Give me a fucking a break. You're being stupid and antagonistic for the sake of ... I don't know what. I don't really give a shit why or why not he was included. He was and it isn't out of left field or wrong that he was. You're the one that has an issue with it for some unknown reason. The fact that a few people that…

Granted, I am arguing a technicality, but I think it is important. May Angelou wrote two screenplays and a movie soundtrack (yes she was also a musician). Since the official name of the Academy is Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, anyone associated with film (actor, producer, writer, special effects, post…

Referring to Gabriel García Márquez by his maternal last name only (Márquez) is kinda like someone referring to JFK by his middle name, Fitzgerald.

You guess wrong. My grandmother. The same woman who lost a brother to a Texas lynch mob, moved north for "better opportunities," only to be denied credit and a mortgage because of federally sanctioned redlining insurance practices. She was sold a house in a marginal neighborhood by predatory private lenders, to whom…

Right, because Americans are already sooooooooo unaware of how debilitating Alzheimer's is. That's definitely a story that needs to be told. Meanwhile, after an unprecedented year of public violence by authority figures against black people, arguably one of the most poignant portrayals of a seminal moment in civil…

Not really. Alzheimer's is an "old people disease." For an attractive, middle-aged woman to develop it is a horrifying concept for privileged, wealthy white folks. That is the extent of their anxieties. They already fear aging with every fiber of their being. Early onset Alzheimer's, aka early onset aging, doubly so.

Well, first of all you do realize that Márquez played a role in writing or directing a large number of works for film and television, but they are mainly foreign language productions? (the Academy does consider and award foreign films, it isn't just "Hollywood" in the strict sense of geography, come on now). He was…

Holy crap! You are actually equating Marquez to Joan Rivers?

Ah, gotcha. Dang interwebs, no inflection! Me confused. In my initial reply I was thinking more in the vein of - yea, Angelou I do get, she was in a movie... Marquez is a bit of a mystery. But I am glad he was in there! Master of storytelling.

You have to laugh to keep from crying. I forgot about The Theory of Everything! A heartwarming story of a disabled genius, who also happened to be an elitist douchebag, who fell in love with a lovely young woman, only to eventually leave her for his younger nurse.

Not sure how you concluded that me elaborating on Angelou's inclusion after you said it was just to whiten up the place somehow means I think Rivers shouldn't have been included? Let's just chalk it up to internets and lack of tone.

Well yea but, Maya Angelou actually acted in a movie. In fact, though she didn't have a scene with Jared Jesus - his character got hers pregnant in one of the flashbacks.

Because the Academy is dominated a bunch of self-indulgent, old, white-male filmmakers who are obsessed with appearing as intellectuals and "philosophers" above all else. That's why this year honored a bunch of movies about mildly uncomfortable white people struggling w/ "malaise" and aging. Literally, count 'em —…

Perhaps other than Three 6 Mafia taking home the Best Song award in 2006, this was inarguably the blackest moment in the history of the Oscars.

Regarding that Sean Penn fiasco, let's take a moment to remember Sean's utterly humorless response when Chris Rock hosted the Oscars in 2005. Chris made a joke about Jude Law, which was basically "Damn, Jude Law sure is in a lot of movies lately," which is like the most innocuous Hollywood joke possible.

Omg! So simple! Why have we never, ever thought of that?

It's not a stretch at all. As a black woman, the "joke" made me incredibly uncomfortable for the same reason Kara described.

That bit they forced Octavia into was so fucked up. I don't understand why it was an idea. Or why so many people went along with it that it wound up in the actual broadcast. The racial politics of the ceremony were pointed enough without taking one of the few women of color to ever be honored with an acting prize at…

i thought that Joke or what ever it was: was racist, sexist, rude and just wrong. it was a very stupid thing to do in a 1st place.

Maybe they alway trot out the President of the Academy but having Cheryl Boone Isaacs come out last night to toot the horn of the Academy felt like egregious pandering. "See?? Our president is a black woman, we can't be racist sexists!!"