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David Oyelowo, snubbed by the Oscars for his praised performance as Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma, has called out the larger problem of black actors and actresses being ignored when they aren’t in “subservient” roles. The star made his comments at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Watch the video below.
“Generally speaking, we as black people have been celebrated more for when we are subservient, when we are not being leaders or kings or being at the center of our own narrative, driving it forward,” explained Oyelowo. “To me, Denzel Washington should have won for playing Malcolm X.” Oyelowo then pointed out that Sidney Poitier didn’t even get nominated for his iconic performance as an authority figure in In The Heat of the Night.
He continued, “We’ve just got to come to the point whereby there isn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy, a notion of who black people are, that feeds into what we are celebrated as, not just in the Academy, but in life generally. We have been slaves, we have been domestic servants, we have been criminals, we have been all of those things. But we’ve been leaders, we’ve been kings, we’ve been those who changed the world.” Watch what Oyelowo said in the video below, and tell us what you think.
