Race & Theatre: Oscars Make Right Step with Diversity but Much More Needed

Alex Chester

OnStage New York Columnist

The Oscar’s have come and gone for 2017 and this year’s Oscar nominations for best/supporting actors and actresses is much more diverse than last year. Go you Hollywood.

This year we have a whopping 7 actors of color nominated for an Oscar. 8 if you count my favorite Hapa, Emma Stone. That’s 7 out of 20 people up for this award.

Out of those 7 actors, 6 are black and 1 is of Asian decent, Dev Patel. Where are the other ethnicities? Oh, that’s right, Hollywood doesn’t produce Oscar-worthy films with diversity. Hollywood thinks diversity means just black and white. Sorry other people of color you’re just not the right type of “ethnic”. We wouldn’t want a Mideastern person playing anything but a terrorist. And we certainly wouldn’t want an Asian playing an actually Asian. What will the children think? That they too can grow up and become a famous Hollywood actor? That’s what white people are for.

That is essentially what Hollywood is telling us. That if you are Asian, Hispanic, Latino, Native American, etc you don’t get to be represented. That you are less than. Cause white people are magical and can take on anything, even race. That you, as a person of color do not matter.

It’s amazing to me that it’s 2017 and we still have so far to go.