It’s safe to say Spike Lee has ruffled a few feathers!
“Everybody in here probably voted for Obama but when I go to offices, I see no black folks except for the brother man at the security who checks my name off the list as I go into the studio,” the director said on Saturday night, Nov. 14, while receiving an honorary Oscar from Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson and Wesley Snipes at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ seventh annual Governors Awards. “So we can talk ‘yabba yabba yabba’ but we need to have some serious discussion about diversity and get some flavor up in this. This industry is so behind sports it’s ridiculous.”
The She’s Got To Have It director continued. “It’s easier to be the president of the United States as a black person than be the head of a studio,” he continued. “Honestly, it’s easier to be president of the United States than the head of a studio or head of network.”
Lee then urged Hollywood executives to take a closer look at the people around them. “I don’t know if you noticed but the United States census bureau says by the year 2043, white Americans are going to be the minority in this country,” he said. “And all you people out there in the position of hiring, you better get smart because you’ll work for us. Reflect what this country looks like.”
He did however, have a few words of praise for president Cheryl Boone Isaacs for her work in promoting diversity in Hollywood. “President, keep it going,” he said. “I know it’s tough. We got a long way to go.”
Lee is just one of many Black talents who have publicly addressed the lack of diversity in Hollywood. Following her big win at the 67th annual prime time Emmy Awards, Viola Davis had a message on diversity of her own for Hollywood. “You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there. So here’s to all the writers, the awesome people that are Ben Sherwood, Paul Lee, Peter Nowalk, Shonda Rhimes, people who have redefined what it means to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be a leading woman, to be Black.”
