Angela Bassett’s 2023 Oscars snub still feels racist
Angela Bassett’s 2023 Best Supporting Actress snub is back in the news. Everyone assumed she would be honored for her performance as Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever; she wasn’t. The veteran actress recently spoke to Town & Country Magazine about the moment she lost to Jamie Lee Curtis.
“I found it interesting,” Bassett told Town & Country Magazine. “Interesting that I wouldn’t be allowed to be disappointed at an outcome where I thought I was deserving… No, I have put in: put in the time, put in good work over time. I didn’t think that was a gift. I thought it was a given.”
Bassett’s lack of smile when Curtis won fast became a meme. But behind the meme there was some nastiness of the “why isn’t she more grateful?” variety. I saw her described as “tacky” for not smiling. Plenty of people came her defense and asked we were scrutinizing a Black woman so vigorously. Was she not allowed to have a human moment?
Angela Bassett’s Oscars loss is still important today
Two years later, the snub is still embedded in the cultural consciousness. I think that’s because it’s a microcosm of the way Hollywood treats Black women. They’re allowed to get up to the door which is often slammed in their face. It wasn’t just Angela Bassett who felt this way during the 2023 Oscars: Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyer didn’t even get nominations for their work in The Woman King and Till respectively. Till director Chinonye Chukwu spoke out about her movie receiving no Oscar nominations., saying “We live in a world and work in industries that are so aggressively committed to upholding whiteness and perpetuating an unabashed misogyny towards Black women.” Only 2% of Oscar winners had been women of color in 2023.
At the Oscars, people were seemingly furious that Black women were asserting themselves. There is one telling quote out there from an unnamed actor and Oscar voter who spoke to Entertainment Weekly in 2023 before the ceremony.
“I think the Academy is making an effort to please everybody, and it’s reflective of the state of the world, but I feel like they’re being held hostage — somewhat unfairly — by the wokeness,” he complained, before going on to say: “When they get in trouble for not giving Viola Davis an award, it’s like, no, sweetheart, you didn’t deserve it. We voted, and we voted for the five we thought were best. It’s not fair for you to start suddenly beating a frying pan and say [they’re] ignoring Black people. They’re really not, they’re making an effort. Maybe there was a time 10 years ago when they were, but they have, of all the high-profile things, been in the forefront of wanting to be inclusive. Viola Davis and the lady director need to sit down, shut up, and relax.”
Black women deserved to be seen and heard
Yep, those were his words to Black women – shut up. And it was this person who had a say in Oscar voting and thus in snubs like Bassett’s. It’s really hard not to feel like she ultimately lost of because of racism, with white actress Jamie Lee Curtis being considered a safe choice in a race where the Asian-lead movie Everything Everywhere All At Once was winning.
Maybe that’s why so many people jumped to Bassett’s defense when she let her emotions show on her face during that one meme-able moment. She wasn’t shutting up.
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