In an interview with GMA this morning, Will Smith confirmed he will not be attending the Oscars this year for basically the same reasons his wife won’t be attending. Stacy Dash is probably on Twitter right now. I usually don’t keep up.
“I heard her words and was happy to be married to that woman,” he told ABC’s Good Morning America this morning. “If we’re not part of the solution then we’re part of the problem.” He added that it’s not about him or any person in particular, “It’s about children sitting down and seeing this show and not seeing themselves represented.”
In the interview, Will Smith says that each time he’s been nominated for an Academy Award, he’s lost to a black actor (Denzel Washington and Forest Whittaker), but sees the recent shift in America politics has now become reflective of the Academy and understands the complexities of what he’s doing. Makes sense. In other news, Ice Cube doesn’t really deal in nuance and said, “maybe we shoulda put a slave in Straight Outta Compton“. To be fair, they did have slaves in Mad Max:Fury Road, but they were white. Kinda goes with this year’s theme.
