This year’s brutally honest Oscar voter better hope that The Hollywood Reporter (THR) does not leak her identity, because she has some rather un-woke opinions about American directors and foreign films being nominated for Best Picture.
When asked about who she voted for Best Director, the brutally honest Oscar voter hailed Quentin Tarantino, not only for his wonderful work on “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,” but also because he’s an American.
I can’t vote for Marty [Scorsese, of The Irishman] — nobody wants to say it, but it’s just not that good. Todd Phillips did an incredible job on Joker, as did Bong Joon Ho on Parasite, but not the best. I liked 1917 and Sam Mendes’ direction, but I thought Quentin did a great job, and I want an American director to win. The Oscars is an American thing; English things win BAFTAs and the French vote for the French, and Quentin Tarantino should be honored for a great American movie.
When it came to the movie “Parasite” being nominated for Best Picture — a foreign film from South Korea — the voter brutally said, “‘Parasite’ is beautifully done, but it didn’t hold up the second time, and I don’t think foreign films should be nominated with the regular films.”
Some on Twitter noted that the brutally honest Oscar voter only highlighted what they have been saying all along: The Academy is filled with too many white people, though it should be noted that the woman’s race was not revealed by The Hollywood Reporter.
“The Hollywood Reporter shared ‘Brutally Honest Oscar Ballot’ in which an old white woman from the Academy anonymously gives her thoughts on the Oscar‘s ballot this year and proves that the issues that Academy members were accused of are very real,” said one Twitter user.
“Whoever this actor is should not be a voting member of the Academy. She gets so many facts wrong and clearly favours American actors and filmmakers for ridiculous reasons. I’m afraid the majority of voters think the same exact way she does, though,” said another user.
“This incredibly racist woman is in the Academy … why did this one get published?” said another.
The Academy Awards took another beating on social media this year for nominating only male directors and only one actor of color – Cynthia Erivo for “Harriet.” Author Stephen King, himself a member of the Academy, recently argued that the whole voting system is rigged in “favor of the white folks.”
“Has there been progress in the film community? Yes, some,” said King. “I’m old enough to remember when there were only a handful of African-American directors and about the only female director in Hollywood was Ida Lupino, who made hard-edged noir B-pictures in the 1950s and later worked in television. Her directing work was never nominated for an Oscar or an Emmy.”
“My overall attitude that, as with justice, judgments of creative excellence should be blind,” he continued. “But that would be the case in a perfect world, one where the game isn’t rigged in favor of the white folks. Creative excellence comes from every walk, color, creed, gender and sexual orientation, and it’s made richer and bolder and more exciting by diversity, but it’s defined by being excellent. Judging anyone’s work by any other standard is insulting and — worse — it undermines those hard-won moments when excellence from a diverse source is rewarded (against, it seems, all the odds) by leaving such recognition vulnerable to being dismissed as politically correct.”