Stephen King continues to walk back a recent controversial Twitter take about diversity vs. quality at the Academy Awards, writing an op-ed for The Washington Post arguing that the Oscars are “rigged in favor of the white folks.”
“Creative excellence comes from every walk, color, creed, gender and sexual orientation, and it’s made richer and bolder and more exciting by diversity, but it’s defined by being excellent,” King wrote in a piece published Monday.
The best-selling author created a furor earlier this month when, after the Oscars only nominated one actor of color and no female directors, he initially tweeted that “I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong.”
The backlash was swift: Ava DuVernay, the writer and director of Netflix’s “When They See Us,” said King’s words were “backward and ignorant.”
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And at the recent Television Critics Association meeting, Cynthia Erivo – the only Oscar nominee of color this year for “Harriet” and a star of HBO’s adaptation of King’s “The Outsider” – weighed in by saying that in 2019 “we had a flurry of beautiful pieces by people who are of a diverse nature – black women, women in general.”
She added it was up to people in positions of power to “open their eyes and open doors” in order to better representation in the movie industry.
In his op-ed, King admitted that he found himself in “the social-media version of the stocks and subject to a barrage of electronic turnips and cabbages” after his first statement.
King wrote that there has been an improvement in diversity in the Academy’s membership – he himself is a member of the writers’ voting bloc – but it’s “not even within shouting distance of good enough.” The horror author wondered how many older white Oscar voters like him actually watched films like “Harriet” or “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” and also decried the “man-fiction” that comprises the majority of the best picture race: “There are fights, guns and many white faces.”
While this year’s Oscar nominations prove “we don’t live in a perfect world,” he concluded, “maybe someday we will. I can dream, can’t I? After all, I make stuff up for a living.”
