Uproar: Emma Sad Stone vs. Lily Glad Stone

Billie Schwab Dunn Pop Culture and Entertainment Reporter, Newsweek, March 11, 2024 (updated); Xochitl, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

I deserve this more than Gladstone. Sorry if they gave it to me. It's no one's fault. #statusquo

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Others recognized my contribution to film.

Lily Gladstone snubbed at Oscars, sparking uproar about old Academy and its disgusting lack of inclusion and opportunity.

Native American actor Lily Gladstone (the titular lead actress in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, actually supporting Leonardo DiCaprio in his starring role alongside co-lead Robert De Niro, about the super-rich Osage tribe, at one time comprising the richest people in the world murdered by white people for their money, a shocking true story).

Quick, throw Ken in for some much needed comic relief. And show Margot's reaction.

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1st movie predicted Easy A[wards]

Lily Gladstone was nominated for Best Actress at the 96th annual Academy Awards for her role in Killers of the Flower Moon — and many people are furious she was overlooked in favor of white Emma Stone, who was previously awarded this prize for Lala Land.

If Gladstone had been recognized on Sunday night, she would have become the first Native American person ever to win an Academy Award, aka an Oscar. the Native American woman who went up to accept the Best Actor award that one time was just picking it up for Marlon Brando, as he was making a statement about the Academy and its insular possibly racist outlook on movies.

• #OscarSoWhite was at the 87th Academy Awards

The Context

This isn't about race because, well, it just isn't!

Gladstone received near-universal acclaim for her performance as real-life figure Mollie Burkhart in Scorsese's film, which chronicled the series of real-life murders by whites of tribal members of the Osage Nation, known as the Reign of Terror.

Set in 1920s Osage County, Oklahoma, the white killers were involved in a plot to steal the rights to the Native's oil-rich land.

Gladstone, who is from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, previously made history when she was first nominated for the award as she became the first Native American woman to ever be put forward.

However, she is not the first Indigenous nominee for Best Actress, with previous contenders including Yalitza Aparicio for 2018's Roma and Keisha Castle-Hughes for 2003's Whale Rider. Both women also didn't go on to be recognized with an award from the Academy.

• Lily Gladstone Oscars snub sparks uproar (newsweek.com)

COMMENTARY

But Stone is white and is more deserving.

"Academy too white" and variations on this theme were all the rage in previous years. How little has changed, and that's what the public is mad about, not just Native Americans. It's the movie business, not the movie social reform movement through cinema or movie pastime. What can be done? Mass protests, boycotts, BDS? Let's boycott, sanction, and divest from the Hollywood apparatus and cable TV. No more Netflix. Now it's time to found a representative media. The really sad thing is that a movie about the oppression of the Indigenous people is what revealed how that oppression, that slow genocide and erasure, is continuing.

Y'all are actually oppressing us in our country!

Near the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, an atrocity happened to wealthy and prosperous Black people. White neighbors could not bare it, so they entered "Black Wall Street" business district, where the largest concentration of Black professionals in the U.S. were at that time, and they murdered, massacred, and barrel bombed the Black population, burning down their businesses and homes to level out the playing field so that white could be the master race again after slavery had ended. Neither Native Americans nor Blacks have recovered from these horrible incidents, these historical atrocities. Instead, many whites blame Black and BIPOCs for their downtrodden status, never mind who did the trotting on them to put them back in "their place." It's not a two class society. It's much more complex than that. And the racism, implicit bias, prejudice, systemic inequality and lack of opportunity all quite predictably point in the direction of the outcomes we see in our society for the second-, third-, and fourth-class citizens.

The answer? Grin and bear it, and shut the H up about it. Like it or lump it. Take it or leave it. Go back to your own country. You're from here? Oh, well, who cares? Go find somewhere else to live.