The Academy To Investigate Andrea Riseborough's Oscar Best Actress Nom

[RAMROD 87,020]

 

By now we’re all aware that British star Andrea Riseborough scored a best actress Oscar nomination for To Leslie after her director’s wife and others orchestrated a skilled grassroots political campaign that made Obama 2008 look like Hillary 2016. Mary McCormack and friends emailed and called tons of members of the Academy’s actors branch, begging them to see the little-watched alcoholic drama and post online about Riseborough’s searing performance. The result: dozens of influential stars—Gwyneth, Jen, Howard, Cate, Amy Adams, Ed Norton, and many, many more—sang her praises and helped win her the coveted nomination. 

But the shock nom has created a brewing shitstorm within the Academy because Riseborough seemingly pushed out Viola Davis(The Woman King) and Danielle Deadwyler(Till), two actresses of color that were backed by well-funded campaigns by Sony and MGM/Amazon, respectively, and were widely predicted to score honors, yet presumably do not have access to a network of powerful (and, let’s be honest, white) friends in the Academy to campaign for Oscars on their behalf. To some, it was the worst kind of racially-tinged cronyism, where the connections outshined the work. “We live in a world and work in industries that are so aggressively committed to upholding whiteness and perpetuating and unabashed misogyny toward Black women,” the Till director Chinonye Chukwu posted on Instagram.  

 

https://puck.news/was-the-andrea-riseborough-oscar-campaign-illegal/

Edited January 27 by RAMROD

[bionic 32,040]

drag me but i have zero issue with her using her network to secure a nom. isn't that literally the point of a campaign? how many stars like meryl, jamie lee curtis, leo etc have got noms because of their name alone or because its their 'time'?

im not sure how this one nomination in particular is racist. lots of white peple dont have hollywood connections too. there are plenty of other noms that could've been cut in favor of Black women candidates

[weed 60,359]

Idk how I feel about it, I don't understand how Viola Davis has less connections than some random actress. Idk! People send things to members all the time. I guess it depends how intense she was messaging people? EVERY single person? idk

[dit 41,517]

Yes she networked her way to a nom but I don’t like the narrative that she stole a black womans nom. That’s REALLY unfair. How was she to know the black actresses wouldn’t get enough votes in? It seems like a hit piece and hate campaign. We all know the industry STILL has a representation issue but to pin all this heavy and loaded mess on this actress is dubious and rather cruel

Edited January 27 by dit

[jacs vs looser 2,522]

Oh please, this is just the academy trying to pin the blame on not having nominated WOC for best actress. 

What about Cate Blanchett and Michelle Williams? Are you going to tell me they did not campaign at all? Do they not have friends in Hollywood who helped vote them in? Please... 

[bionic 32,040]

didnt several seasons of kathy griffin's life on the d-list document her trying to network her way into various award nominations (i remmebr grammys the most)

its just the name of the game.abba

[Anderson123 26,845]

Do you mind if we also investigate Best Actress from last year? 

[alsemanche 75,193]

This is so random Ofc she's gonna use her networks to campaign, isn't that the whole point? 

Also Viola Davis deserved a nom for The Woman King, she was amazing in it. 

[NATAH 24,109]

i thought the entire point of these things were connections, campaigns, bribes and paychecks?

[Levine 16,400]

I remember reading something similar about Nicole Kidman last year, but of course it didn't make any noise and the thing died pretty fast.

 

[Franch Toast 24,156]

For those not understanding why this is a violation (copied & pasted from Reddit):

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/10mcs8b/comment/j62dxyh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

"- Academy voting rules are actually super strict so the Academy board is having a meeting next week to determine if this violated any of them.

- Rule 10 of Academy voting is the one this campaign might have violated: "Contacting Academy members directly and in a manner outside of the scope of these rules to promote a film or achievement for Academy Award consideration is expressly forbidden."

- Here is an email that the wife of To Leslie's director, Mary McCormak, sent to her friends, which might be considered lobbying: "If you’re willing to post every day between now and Jan 17th, that would be amazing! But anything is helpful, so please do whatever makes you comfortable. And what’s more comfortable than posting about a movie every day!”

- In 2014, the Academy rescinded a nomination for composer Bruce Broughton for a similar reason, because he was found to have “improperly lobbied” more than 70 members of the music branch via email.

- Frances Fisher, who was one of the actors being the most aggressive about helping with the online campaign, also might have violated a rule, Rule 11, which pertains to “References to Other Nominees”. Breaking this rule carries a one-year suspension of membership for first-time offenders. In an Instagram post Frances listed all of the actresses Riseborough would be competing against and implied that they were "locks". Viola Davis was one of the actresses she mentioned by name and she didn't wind up getting a nomination, so it could be argued that by Frances attempting to convince voters that Davis was a lock, she swayed the vote in an "illegal" manner. (Edited to add: this would only be a violation of rules if turns out Frances was told by McCormack or anyone else on the To Leslie team to post about the movie, which she almost definitely was - there's no way she just independently decided to campaign for the movie at the exact same time all of the other celebs did without persuasion - so it doesn't look good for her.)

TL;DR depending on how the Academy governors board decides to vote, the campaign might have broken two key voting rules and could possibly be rescinded."

 

[MelbHawker 5,766]

I just don’t think it’s that serious  

[Ziggy 9,329]

1 hour ago, jacs vs looser said:

Oh please, this is just the academy trying to pin the blame on not having nominated WOC for best actress. 

What about Cate Blanchett and Michelle Williams? Are you going to tell me they did not campaign at all? Do they not have friends in Hollywood who helped vote them in? Please... 

while I agree, I think the difference is between using connections to find a different way to nomination and a well-funded campaign that is “the way it’s done.” Cate Blanchett was basically a shoe-in from release bc of the marketing and promo that supported Tár.

it sounds to me like the issue comes down to rules and regulations more than moral right or wrong. Like direct lobbying is a no no but going to every event under the sun in the run-up? That’s just putting your face out there. I get it. They don’t want anyone to win bc of connections and would rather they win based on the merits of their performance. So it just comes down to particulars and it sounds to me like they definitely toed the line of more than a few. My bigger red flag is that no one who was lobbied at raised this concern sooner.

[Ziggy 9,329]

1 hour ago, alsemanche said:

This is so random Ofc she's gonna use her networks to campaign, isn't that the whole point? 

Also Viola Davis deserved a nom for The Woman King, she was amazing in it. 

It’s the semantics of direct lobbying vs indirect. They’re meeting to determine if her campaign conducted direct lobbying, essentially, which is a no no

[alsemanche 75,193]

3 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

It’s the semantics of direct lobbying vs indirect. They’re meeting to determine if her campaign conducted direct lobbying, essentially, which is a no no

ohh alright, now i get it