Academy Awards Controversy Gathered More Support; Ian McKellen Urges Gay Actors To Be Acknowledged
More and more celebrities are speaking up supporting this year's racial diversity issue in the Academy Awards controversy. This week, Sir Ian McKellen took the discussion further saying that it is not only colored people who were not given the chance to win in the competition but also gay actors.
"As a representative of the industry they're in, it's receiving complaints which I fully sympathize with. It's not only black people who've been disregarded by the film industry, it used to be women, it's certainly gay people to this day. And these are all legitimate complaints, and the Oscars are the focus of those complaints at the moment," he told Sky News via People.
The Telegraph pointed out that no open gay celebrity has ever won an Oscar. On the other hand, the committee had given a win for straight men playing a homosexual role before such as Tom Hanks receiving an Oscar in the 1993 movie Philadelphia, Philip Seymour Hofman for Capote in 2006, and Sean Penn for Milk in 2009.
"No openly gay man has ever won the Oscar; I wonder if that is prejudice or chance. How clever, how clever," McKellen mused. "What about giving me one for playing a straight man?" the 76-year old actor said.
Ian McKellen had been nominated twice for the Academy Awards in the 2001's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and 1998's Gods and Monsters. But he never win any award.
During the interview, the actor said that he had prepared speeches for the event but had 'to put the piece of paper containing it in his pocket twice' as his name was never called every time.
On social media, the movement #OscarsSoWhite has been spread criticizing the alleged unfair selection of nominees said to be composed of all white actors for two consecutive years now, Breitbart said.
With some actors threatening to boycott the event and some airing their protests, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Friday that this year, they are changing their voting rules and organizational structure previously slammed for containing a majority of Caucasian voters.
