The 2018 Oscars Nominations’ ‘Lack of Latinos’ Called Out By Gina Rodriguez
'The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity', as she quoted Viola Davis.
This morning, the 2018 Oscar nominations were announced to some fanfare. Just a few years removed from the #OscarsSoWhite movement, the Academy Awards made some milestones with its latest round of nominations, including Greta Garwig becoming the first female to be up for Best Director for her directorial debut, Mary J. Blige becoming the first woman to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Song in the same year (as well as becoming the first woman to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a film by a woman of color), and Mudbound‘s Rachel Morrison becoming the first woman to be nominated for Best Cinematography. But, even with those firsts, the 2018 Oscars nominations are still lacking in a certain form diversity, as Gina Rodriguez has pointed out.
After Tiffany Haddish and Andy Serkis presented the nominees, the Jane the Virgin star took to Twitter to express her disappointment. “How I feel about the #Oscars this morning and the lack of Latinos,” she tweeted, before quoting Viola Davis. “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity” -Viola Davis (Thank you @RealGDT and @pixarcoco for being our visibility).”
When one person responded with “”A fantastic woman”-Chile, Guillermo del Toro and his 13 nominations… I wonder how many movies and actors were left behind this year…,” Rodriguez replied, “Try how many opportunities were given to showcase latino talent!”
Most recently, Rodriguez used her platform at the SAG Awards to advocate for more opportunities for Latinos, telling, Entertainment Weekly, “Women of color are needed to speak up and be a part of this movement. And for me, it means the world because we start to talk about inclusivity and there’s still a major lack of representation in the Latino community. So that is why I love to speak about Time’s Up, because I know that there is a community out there that is desiring to see themselves onscreen, and yet, we are still very sadly underrepresented. So studios, I love you guys, but we buy one of every four tickets at the box office every weekend, we hold studios up, Latinos hold studios up, we hold up movies at the box office. So cast us in your films so we can be a part of the growing demographic that so much is what we do for the studios.”
Related: Jordan Peele’s Reaction to Get Out’s Oscar Nominations Is the Only Good Twitter Thread
