More Award Show Feels...

            My last post was about the Grammys, so now I am going to attempt to analyze that other bastion of white-bred, elite nepotism: the Oscars.

            Much has been made of Fruitvale Station being snubbed by this year’s Oscar committee. 12 Years a Slave has nine nominations, and other than a Best Song nomination for Mandela, it is the only Black film in contention. Fruitvale Station depicts the events leading up to the death of Oscar Grant, a young Black man from Oakland who was shot by a BART policeman on January 1^st, 2009. 12 Years a Slave is also based on a true story, that of Solomon Northup, a free Black man from New York, who in 1841 was kidnapped and sold into slavery by two white men he thought were his friends.

My take on why a film like 12 Years a Slave received Oscar accolades and Fruitvale Station did not is fairly straightforward. White people, especially liberal elites, have an easier time processing movies about past racism. They don’t want to face present day racial oppression, and furthermore they have no desire to be implicated in such injustice. But to get the full story, I believe we need to look at Fruitvale from an aesthetic point of view.

            One scene that stands out in particular is when Oscar Grant is at a gas station. He is in a pretty negative headspace. He has lost his job and decided that he can no longer go on selling weed. He meets a dog at the gas station and pets it eagerly. When he is finished filling up his tank, he sees the dog die in a hit and run. Needless to say, he is devastated. While this scene most definitely did not happen to Grant in real life, Ryan Coogler has stated that it is of great metaphorical importance. In an interview with Huffington post, Coogler had this to say about the pit bull:

When you hear about them in the media, you hear about them doing horrible things. You never hear about a pit bull doing anything good in the media. And they have a stigma to them ... and, in many ways, pit bulls are like young African-American males. Whenever you see us in the news, it's for getting shot and killed or shooting and killing somebody -- for being a stereotype. And that's what you see for African-Americans in the media and the news.

However, there is something else that needs to be noted. When Oscar runs towards the dog he screams for help. And the silence that meets his pleas is resounding. Something that is communicated so effectively in Coogler’s film is the sense of helplessness that often infects Black life in this country. Grant can’t get a job and yet he can’t go on selling drugs. His mother is at a loss as to how to help him. He has no one to whom he can appeal.

            Later on in the film, Oscar takes the place of the dog. Even after trying to play peacemaker in a fight that he did not start, the police choose to arrest him and his Black friends rather than the white instigator (who is also a neo-nazi). A group of bystanders on the train witness the injustice, but even they are powerless to intervene. More than anything, Fruitvale is the story of a man who, by all accounts was not perfect, but tried to do the right thing. In the end, he still meets his demise. When violence comes, it comes suddenly. And like that Grant is gone.

            This scene is mirrored in 12 Years a Slave. When Northup is first is enslaved in Washington, DC, he leans out of the window of the dungeon he is chained in to call for help. The camera cranes upwards to show the Capitol Building, that old symbol of democracy, now portrayed in a more cynical manner. Northup’s pleas are also met with silence.

            I bring up these scenes because I think they elucidate a fundamental problem in US civil society. We must ask ourselves, what is at stake when we tell stories? Who is allowed to narrate? Whose version of truth will be believed? Whose pleas for help will be heard? After all, isn’t that exactly what was at stake in the cases of Renisha McBride, Cece Mcdonald, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis and so many other Black folx who were either killed, brutalized or detained by white supremacist proponents? What makes me sad about Fruitvale’s lack of recognition is that white people historically have been able to pick and choose how stories are told. They can support a movie about slavery and feel good about themselves for being progressive, but they will not face the horror that surrounds them in the present.

            Fruitvale Station and 12 Years a Slave are both testaments to the overwhelming helplessness, panic and despair that are the result of a country built on anti-Black racism. While Oscar loses his life, Northup does return home, having missed his children growing up and growing old with his wife. Either way you slice it, time has been stolen from both men, just like time is being stolen from countless Black folx by the twin terrors of the prison-industrial complex and the criminal injustice system.

But ultimately, opulence is blinding. And the Oscars are nothing if not opulent. While there have been significant breakthroughs in terms of Black artists, in all mediums, getting recognition, it is clear that the road to progress is paved with plenty of setbacks.