The Oscars and Hegemony

While we see hegemony in different ways in different cultures, it is pretty evident that hegemony in celebrity culture is the same kind we see in American culture. Government status aside, it is evident that in both of these cultures, that a certain type of person seems to always be on top. In today's post I will focus in how the 2016 Oscars are ripping the sheet off of a major issue in our society. While slavery ended over 150 years ago and most of us would not consider the United States a prejudice country, we still see signs of prejudice in our daily lives. The Oscars is an event that celebrates the best of the best in movies, from actors to directors and even costume designers, celebrities of all kinds flock to this event in hopes to bring an Oscar home.

But, in 2016 the Oscars are in the spotlight for a very different reason, for their lack of African American and other multicultural groups nominations.

Before we get too far into discussing this issue lets get down some definitions, we will mainly focus on issues of Hegemony and will touch on how Culture can effect this.
Culture: A collective mental programming of the people in an environment.
Hegemony: In culturally diverse societies, everyday practices and shared beliefs provide foundation for complex systems of domination.
Race: Physical attributes of a person.
Ethnicity: A Group of people of the same descent with a common and distinctive culture that share a heritage.

In many societies we see a dominant culture or type of person rise to power, we see it everyday in American culture as well. But it seems that the 2016 Oscars are trying to break the trend of just following the norm and going along with whatever the dominant culture (in this case Caucasian actors and actresses) says is right. Many actors and actresses are taking a stand against the Oscars this year and boycotting for their right to see more races and ethnicity's among the nominees.

I think the bigger issue here is that America still does not see their inability to accept other culture and ethnicity's as a problem. Growing up we were always taught that America was built on being a melting pot of many different people and cultures and lately it has become more evident to me that we are not including these other cultures into important mile stones of our country. While the Oscars may seem like a menial celebrity awards show to some I think it is a platform to show the people of our country some of the real issues we are facing. Celebrities such as Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith are taking this opportunity and their stature in society to try to make a difference.