The Guardian reports that the Oscar nomination of British actress Andrea Riseborough for Best Supporting Actress was marred by another racial scandal. Many American filmmakers discerned discrimination against black actresses in Riseborough’s unexpected inclusion in the short list of the award. However, according to The Guardian, Riceborough’s sudden success – which has already backfired on her – seems to have been based not on racism, but on clever PR.

The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has found itself at the center of another racial scandal: after British actress Andrea Riceborough was “unexpectedly” nominated for her role in “To Leslie,” for its annual Best Supporting Actress award, there was discussion in the United States that Riceborough essentially took the spot that should have gone to black actresses – including Viola Davis, who played the warrior queen, and Danielle Dedwiler for her work in “Till,” writes The Guardian.

After the list of nominees was announced last week, “Till” director Chinonye Chukwu accused the American film industry of “protecting white status and perpetuating blatant misogyny against black women,” according to the newspaper. For his part, U.S. film critic Robert Daniels wrote in an article for The Los Angeles Times,

“While only a lazy man would not censure Riseborough for taking away the nomination from black women, as long as we focus our anger on individuals, corrupt systems live on. <…> When black women who have done everything the system has asked of them – going to lavish dinners, hosting private screenings for academy members, talking to the press at receptions, showing up in all their glory on TV and publishing articles about themselves in magazines – are ignored, and the person who did everything beyond the system is rewarded, what does that tell us?

As noted in The Guardian’s piece, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite (“Oscars are so white.” – InoTV), which first gained popularity in 2016 when there was not a single nominee in the “acting” categories who didn’t belong to the white race, began to flicker in social media again. 

On Tuesday, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences promised to hold a special meeting to make sure that the rules governing the PR campaigns of the films have not been violated, and also to determine whether these rules need to be adjusted “in the era of social networks and digital communication”, writes The Guardian.

Meanwhile, the success of the “To Leslie” PR campaign has already taken a nasty toll on Riseborough: as a member of the American Film Academy told the press on condition of anonymity, “no matter how this story ends, and whether or not the campaign has produced results, her reputation is now failing,” according to The Guardian.

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