Ellen C. Scott is Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. She is author of Cinema Civil Rights (Rutgers University Press, 2015).
The 2016 Academy Awards nominations’ whiteness has become a national civil rights issue. In his opening monologue at the ceremony, host Chris Rock stated: “I’m sure there wasn’t no black nominees [in] ’62 or ’63. And black people did not protest. Why? Because we had real things to protest at…
Now is an apt time to look back on Caleb Peterson’s protest, both as an antecedent and as inspiration. His strategy, which turned Hollywood’s moneymaking spectacles into race relations controversies, smartly used theatricality as a tool for protest. While its impact on equal hiring practices was unclear, it can still be read as radical and successful.