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Oscar Night:

AND THE WINNER IS ... RACISM AND GENDER-PHOBIA!

By Leslie Feinberg

For the categories of Racism and Gender-Phobia--the envelope
please. The winner, hands down, is the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences.

The academy totally shunned Spike Lee's powerful epic film "Malcolm
X," which packed movie theaters and electrified audiences across
the country, from the categories of Best Film and Best Director,
although it was a critics' choice. Denzel Washington's
extraordinary and versatile performance as Malcolm X was nominated.
But he didn't win.

It's not the first time the academy snubbed Spike Lee because of
his outspoken views about racism. Lee's forceful film "Do The Right
Thing" was passed over for an Oscar in 1990. The encrusted academy
elite also couldn't bring itself to honor a film about Malcolm X,
a heroic and militant African American leader.

Not surprisingly, the awards for the categories "Malcolm X" should
have swept were roped by Clint Eastwood for "Unforgiven." Eastwood
plays a violent vigilante on-screen--and a reactionary off-screen,
as well.

Every actor handed an Oscar was white. Aladdin, an anti-Arab
animated film, won two Oscars for its music.

JAYE DAVIDSON GETS SHORT SHRIFT

The banter all evening was filled with cross-dressing jokes and
indirect references to the role transgendered gay actor Jaye
Davidson played in "The Crying Game." The dignity and sensitivity
Davidson brought to the screen had such a profound impact on U.S.
audiences that the low-budget film was pulled from the art houses
into the cineplexes and raked in over $45 million.

But Jaye Davidson, a Black actor,  didn't win an Oscar either.

The movie itself had a dangerously reactionary base. It vilified
the Irish Republican Army, the oldest national liberation movement
in the world. Since the movie was produced in England, the
occupying imperialist force in Ireland, it can only be viewed as an
attempt to drive a wedge between the lesbian, gay, transgendered
and other progressive movements and the struggle for Irish
liberation.

The academy telegraphed its endorsement of the reactionary content
of "The Crying Game" by handing writer/director Neil Jordan the
award for Original Screenplay. Jordan thanked the actors, omitting
the two Black performers: Davidson and Forest Whittaker.

ON A PROGRESSIVE NOTE

The good news is that Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins used the
podium to call on the Clinton administration to release the
HIV-positive Haitians imprisoned by U.S. troops at Guantanamo,
allow them to immigrate into this country and admit that HIV is not
a crime.

"The Panama Deception," a film that tears the lies off the 1989
Pentagon invasion of that country, won Best Documentary. It took a
grass-roots movement of thousands of anti-imperialist people in
this country and their meager funds to defy government censorship.
Producer Barbara Trent spoke on the continuing need to expose the
U.S. government for its crimes in Panama.

The event paid lip-service to honoring women in film, but it was a
sham. In fact this was one of the worst years for women in
movies--the year of "A Few Good Men."

What was noteworthy this year was not how many performers wore red
ribbons to give visibility to the AIDS crisis, but how many
didn't--including master of ceremonies Billy Crystal. Last year
when the academy feared an ACT UP disruption at the ceremonies, red
ribbons were mandatory.

What you probably didn't see last night were the demonstrations
outside. Janitors protested the meager wages they receive from the
management of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Sleazy movies,
industry sexism and Hollywood's role in the destruction of the
environment were also targeted.


(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21 St.,
New York, NY 10010; via e-mail: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org.)



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