I lost a writing day to Twitter and the “discussion” of The Academy and Best Actrees nominee Andrea Riseborough. I put “discussion” in parentheses because this is one of those areas where there seems to be a lot of position-taking and not a lot on conversation.
Didn't read all of this 'cause I'm in the midst of my Sunday box office obligations, but I agree with most of what I did read except for this being some sort of proof that the Academy has something against black women. Angela Bassett is RIGHT THERE, and she's likely to win, making her the ... well, I don't have time to count... number of black women who have won the Supporting category in the past 20 years. Sure, it would be great to have Viola Davis or Danielle Deadwyler in the lead category, since they're both more than deserving, but I think the ire launched against Riseborough or anyone involved with To Leslie (which I still haven't had time to see for many of the reasons you mentioned but adding Sundance to the mix) is fully misguided. I mean, getting Paul Mescal into the mix could just as much be seen as a grassroots campaign by critics and #FilmTwitter, except Aftersun at least had a major studio behind it, even if A24 was more focused on EEAAO.
Not sure how this popped into my email after so many years (you and I met, in Miami?, in the 2000s?) but I wanted to comment on what a thoughtful piece of writing this is. Thank you. Conversation starting, for sure.
Excellent thoughtful piece David. Thank you for making sense of all this.
Didn't read all of this 'cause I'm in the midst of my Sunday box office obligations, but I agree with most of what I did read except for this being some sort of proof that the Academy has something against black women. Angela Bassett is RIGHT THERE, and she's likely to win, making her the ... well, I don't have time to count... number of black women who have won the Supporting category in the past 20 years. Sure, it would be great to have Viola Davis or Danielle Deadwyler in the lead category, since they're both more than deserving, but I think the ire launched against Riseborough or anyone involved with To Leslie (which I still haven't had time to see for many of the reasons you mentioned but adding Sundance to the mix) is fully misguided. I mean, getting Paul Mescal into the mix could just as much be seen as a grassroots campaign by critics and #FilmTwitter, except Aftersun at least had a major studio behind it, even if A24 was more focused on EEAAO.
Not sure how this popped into my email after so many years (you and I met, in Miami?, in the 2000s?) but I wanted to comment on what a thoughtful piece of writing this is. Thank you. Conversation starting, for sure.