Pretty much everyone already expected the Dolby Theatre to be full of white faces on Feb. 28 for the 88th Academy Awards. There barely being any people of color in the award nominees and the resulting boycotts and public criticisms of the Academy by those same forgotten faces made that pretty clear. But, due to a stipulation concerning who makes it onto the invite list in the first place, it looks like the boycotts are going to gain some more supporters.

If you were an executive producer for a movie based on your life, you’d expect to be a part of it from start to finish, right? You were there to live all of the experiences, help get the project off of the ground and had the pleasure of sitting back to watch it be well-received by the public. It wouldn’t be a big leap to assume that you’d get to join in on the celebration when that same movie possibly wins an award. Not according to the Academy.

Straight Outta Compton is a biographical film that talks about the ups and down in the career of the respective members of N.W.A. Ironically enough, the only Academy award it was nominated for was Best Original Screenplay, which would only honor the white writers that wrote down the life experiences of five black men that changed the face of music. Ice Cube, an executive producer of the film, and the cast, which mostly consisted of black men, apparently weren’t invited because they weren’t credited as writers.

According to reports from The Root, Ice Cube wouldn’t have attended the awards even if he had been invited. This may be because he’s joining the list of stars boycotting the awards or because he has better things to do.

Some may ask, “Well, if he wasn’t going to go, why does it matter?” The answer’s simple. At the very least, Ice Cube and the cast deserve the opportunity to decide whether or not they wanted to go. It’s already a slap in the face that the only nominations went to the only white people involved except for Paul Giamatti.

Maybe the Academy was trying to save themselves the bad press of having Ice Cube throw his invitation away for the world to see. But that plan’s kind of backfiring as it starts to appear that want they boycott to happen.

Chris Rock’s opening monologue is beginning to look like the most anticipated thing about the entire night. How about everyone tune in at 8:30 EST/5:30 EST just to watch that part and then start the boycott after? That way we’ll all get to watch Chris say what we’ve been waiting to and make him look good because the ratings the rest of the night will plummet. Just a thought.

 

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