Six Years After #OscarsSoWhite, Its Creator Questions How Far We’ve Come
I have had the privilege to attend several different film festivals in the past five years and the Sundance Film Festival is by far my favorite. This is due in large part to the atmosphere that is intentionally created by Black and Brown people and organizations that have striven to create something of a safe space for marginalized communities. It’s impressive, really. We trudge up snowy mountains and brave the January cold (neither of which am I fond of) and notice perhaps one or two people on Main Street, the main Sundance thoroughfare, who look like us. And then we step inside places like the Macro Lodge, or the Blackhouse, or Latino Hub, or Latinx House, and it feels like a family reunion. If your family was famous. At any given time, you may walk up to the bar and find yourself standing next to an A-List actress or public figure, or look over to the corner and see that one person whose face you recognize but you just can’t quite remember their name. Not unlike that second cousin on your daddy’s side. But it’s all love, with very little hint of pretense. There’s a good chance you could end up doing the electric slide to Beyoncé’s version of “Before I Let Go” next to that movie star you’ve only seen on a 30-foot screen or on the laptop you closed earlier that day.
These safe spaces are necessary, however, because the rest of Sundance doesn’t always feel as inviting. Elsewhere on Main Street, it feels more like our everyday lives. Making our way uphill only to be in a room when you are one of a few people of color, making eye contact with a forced smile or an eye roll, acknowledging that… here we go again. Not just in the audience, but also on most panels and in the press lines, the faces surrounding you, looking back at you, don’t resemble your own. So you do the work that you have come to do as a film critic or journalist, and then you retreat back into those Black and Brown spaces as a respite.
The importance of film critics and journalists from traditionally underrepresented communities cannot be understated. I’m from the generation that hung on to the thumbs of Siskel and Ebert. If those thumbs turned down, the movie wasn’t worth seeing. Or so we thought. But let’s explore that further. We are all…
