Spike Lee Questions Academy’s Diversity

Director Spike Lee said the near total absence of African Americans among this year’s list of Oscar nominees again raises questions about the extent of racial diversity within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“Until the academy actually starts to recruit younger members and there is more diversity in it, I don’t see a change happening,” said Lee, whose feature-length documentary, “4 Little Girls,” received an Oscar nomination Tuesday.

Unlike last year, when Cuba Gooding Jr. won best supporting actor for “Jerry Maguire” and Marianne Jean-Baptiste was nominated for best supporting actress in “Secrets & Lies,” no minorities were nominated in major categories this year.

“That’s why I was not counting on this [nomination],” Lee said. “I was totally surprised. When I went to bed [Monday] night, I had no fingers or toes crossed. Nothing. I just went to sleep. I’ve been down this road plenty of times.”

Lee has never won an Oscar, but he was nominated in 1989 for his screenplay “Do the Right Thing.”

“I just think that as a whole, with African American artists in front and behind the camera, the academy has been slow to recognize their work,” the African American director said. “What I’m saying is not sour grapes or playing the angry black man, it’s just the truth. . . . How could Babyface not get nominated for ‘Soul Food’?

“Then the ones who win, you know, fit a certain mold,” Lee continued. “Like Morgan Freeman in ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ or Cuba Gooding Jr.’s character in ‘Jerry Maguire.’ There is a certain kind of black man that these academy members feel comfortable with. They were very comfortable with ‘Driving Miss Daisy,’ but if we had more characters like [Freeman’s chauffeur], there would have been no [1992] uprising in Los Angeles.”

In 1996, the Rev. Jesse Jackson organized nationwide protests to complain about the almost total absence of black and minority Oscar nominees that year, claiming it was evidence of “race exclusion and cultural violence” in Hollywood.

But last year, Jackson chose not to stage a repeat performance of his protest, saying he was pleased that Gooding and Jean-Baptiste were nominated along with two Asian American and Latino American nominees.