The Oscars will never appreciate black art: The 98th Academy Awards showed me that.

I complete believe in my heart of hearts that the Oscars will never truly have an appreciation of black art. Yes, Ryan Coogler’s 2025 vampire film, Sinners is currently the most Oscar nominated film (with 16 nominations) in Oscar’s history which is an accomplishment within itself, but to only take away four of those awards still shows the bias the Oscar’s have with black films that don’t showcase slavery or other traumatic situations for black people. Sinners break the mold of what can be a black film, especially with black art. To showcase the beauty of the dark skin actors, to center the story around our roots in terms of music, and to even feature vampires as the antagonist pushes the mold to the extreme. Coogler had been open to say that he doesn’t create his films for the sake of the Oscar because had the ending of Sinners featured a white savior trope, or even featured elements of slavery throughout, I believe they would’ve taken home best picture. However, for the sake of the culture, the ending did not feature any. 

To center a black film not around slavery or a white savior trope broke the mold. Even if Sinners was gradually popular within not only the web outside the academy, but many celebrities and actors and other creatives have taken an appreciation for the movie. The demographic of Academy votes are (outdated) white men, so naturally they would favor the vote for the movie directed and written from a fellow white man. It’s not to discredit the work of Paul Thomas Anderson because I do think he is a brilliant screen writer, nor do I want to dismantle the platform of his art, but I can say in the same breath that Sinners goes beyond in terms of everything put forward in terms of a movie that exceeds the Academy in terms of an innovative and culturally current film that will stand the test of time. 

 

It’s strange that the Oscars would give the award to a film that has criticism surrounding the hyper-sexualization and overall negative depiction of black women versus a film that worked to uplift black culture, especially demonstrating the diversity with its black women. Even the movie Moonlight which won best picture in 2017 didn’t get the love it deserved because of the slight incident with the mix up of movies that overshadowed the win of the movie. 

It’s important to also celebrate the small wins such as Ryan Coogler, along with Jordan Peele being among the black men with the best original screenplay Oscar, Autumn Durald Arkapaw being the first black and Filipina woman and woman in general to win the Oscar for best cinematography for the movie, and of course the well earned Oscar for best lead actor for Michael B. Jordan, making him the 6th black man to win an award for acting (another issue within itself).