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What Ukrainian actors and directors think about the new rules for the Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Photo: Ian West / PA Images / TASS
Films without the participation of blacks and LGBT people will not be eligible for the Oscars. We are talking about the main film award nomination: “Best Picture.” The new rules for the selection of candidate films will take effect from 2024.
For an image to qualify for the title of best movie of the year, it must meet at least two of the four criteria presented by the academy. In particular, one of the main or supporting actors must be from a racial or ethnic minority. If this condition cannot be met, then at least one third of the rest of the company must be women, representatives of racial and ethnic minorities, LGBT people, or people with disabilities.
Similar requirements will apply to creative and technical staff, which have been moved to a separate paragraph.
The fourth requirement is that the trainees and apprentices in these groups must participate in the film work.
These requirements of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts are intended to combat the oppression of representatives of these groups of people, as well as women.
In part, these parameters have already begun to operate in American cinema. So, for the sake of gender neutrality, a dark-skinned gay star will play the fairy godmother in the new Cinderella. And in the American television series about Yekaterina, Count Rostov was played by a black actor with Nigerian roots.
Strana asked Ukrainian actors, producers and directors how they feel about this Oscar innovation and what they mean for cinematography.
Vladimir Goryansky, actor, folk artist of Ukraine:
“I don’t understand at all how these criteria can be implemented if the themes of the film are completely different. I don’t know how to specifically introduce those characters into the script. In the same film, is there a black actor and an LGBT representative? difficult to comment.
Such politicization in art is unacceptable. Limitations like these get in the way of creativity. Movies can be made on any subject. And it seems to me that the representatives of those groups that were selected by the Oscar committee, and thus in the cinema, did not suffer any harassment.
The main criterion for cinema is artistic value. I’m even a little confused. No problem: find an actor. But how appropriate is that? Putting something of the ears in the script to enter the nomination is incomprehensible to me. If there are no minority representatives in the film, this does not mean that we treat them badly. Total absurdity. It puzzles me. ”
Andrey Shabanov, actor, showman:
“I have no right to condemn or support this decision, because I am in the most disgusting category of the population, which, in fact, has oppressed all those who are supported by the new rules for millennia. I am a middle aged white straight man. To understand how difficult it was to live for all the layers of the population mentioned, I need to visit them, but this is impossible. Therefore, my opinion is not very objective.
But! Without referring to this episode, my attitude towards quotas in the humanitarian / creative sphere is negative. This has never led to anything good. This is a bias that improves some part, but generally the entire product worsens. And when it is imposed by the rules, then creativity becomes monotonous, and this contradicts it, creativity, essence ”.
Fedor Strigun, stage and screen actor:
“I think it is wrong to introduce such requirements for the cinema. We need to give free rein to everyone: artists, directors, artists. In our cinema, and that is why now there are almost no professional actors, only athletes. Now those films that actors do not need brains.And it’s not funny, do you call me modern Smoktunovsky or Ivan Mikolaichuk?
These Oscars restrictions on black actors and LGBT people are silly. If the movie is good, then it is good. Black actor or not, it doesn’t matter. There are a lot of black actors in America and they always try to portray them in a positive light. They are in this sense and that is why they maintain the balance. ”
Slava Zhyla, director, artistic director of the theater “Actor”:
“If” Oscar “has such changes, there will be a” response “from” Kievskaya pectoral “(Ukrainian prize of Ukraine in the field of theatrical art,” Oscar theatrical “- Ed.)?
If it is not a joke, then in fact, to such “reports” (parameters – Ed.) everything happened in the cinema for a long time. This theme is actively popularized in the US, America is the progenitor of the multi-quota fashion for minorities.
Significant in this regard was the series “Euphoria” (a youth drama about drug addiction and same-sex love from HBO in 2019 – Ed.). HBO is the radio station for this culture in the United States. Now I care how fast this culture will transfer to us. I mean the open view of transgender people and other minorities that are displayed there.
I don’t understand the meaning of such criteria for an Oscar nomination. No one oppresses anyone as long as minorities are not a provocation. Everyone who wants to sleep with those. There is nothing like that. But when this begins to prevail, even through mass culture, through cinema, then people who are used to the classical model of art and the universe begin to break their heads. I am one of those “classics”, a European straight white male. I, as a father of two children, will accept any of your options, they are free. But the massive propaganda of LGBT people in movies can influence your choice. At the same time, we have seen LGBT people in filmmaking before, but now it is also becoming mandatory and imposed. Today he is in the United States, tomorrow in Europe and the day after tomorrow with us.
However, I think this will not affect actual creativity. Let’s take Almodóvar himself: in the movie “Pain and Glory” there is a kiss from two men, but this is art. It didn’t go well, but it was beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. The artist is always outside the rules. Therefore, such “Oscar” restrictions will not affect art, but the mass market, yes. “
Victor Mirsky, film producer:
“My opinion agrees with Ray Bradbury’s opinion. Read his letter, which he wrote in 1979, everything is already written there.”
(Ed: A letter from Ray Bradbury described how feminist readers advised him to add female characters to his works, and other readers suggested remaking black characters that they thought were “too passive.”
“There are many ways to burn books. And the world is full of picky people with lit matches. Members of any minority, whether Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Moth-eaten Humanitarians, Zen Buddhists / Zionists / Adventists / Feminists, Republicans, members of the Mattachine community [одно из первых открытых гей-движений в Америке], Pentecostals, etc., etc., believe that they have the right, the duty, the will to pour kerosene and bring a match …
Because this world is insane, and it will go even crazier if we allow minorities, be they gnomes or giants, orangutans or dolphins, arms race or environmentalists, computer scientists or neo-Luddites. [хипстеры или дауншифтеры]simpletons or wise to interfere with aesthetics … If Mormons don’t like my work, let them write their own. “).
