Look. I’m not going to argue with you about the relative paucity of minority representation at the Academy Awards. It’s a historical problem, going back to the event’s founding, and it needs to be addressed, even if I have little idea how the organization as a whole can easily address a problem based on a majority vote: maybe they can introduce a jury pick, but even that has problems.
Still, that’s another discussion.
Today we’re going to talk about how a good number of you, promising to boycott the Academy Awards, seem to have precious little comprehension of what a boycott is or how one works.
Actual examples from my Facebook feed, paraphrased to protect those responsible:
“I’m boycotting the Academy Awards! I never watch the show anyway, it’s boring.”
“I’m boycotting the Academy Awards! I don’t care about the awards, and I last saw the show in 1970. But this year I have a reason to boycott them.”
“I’m boycotting the Academy Awards! Besides, I’ll be traveling that day…”
In none of these cases is the writer actually participating in a boycott. In all three cases, they are targeting a show THAT THEY WERE NOT GOING TO WATCH ANYWAY and presenting this year’s refusal to watch, which doesn’t involve a conscious or actual change in behavior, as an act of conscious will.
I have seen similar previous iterations of this; people with no interest in a given musician getting mad at something that musician has said, and declaring that they won’t buy the album now, even though – they add, as if it will be taken as additional damage – they weren’t going to anyway, because in their view that musician sucks.
Or taking exception to an actor and boycotting a movie they take pains to specify they weren’t going to see, or taking exception to an author and boycotting a book for which they were never ever included in the readership.
Somehow, they think adding the phrase, “Besides, I always hated your stuff, anyway!” underlines the boycott and makes their declaration more powerful, not less.
I can’t make it any clearer than this. You know what made the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which made Rosa Parks famous, a Boycott? People stopped doing something that they would have done otherwise. People whose coins would normally have gone to bus fare now stayed in their pockets, hurting the bus company. Nobody said, “I’m boycotting the buses! I walk, anyway.”
That would not have been a boycott.
“I’m not going to do something I wasn’t going to do anyway, and consider that concrete political action,” is not a boycott either. It’s just empty posturing, the illusion of taking a stand.
Comment By: Bill Greene
January 23rd, 2016 at 3:19 pm
Why is common sense so rarely common? Or perhaps it is just a desire to join the pile on and use a zero effort comment to feel like you are doing something.
I used to like the Oscars. I won’t be watching this year, but not out of a need to boycott something… Merely because I find the show boring in an age where I can check IMDb every quarter hour or so while I do something more interesting and still keep up with who has won what.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
January 23rd, 2016 at 3:19 pm
As a show, the Oscars have always been a long sea of tedium with brief intervals of the can’t-miss; always. It’s built into the form, alas. You can’t do a gripping awards show. It is impossible.
Comment By: David Vineyard
January 23rd, 2016 at 3:19 pm
I’m not sure how exactly a boycott of the Oscars would work other than not showing up. Now if enough presenters and nominees boycotted the show that might be effective, but the nominees are boycotting their livelihood and it is hard to see most of them doing that and as Chris Rock has pointed out he can do more on stage hosting than the Smith’s or Spike Lee accomplish staying home.
The Academy is addressing the problem as best they can since only an influx of new minority members can bring more recognition to minority performances, but looking at this year’s nominees I honestly don’t see one that should have been left out. With the exception of Samuel L. Jackson in HATEFUL 8 the other performances they are mentioning, great as they are, don’t rise to the level of the ones nominated.
My take on the problem is at the production end with too few big roles for minority actors in big productions that might be nominated.
As for not watching, viewership has been down anyway and it really isn’t a boycott. A boycott means not going to, renting, or buying anything nominated by the Academy and refusing to go see the performers nominated by them.
Not watching a television program one night — even not attending — is called a symbolic gesture, and for most non super stars a pretty pathetic one.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
January 23rd, 2016 at 3:19 pm
The fact of the matter is that many of the stars would rather not attend either. Awards season is an endless parade of these things, and it gets old fast: like having a wedding every weekend. As I say in the essay, they negotiate for the number they can skip.
Comment By: Gabriel F
January 23rd, 2016 at 2:54 pm
Or boycotting a publisher you already don’t buy books from… >.>
Comment By: Kevin Lauderdale
January 23rd, 2016 at 4:26 pm
I suppose if someone were to receive a nomination and then announce, “Do not vote for me,” that might count. Or take out “NOT for Academy Consideration” ads in which people declare that they do not want to be nominated.
Comment By: Hector Johnson
January 23rd, 2016 at 9:18 pm
I’ve been boycotting them all of my life. Tedious people congratulating themselves while other people watch. Pfffft!
Comment By: Gill Avila
January 23rd, 2016 at 9:18 pm
“Black Actors Matter!” you never heard ever.
Comment By: Karl J Martin
January 23rd, 2016 at 10:20 pm
I don’t boycott: I embargo.
Comment By: Bob Roehm
January 24th, 2016 at 5:27 pm
Quite a number of years ago, there was a writers strike and most of the Emmy presenters and nominees declined to show up. Steve Allen was the last-minute replacement host. His opening joke to the half-filled auditorium: “If a bomb were to drop here tonight…absolutely no one would notice.”