Charlotte Rampling is a woman of cast-iron balls. Instead of going along with the OscarsSoWhite narrative like every other liberal scared rabbit in Hollywood, she said in a 1.22 Europe 1 interview that “perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list” — which is more or less what I said in that Rory Carroll Guardian piece that popped last Wednesday.
Rampling went further by saying that complaints about the lack of diversity among this year’s Oscar nominees are “racist to whites.” She added: “Why classify people? These days everyone is more or less accepted. Do we have to take from this that there should be lots of minorities everywhere?”
You know what the reaction is going to be? Not that Rampling had the balls to speak her own mind, but that she’s hurt her chances of winning the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in 45 Years.
Repeating from Carroll/Guardian piece: “Jeffrey Wells, a veteran Los Angeles-based film blogger, said others shared his view that the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton and Michael B. Jordan’s’ performance in Creed, for instance, were not Oscar-worthy but that few would say so publicly.
“The blogger said Straight Outta Compton and Creed, which was directed by Ryan Coogler, were well-made crowd-pleasers but lacked ‘refinement
“’Anyone who is accomplished enough to be an Academy member knows how the game is played. They’re not stupid and so they will duck their heads to not be tarred and feathered for having (supposed) racist attitudes.’
“The media [are] equally skittish, said Wells. ‘Nothing terrifies them so much as being seen as being insensitive so they go along with it. No one stands up and says such and such isn’t worthy.’
“Wells agreed the Academy needed an overhaul, saying that it was right to ignore Straight Outta Compton and Creed but betrayed ‘racist attitudes’ in snubbing Idris Elba and Beasts of No Nation, an important film about conflict in Africa which presented a world alien to Academy voters. Another reason for the snub, he said, was that it was made by Netflix.”
