The Oscars need a whitewash to save Hollywood's face

The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, which started last year, has been doing the rounds again and gaining momentum on social media since the news of the Oscars acting category shortlists were announced on 14 January 2016. Accompanying it this year was another similar one - #OscarsStillSoWhite. Why? Not one black actor or actress got a mention in any of the four Oscar acting categories this year, and this follows on from the same last year. Two years in row, what's the problem with that? One might argue that surely the final nominations for the Oscars are decided purely on merit and it just so happens that this year (like last), the nominees are white because of their due recognition. But wait, remember that saying "things that make you go, hmmm"?

Phrases like these come to my mind when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs releases her public statement on January 18 and says: "This is a difficult but important conversation, and it's time for big changes. The Academy is taking dramatic steps to alter the make-up of our membership. In the coming days and weeks we will conduct a review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about  much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond".

Issacs' statement followed after prominent black artists lamented the lack of diversity and opportunity for black and minority talent to be showcased and formally recognised as nominations in these prestigious categories.

In his post on Instagram, Spike Lee said he "cannot support" the "lily-white" Oscars. His words took on more salience as he noted that he was he posting on Martin Luther King Jr Day, going on to write in dismay: "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. Forty white actors in two years and no flava at all. We can't act?! WTF!!"Lee, alongside the artist Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of actor Will Smith, and others who soon followed via their own social media declarations, joined in a call to boycott the Oscars ceremony.

In a video posting on Facebook which generated millions of views in a matter of hours, Pinket Smith went on to say:

"Begging for acknowledgement, or even asking, diminishes dignity and diminishes power," she said. "And we are a dignified people and we are powerful. Let's let the Academy do them, with all grace and love. And let's do us differently."

Numerous artists, both black and white, have since spoken out on the lack of diversity in the Oscar nominations, with many acknowledging that things will have to change moving forward. Voices here include Cuba Gooding Jr, George Clooney, Reese Witherspoon and Viola Davis. However, British actress and Oscar nominee, Charlotte Rampling has been quoted in the British newspaper The Guardian claiming that the Oscars 2016 diversity row is "racist to white people".

Something appears wrong then in Hollywood - not only in terms of the films that we are seeing and celebrating at the box office, which often feature fine actors and actresses of all backgrounds and colours, but also the machine, the institution for selecting, judging and honouring talent, is predicated around notions of whiteness and its securing of privilege and power through representation, or rather the lack of it.

Granted, a cinematic screen or canvas is almost always white before the show starts. But it is nothing more than that until it is adorned by a multitude of colour that brings it to life as part of the magic of cinema. Acknowledging and giving respect to this array of colour is long overdue.