Comment on the Oscars
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Did you bother to read his follow up tweets or did you just hear the first part that is being taken out of context and being twisted around to try to make something out of nothing? Here's the follow up tweets just in case and puts a bit of a different spin on it, don't you think? Seriously.
Stephen King
@StephenKing
·
Jan 14
You can't win awards if you're shut out of the game.
Stephen King
@StephenKing
·
Jan 14
The most important thing we can do as artists and creative people is make sure everyone has the same fair shot, regardless of sex, color, or orientation. Right now such people are badly under-represented, and not only in the arts.
Stephen King
@StephenKing
·
Jan 14
You can't win awards if you're shut out of the game.
Stephen King
@StephenKing
·
Jan 14
The most important thing we can do as artists and creative people is make sure everyone has the same fair shot, regardless of sex, color, or orientation. Right now such people are badly under-represented, and not only in the arts.
Article by SK in Washington {POst yesterday: Excellent response!!
Opinions
Stephen King: The Oscars are still rigged in favor of white people
Author Stephen King speaks at Book Expo America in 2017. (Mark Lennihan/AP)
By Stephen King
Jan. 27, 2020 at 10:22 a.m. EST
Stephen King is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Institute.”
Discussions of arts and culture, like discussions of politics, have become increasingly acrimonious and polarized in recent years. Lines of belief are drawn with indelible ink, and if you step over them — wittingly or otherwise — you find yourself in the social-media version of the stocks and subject to a barrage of electronic turnips and cabbages.
I stepped over one of those lines recently, by saying something on Twitter that I mistakenly thought was noncontroversial: “I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong.” The subject was the Academy Awards. I also said, in essence, that those judging creative excellence should be blind to questions of race, gender or sexual orientation.
AD
I did not say that was the case today, because nothing could be further from the truth. Nor did I say that films, novels, plays and music focusing on diversity and/or inequality cannot be works of creative genius. They can be, and often are. Ava DuVernay’s 2019 Netflix miniseries, “When They See Us,” about the wrongful convictions of the Central Park Five, is a splendid case in point.
Has there been progress in the film community? Yes, some. 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.
For answers to why some talented artists are nominated and some — such as Greta Gerwig, who helmed the astoundingly good new version of “Little Women” — are not, you might need to look no further than the demographic makeup of those who vote for the Academy Awards. It’s better than it was, certainly. Only eight years ago, 94 percent of the 5,700 voters were white, according to the Los Angeles Times, 77 percent were male and 54 percent were more than 60 years old. This year, women make up 32 percent of voters (up only 1 percent from last year) and minority members equal 16 percent of the total.
AD
Not good enough. Not even within shouting distance of good enough.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is trying — in a stumbling fashion far too slow for the Age of Apple and Facebook — to make changes. In the years before #OscarsSoWhite (2015), the academy added about 115 members per year, arguing that a smaller voting pool kept the professional caliber of the voters high. If that makes you mad, it should.
In 2019, the academy invited 842 new members, after inviting 928 the year before, which would bring the total to about 9,000. Give them credit for trying to catch up . . . but not too much credit. Of the nine films nominated for Best Picturethis year, the majority — “The Irishman,” “Ford v Ferrari,” “1917,” “Joker” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” — are what my sons call “man-fiction.” There are fights, guns and many white faces.
AD
Here’s another piece of the puzzle. Voters are supposed to look at all films in serious contention. This year, that would be about 60. There’s no way of checking how many voters actually do, because viewing is on the honor system. How many of the older, whiter contingent actually saw “Harriet,” about Harriet Tubman, or “The Last Black Man in San Francisco”? Just asking the question. If they did see all the films, were they moved by what they saw? Did they feel the catharsis that’s the basis of all that artists aspire to? Did they understand?
Where am I in this diversity discussion? Fair question. The answer is white, male, old and rich. (I didn’t grow up rich, and the memories of working for minimum wage linger, but I sure am now.) It would be absurd to dispute that and equally absurd to apologize for it. The first two traits are genetic, and the last two are the work of Time the Avenger.
Yet I’m proud to have written about strong female characters facing complex issues, in novels that have often been adapted for movies or television, with the characters brought powerfully to life by gifted actresses. The span runs from “Carrie,” a novel of female empowerment, more than 40 years ago, to “Lisey’s Story,” now in production as a limited series, about the power of sisterhood, a thing I learned about from my mother and her sisters, plus my wife’s mother and hers.
AD
When people complained on social media a few years ago about Idris Elba being cast as Roland Deschain, the gunslinger at the center of “The Dark Tower” books, I replied that I didn’t care what the character’s skin color was, as long as he could draw fast and shoot straight.
The response reflects my overall attitude that, as with justice, judgments of creative excellence should be blind. 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.
We don’t live in that perfect world, and this year’s less-than-diverse Academy Awards nominations once more prove it. Maybe someday we will. I can dream, can’t I? After all, I make stuff up for a living.
Stephen King: The Oscars are still rigged in favor of white people
By Stephen King
Jan. 27, 2020 at 10:22 a.m. EST
Stephen King is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Institute.”
Discussions of arts and culture, like discussions of politics, have become increasingly acrimonious and polarized in recent years. Lines of belief are drawn with indelible ink, and if you step over them — wittingly or otherwise — you find yourself in the social-media version of the stocks and subject to a barrage of electronic turnips and cabbages.
I stepped over one of those lines recently, by saying something on Twitter that I mistakenly thought was noncontroversial: “I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong.” The subject was the Academy Awards. I also said, in essence, that those judging creative excellence should be blind to questions of race, gender or sexual orientation.
AD
I did not say that was the case today, because nothing could be further from the truth. Nor did I say that films, novels, plays and music focusing on diversity and/or inequality cannot be works of creative genius. They can be, and often are. Ava DuVernay’s 2019 Netflix miniseries, “When They See Us,” about the wrongful convictions of the Central Park Five, is a splendid case in point.
Has there been progress in the film community? Yes, some. 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.
For answers to why some talented artists are nominated and some — such as Greta Gerwig, who helmed the astoundingly good new version of “Little Women” — are not, you might need to look no further than the demographic makeup of those who vote for the Academy Awards. It’s better than it was, certainly. Only eight years ago, 94 percent of the 5,700 voters were white, according to the Los Angeles Times, 77 percent were male and 54 percent were more than 60 years old. This year, women make up 32 percent of voters (up only 1 percent from last year) and minority members equal 16 percent of the total.
AD
Not good enough. Not even within shouting distance of good enough.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is trying — in a stumbling fashion far too slow for the Age of Apple and Facebook — to make changes. In the years before #OscarsSoWhite (2015), the academy added about 115 members per year, arguing that a smaller voting pool kept the professional caliber of the voters high. If that makes you mad, it should.
In 2019, the academy invited 842 new members, after inviting 928 the year before, which would bring the total to about 9,000. Give them credit for trying to catch up . . . but not too much credit. Of the nine films nominated for Best Picturethis year, the majority — “The Irishman,” “Ford v Ferrari,” “1917,” “Joker” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” — are what my sons call “man-fiction.” There are fights, guns and many white faces.
AD
Here’s another piece of the puzzle. Voters are supposed to look at all films in serious contention. This year, that would be about 60. There’s no way of checking how many voters actually do, because viewing is on the honor system. How many of the older, whiter contingent actually saw “Harriet,” about Harriet Tubman, or “The Last Black Man in San Francisco”? Just asking the question. If they did see all the films, were they moved by what they saw? Did they feel the catharsis that’s the basis of all that artists aspire to? Did they understand?
Where am I in this diversity discussion? Fair question. The answer is white, male, old and rich. (I didn’t grow up rich, and the memories of working for minimum wage linger, but I sure am now.) It would be absurd to dispute that and equally absurd to apologize for it. The first two traits are genetic, and the last two are the work of Time the Avenger.
Yet I’m proud to have written about strong female characters facing complex issues, in novels that have often been adapted for movies or television, with the characters brought powerfully to life by gifted actresses. The span runs from “Carrie,” a novel of female empowerment, more than 40 years ago, to “Lisey’s Story,” now in production as a limited series, about the power of sisterhood, a thing I learned about from my mother and her sisters, plus my wife’s mother and hers.
AD
When people complained on social media a few years ago about Idris Elba being cast as Roland Deschain, the gunslinger at the center of “The Dark Tower” books, I replied that I didn’t care what the character’s skin color was, as long as he could draw fast and shoot straight.
The response reflects my overall attitude that, as with justice, judgments of creative excellence should be blind. 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.
We don’t live in that perfect world, and this year’s less-than-diverse Academy Awards nominations once more prove it. Maybe someday we will. I can dream, can’t I? After all, I make stuff up for a living.
He had an OP-ED in The Washington Post yesterday....maybe a link to that would be useful too?
Spidey is all over it...
Spidey is all over it...
Thanks for posting this. Embarrassed to say, I hadn't seen it and Steve hadn't let me know he had written and sent it to the Washington Post. Last I'd heard from him about this topic, he was considering writing a piece but was still on the fence about whether to just let it die in the two seconds it takes for people to move on to new "insults".Article by SK in Washington {POst yesterday: Excellent response!!
Opinions
Stephen King: The Oscars are still rigged in favor of white people
Author Stephen King speaks at Book Expo America in 2017. (Mark Lennihan/AP)
By Stephen King
Jan. 27, 2020 at 10:22 a.m. EST
Stephen King is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Institute.”
Discussions of arts and culture, like discussions of politics, have become increasingly acrimonious and polarized in recent years. Lines of belief are drawn with indelible ink, and if you step over them — wittingly or otherwise — you find yourself in the social-media version of the stocks and subject to a barrage of electronic turnips and cabbages.
I stepped over one of those lines recently, by saying something on Twitter that I mistakenly thought was noncontroversial: “I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong.” The subject was the Academy Awards. I also said, in essence, that those judging creative excellence should be blind to questions of race, gender or sexual orientation.
AD
I did not say that was the case today, because nothing could be further from the truth. Nor did I say that films, novels, plays and music focusing on diversity and/or inequality cannot be works of creative genius. They can be, and often are. Ava DuVernay’s 2019 Netflix miniseries, “When They See Us,” about the wrongful convictions of the Central Park Five, is a splendid case in point.
Has there been progress in the film community? Yes, some. 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.
For answers to why some talented artists are nominated and some — such as Greta Gerwig, who helmed the astoundingly good new version of “Little Women” — are not, you might need to look no further than the demographic makeup of those who vote for the Academy Awards. It’s better than it was, certainly. Only eight years ago, 94 percent of the 5,700 voters were white, according to the Los Angeles Times, 77 percent were male and 54 percent were more than 60 years old. This year, women make up 32 percent of voters (up only 1 percent from last year) and minority members equal 16 percent of the total.
AD
Not good enough. Not even within shouting distance of good enough.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is trying — in a stumbling fashion far too slow for the Age of Apple and Facebook — to make changes. In the years before #OscarsSoWhite (2015), the academy added about 115 members per year, arguing that a smaller voting pool kept the professional caliber of the voters high. If that makes you mad, it should.
In 2019, the academy invited 842 new members, after inviting 928 the year before, which would bring the total to about 9,000. Give them credit for trying to catch up . . . but not too much credit. Of the nine films nominated for Best Picturethis year, the majority — “The Irishman,” “Ford v Ferrari,” “1917,” “Joker” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” — are what my sons call “man-fiction.” There are fights, guns and many white faces.
AD
Here’s another piece of the puzzle. Voters are supposed to look at all films in serious contention. This year, that would be about 60. There’s no way of checking how many voters actually do, because viewing is on the honor system. How many of the older, whiter contingent actually saw “Harriet,” about Harriet Tubman, or “The Last Black Man in San Francisco”? Just asking the question. If they did see all the films, were they moved by what they saw? Did they feel the catharsis that’s the basis of all that artists aspire to? Did they understand?
Where am I in this diversity discussion? Fair question. The answer is white, male, old and rich. (I didn’t grow up rich, and the memories of working for minimum wage linger, but I sure am now.) It would be absurd to dispute that and equally absurd to apologize for it. The first two traits are genetic, and the last two are the work of Time the Avenger.
Yet I’m proud to have written about strong female characters facing complex issues, in novels that have often been adapted for movies or television, with the characters brought powerfully to life by gifted actresses. The span runs from “Carrie,” a novel of female empowerment, more than 40 years ago, to “Lisey’s Story,” now in production as a limited series, about the power of sisterhood, a thing I learned about from my mother and her sisters, plus my wife’s mother and hers.
AD
When people complained on social media a few years ago about Idris Elba being cast as Roland Deschain, the gunslinger at the center of “The Dark Tower” books, I replied that I didn’t care what the character’s skin color was, as long as he could draw fast and shoot straight.
The response reflects my overall attitude that, as with justice, judgments of creative excellence should be blind. 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.
We don’t live in that perfect world, and this year’s less-than-diverse Academy Awards nominations once more prove it. Maybe someday we will. I can dream, can’t I? After all, I make stuff up for a living.
Just happened upon it this morning on his Twitter acct. Hope the "insulters" will take note of it.
Not to worry, Ms.Mod....you should get your copy of yesterday’s Post delivered to your door out west there by Friday.
Maybe....
The cancel culture should be cancelled!
*Sunny walks away biting a hole in her tongue, for fear that anything she says will turn all hot topicicky.......
I'm still waiting for the Post Office to catch up to my mail forwarding request! Beginning to think I should have just let my SO take care of it as he's still in Maine but thought it might be better for any of the tax documents I'll need. That's what thinking will do for you.Not to worry, Ms.Mod....you should get your copy of yesterday’s Post delivered to your door out west there by Friday.
Maybe....
Read the Op Ed. There is a total imbalance, not only in award nominations, but in life.
It needs to change, but what gets chosen is totally subjective. What I think should be nominated and what you think should be nominated is going to be different. Every single person is going to have their opinion. And yes, SNL even did a skit on the nominations for best picture in a song about Man Rage. True and hilarious.
It's not a quota to fill. Creativity isn't a quota, it's subjective. What's one person's amazing talent is another's "that artist did great, but I think this one is better" choice.
Yes, more diversity should be on the voting board. Until they fix that, as it stands now, the most important thing that I recently read about this controversy, voters need to PROVE they actually watched the films. Because I think that's a real problem too. Like Stephen said, how many voters sat and watched Harriet?
Right now, voters are on the honor system. But are they really viewing every single movie, scrutinizing every single performance, critiquing technique that they were eligible to vote for? Or are they just casting that eeny meeny miney moe ballot?
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You’re going to miss the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes!!!I'm still waiting for the Post Office to catch up to my mail forwarding request! Beginning to think I should have just let my SO take care of it as he's still in Maine but thought it might be better for any of the tax documents I'll need. That's what thinking will do for you.
Sunny keeping quiet....? Somebody pinch me....
Me too!
I will dip my toe in though.
I took the original tweet to mean that any and all submissions should be based on their quality alone. No other consideration needed...no names, ethnicity, race, blah blah blah.
I did not see one darn thing wrong with that. Don't we WANT the best submission to win?
I don't understand any of today's brewhahas. People b*tch just to b*tch.
My 2 cents.
Yeah, they keep calling me to let me know there's going to be an arrest warrant issued for me if I don't call them back and yet I still ignore them. So far so good.
LOL. Yeah, the IRS would never call anyone. Just in case I'll start a GoFundMe for you when the time comes.Yeah, they keep calling me to let me know there's going to be an arrest warrant issued for me if I don't call them back and yet I still ignore them. So far so good.
Even if you don’t agree with his opinion I don’t believe he was trying to cause an outroar or any kind of racial divide
I'll second that!!Me too!
I will dip my toe in though.
I took the original tweet to mean that any and all submissions should be based on their quality alone. No other consideration needed...no names, ethnicity, race, blah blah blah.
I did not see one darn thing wrong with that. Don't we WANT the best submission to win?
I don't understand any of today's brewhahas. People b*tch just to b*tch.
My 2 cents.
- Status