(Newswire.net — January 20, 2016) — Director Spike Lee and actress Jada Pinkett Smith said that they will boycott the upcoming Oscars in protest that no African-American artists have been nominated for this, or last years, Academy Awards, the Times reported.
“But, how is it possible for the 2nd consecutive year all 20 contenders under the actor category are white? And let’s not even get into the other branches. 40 white actors in 2 years and no flava at all. We can’t act?! WTF!!”, wrote Spike Lee in an Instagram post.
The filmmaker, who was awarded an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards in November of last year, said that he appreciates the recognition, but he can not support this year’s Academy Awards.
The director of Do the Right Thing and Chi-Raq noted that his decision not to accept the award was not meant as an insult to the host, Chris Rock, and the producer of the ceremony, Reginald Hudlin, as well as for officials of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Jada Pinkett Smith, known for The Matrix Reloaded, Collateral and Magic Mike XXL, also announced that she will not appear at the 88th Academy Awards on February 28th, nor will she follow the event on ABC live air.
“Maybe it is time that we pull back our resources and we put them back into our communities and our programs and we make programs for ourselves that acknowledge us in ways that we see fit, that are just as good as the so-called ‘mainstream’ ones”, said the actress.
Her husband, actor Will Smith, who plays a Nigerian forensic pathologist in the movie Concussion, and Idris Elba in the American war drama The Beasts of No Nation, are among the actors who were ignored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this year.
The director and actors of Straight Outta Compton, a film about hip-hop musicians, have also been excluded from the race for an Oscar.
The president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, issued a statement about the boycott against the Academy Awards, reports the CNN.
She promised big changes, and explained that she was heartbroken and frustrated and that the Academy is taking dramatic steps to alter the makeup of their membership.
“In the coming days and weeks we will conduct a review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond”, said The president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Filmmaker Michael Moore also has joined the boycott of the Academy Awards. “The idea that we could go two years in a row, where 40 actors could be nominated and none of them were black, is just crazy,” says Oscar-winning director
Michael Moore told media he would not attend the Oscar ceremony nor watch it on TV.