To paraphrase creator Russell Simmons, it may not have been the black Oscars, but it certainly could have been.
Rap biopic Straight Outta Compton, Will Smith and Creed’s Ryan Coogler and Michael B Jordan were largely ignored by the US Academy when nominations for Sunday’s ceremony were announced last month, but all came away with prizes from Thursday night’s rival All Def Movie awards.
Straight Outta Compton, the story of pioneering hip-hop outfit NWA’s rise to fame, took best film ahead of Beasts of No Nation, Chi-Raq, Concussion, Creed and Dope. Coogler won best director for his acclaimed Rocky spinoff, while Jordan took best actor for his lead role as light heavyweight boxer Adonis Creed. All were at one point or another tipped for Oscar nominations, but only Straight Outta Compton scored a nod in the best screenplay category.
A more controversial choice came in the best actress category, where Sanaa Lathan triumphed for her role as a successful career woman who embarks on a relationship with a psychopathic man in thriller The Perfect Guy. David M Rosenthal’s film received short shrift from critics and is currently rated just 20 per cent “rotten” on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Launched by hip-hop mogul Simmons in the wake of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy that has overshadowed this year’s awards season, the All Def Movie awards are designed to poke fun at the Oscars and provoke debate over film-industry racial homogeny. Guests arrived on a black carpet, and some of the more eccentric prizes were awarded for “best bad muh [expletive]” (Denzel Washington triumphed) and “best helpful white person” (Christoph Waltz won, but Robin Thicke turned up to accept the prize on behalf of “all white people”). Tony Rock, a stand-up comic and actor who is the younger brother of Academy Awards host Chris, duly took charge of proceedings.
A lifetime achievement award went to Will Smith, whose turn as forensic pathologist Dr Bennet Omalu in Concussion was nominated for a Golden Globe but failed to pick up an Oscars nod. Smith has denied that the joint decision with his wife Jada Pinkett Smith to boycott the Academy Awards over diversity has anything to do with the snub.
“We’re celebrating people who would not otherwise have been celebrated,” Simmons, the co-founder of Def Jam and producer of films such as Krush Groove and The Nutty Professor, told Entertainment Weekly on the black carpet. “I’m less concerned with integration of the Oscars, although I’m very appreciative, and I applaud them for the work they’re doing now. I’m less concerned with that than I am the senior ranks in Hollywood. Who picks the talent? Who decides which director will work or not?”
Ice Cube and his son O’Shea Jackson Jr picked up the best film prize for Straight Outta Compton, the Cube-produced biopic in which Jackson Jr starred as his father, and the rapper was also garlanded with the most quoted movie prize for the comedy on Friday. Cube also won the coveted “best black survivor in a movie” prize for his turn in Anaconda.
In related news, the musician and actor has told the Hollywood Reporter he is ready to run his own studio, but is not foolish enough to sink his own money into the venture.
“I’m ready to run a studio. I’m ready to green light movies, and be in it to win it,” Cube said. “[But] then what you’re doing is fighting with your money to get back into the industry, or for them to use your money instead of their own. So, you got to figure out how to do it within the flow of the industry.”
Cube said traditional Hollywood studios simply “ain’t cool enough yet”, adding: “I mean, it’s still got gatekeepers. It’s got gatekeepers everywhere. Cool people still have a hard time showing what they got in Hollywood. And I’ve been fighting my whole career to show a different side. But there’s not enough Ice Cubes out there. There’s not enough Ice Cubes getting a chance to do their thing.”
