Spike Lee says he will not attend this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. (Charles Sykes, Invision/ AP)
Calls for a boycott of the Academy Awards are growing over the Oscars’ second straight year of all-white acting nominees, as Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith each said Monday they will not attend this year’s ceremony.
In a lengthy Instagram post, Lee said he “cannot support” the “lily white” Oscars. Noting that he was writing on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Lee — who in November was given an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards — said he was fed up: “Forty white actors in two years and no flava at all,” he wrote.
In a video message on Facebook, Pinkett Smith also said she wouldn’t attend or watch the Oscars in February. Pinkett Smith, whose husband Will Smith wasn’t nominated for his performance in the NFL head-trauma drama “Concussion,” said it was time for people of color to disregard the Academy Awards.
This year, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has made a point of presenting a more inclusive show. The Feb. 28 broadcast will be hosted by Chris Rock and produced by “Django Unchained” producer Reginald Hudlin and David Hill.
