Critique: "It looks Like the 2020 Oscars Are All About the White-Dad Movie (Again)"






This vogue article written by Emma Specter gives an insight on the Academy Awards’ lack of diversity in their nominations. Throughout the piece, the angle is clear: the writer believes there IS a lack of diversity in the nominations that the Academy deems “Oscar-worthy.” Most of the nominations are praises to straight, white men in the industry, both as actors and directors. In 2016, the hashtag “#OscarsSoWhite” began to trend, as a result of the majority white (and male) nominations.

The writer refers to refers to other sources such as Vanity Fair and The New York Times to support her statistics and facts about these movies. Most of the other articles Specter includes in this piece are from other Vogue articles to support her statements. Although most of her supporting articles do come from Vogue, I don’t think they necessarily hurt her argument since Vogue is considered a credible entertainment news site.
           
I thought the piece had a nice flow and good transitions. It was easy to follow the story and not get lost or have to read the prior sentence over and over again. The lead was very straightforward, it explained very quickly where this opinion piece was going to go. It wasn’t an attention-getter and just opened up with facts. The language was easy to understand and get the gist of what the topic was. There were a lot of movie references ,but I didn’t think they were hard to follow. The ending basically just summarized everything already said in the piece. I did like the question she included: “If it doesn’t reflect the diverse interests and demographics of filmgoers, will those viewers keep paying attention to what it dictates?” and the last sentence was a fun way to end, although there was no “call-to-action” (if there is one).

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