Spike Lee, Jada
Pinkett Smith to boycott Oscars ceremony
Invoking the Rev. Martin Luther King's legacy
on his birthday, two prominent
African-Americans announced Monday that they will boycott this year's Academy
Awards over a lack of diversity among nominees. Filmmaker
Spike Lee and actress Jada Pinkett Smith posted separate messages Monday saying
they would not be attending the February 28 ceremony. The Oscars have drawn criticism after an all-white slate of major
nominees was announced Thursday for the second year in a row. "We
cannot support it and [I] mean no disrespect ... But, how is it possible for
the second consecutive year all 20 contenders under the acting category are
white? And let's not even get into the other branches," Lee wrote on
Instagram. "Forty white actors in two years and no flava at all. We can't
act?! "Dr.
King said, 'There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither
safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells
him it's right,' " continued Lee, the outspoken director of such racially
charged films as "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X." Lee
said the " 'real' battle" over racism in Hollywood is not with the
Academy Awards but in "the executive offices of the Hollywood studios and
TV and cable networks," where gatekeepers decide which projects get made
and which don't. "People,
the truth is we ain't in those rooms, and until minorities are, the Oscar
nominees will remain lilly white," he wrote. In a
video posted to Facebook, Pinkett Smith said she would not even watch the
Oscars on TV this year. Her husband, Will Smith, had been considered an Oscar
contender for his role in "Concussion" but was not nominated.
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