#OscarsSoWhite? Representation in Hollywood

Salons at Stowe

#OscarsSoWhite?

Representation in Hollywood

February 16, 2017

Filmmaker and professor at the University of Hartford, Pedro Bermudez, served as a featured guest in a conversation on the Oscars and representation in Hollywood. Mr. Bermudez began by discussing his career as a filmmaker and storyteller. His career began as a student at the University of Hartford and continued at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Mr. Bermudez is the director of Hasta Mañana, a short Spanish-language film shot in Hartford. With the film, Mr. Bermudez sought to explore themes and stories central to the Puerto Rican experience and community.

After describing his background and career, the conversation shifted to #OscarsSoWhite. #OscarsSoWhite is a viral hashtag created by writer and Managing Editor of Broadway Black, April Reign, to draw attention to the lack of people of color nominated for Oscars at the 2016 awards. Conversation focused on the need for a hashtag like #OscarsSoWhite and the ways in which it explicitly draws attention to the lack of representation of people of color in Hollywood. While the hashtag was created in 2016, when no actors of color were nominated for any of the acting categories at the Oscars, the hashtag took off, and has been used to draw attention to the lack of representation of people of color in film, television, and media. The hashtag continued to be used in relation to the 2017 Oscars, even as more actors of color were nominated. Participants and Mr. Bermudez noted that even in 2017, with films like Moonlight, Fences, and Hidden Figures, all which feature Black actors in lead roles and stories that focus on people of color, there is still need for more and broader representation. Mr. Bermudez commented that Latinx actors and Asian actors are still vastly underrepresented in front of the camera and filmmakers of color are often not given opportunities to direct or produce big-budget Hollywood films. The status-quo in Hollywood is often white-male led, directed and produced films, and only with attention will this change. The conversation concluded with Mr. Bermudez encouraging guests to seek out a support a range of films and media, not just stories that feature all white casts and crews.
Inspiration to Action

Create your own art
Seek out and support (with your money) people of color/women filmmakers
Call out biases in film and media
Use the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag on social media to draw attention to films, television shows, and award ceremonies that lack diverse representation
Be a critical viewer-think about what you’re watching; question what you see; discuss what you view with others
Develop a sense of media literacy where critical thinking and viewing is a common practice
Discuss representation in film and media with friends, family and young people

Location Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

Doors Open 5:30 PM

Program 5:30 - 7:30 PM

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Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.