Katie Cameron
Contributing Writer
It’s old news that this year’s Oscars were dominated by even older white dudes, a tradition on par with the last 86 years of Academy Award history. Only white men were nominated in the categories of Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, as well as five male directors and writers for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, respectively.
Though Ava DuVernay’s Selma received a Best Picture nomination, she as the director — as well as almost everybody and everything else in the movie — was overlooked individually. Host Neil Patrick Harris said it best as he introduced the Oscars as a celebration of Hollywood’s “Best and whitest — sorry, brightest.”
There were small moments of redemption over the course of the evening, most notably Patricia Arquette’s acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress in Boyhood. At the conclusion of her speech, Arquette made a passionate call for wage equality for women, stating, “To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”
Though feminists have been fighting for equal pay for women since the 1960s, Arquette’s argument seemed particularly timely in light of the gendered pay disparities that exist in Hollywood revealed during the Sony leaks of 2014; for 2014’s American Hustle, stars Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence each made over two percent less than their male counterparts, Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and Jeremy Renner, despite each having been nominated for several Oscars.
Unfortunately, during a backstage press conference after receiving her Oscar, Arquette made some controversial comments on her feminist acceptance speech, stating, “The truth is even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America, there are huge issues that are at play that really do affect women. It’s time for all … the gay people and people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.”
Youch.
Across the political spectrum, many were outraged. Arquette’s comments seemed to imply that America’s LGBTQIA+ community and minority communities’ fights against prejudice have long since been won, a statement that — as evidenced by high rates of violence against people of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people who identify as a cross-section of the two — simply isn’t true. Additionally, Arquette further contributed to the stereotype that straight white women dominate feminism, when in actuality a feminist should be defined solely as someone who believes in the equality of the sexes, regardless of race, gender or sexuality.
The wage gap between men and women in America is a legitimate issue; there is no valid reason for women to be paid, according to the Census Bureau, 78 cents to every dollar a man earns for doing the same work. Arquette was right to highlight the unfairness of that disparity. However, it is irresponsible for her, as a public figure, to imply that racism and homophobia have been defeated in this country to bolster her own argument. Her decision to do so shifted media attention onto her individually instead of the overall feminist and racial issues at hand.
Of course, as the “best and whitest” Oscars certainly made evident, those issues receive a pitiful amount of attention as is.