, an article like this one won’t be necessary anymore.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharina Lindner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Critiques of the Academy Awards’ lack of diversity have become a well-rehearsed response to the revelation of nominees. But this year, something might give.
Katharina Lindner, Lecturer in Film and Media, University of Stirling
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.