The Abel Prize

The 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report, published by UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center, said that while minorities account for more than half of frequent US moviegoers, the representation of those minorities has dipped since 2013. The report describes that year as a “breakout year” for black films, including 12 Years a Slave and The Butler. In 2015, Straight Outta Compton made over $60m, which was $20m higher than expected. (Hollywood Diversity Report). The report says black audiences are repeatedly undervalued. What the report is proving is that the lack of diversity in the film industry is actually costing Hollywood money. The problem and solution seem almost obvious when looking at these specific examples – do not underestimate minority audiences and how much money they will collectively spend watching movies with diverse

There is a paradox called the “paradox of unanimity,” which states that the larger the poll is, the more unreliable a unanimous verdict becomes. For example, if a store had just been robbed, three people claimed to witness it, and they all choose the same suspect out of five suspects, then this unanimous decision can be considered almost completely legitimate. However, if in the same situation, except with 100 witnesses, a unanimous decision would almost certainly be wrong. This is due inferred due to numerous causes, such as decisions being affected by what others chose, and unreliability of memory. Sometimes, things appear too good to be true, and they oftentimes are. Kurt Vonnegut tells us this in “The Euphio Question.” He uses a

The Caldecott Medal is named after Randolph Caldecott, a 19th century illustrator. The award is presented to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children and was first awarded in 1938 for a book called Animals of the Bible illustrated by Dorothy Lathrop. The award is given out once a year every year since 1938 with the most recent award recipient being Dan Santat for The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend. Originally there were no awards given out to the illustrators of children books, but once you look at the detail and story building illustrations in each of the award winning books, it is easy to see why they created the award to begin with. It is my belief that without such colorful and interesting

An article from a magazine: Sean Smith and David Ansen, "2005 Oscar Roundtable" 31 January 2005

Caring. Risking. Healing. What do all of these of these have in common? These are all criteria of the Giraffe Award. The Giraffe Award is given to people who have shown a lot of caring, people who placed themselves at risk, people whose actions were healing, not divisive, and people who went above and beyond the call of duty. Six cases have been evaluated. A decision was made and now only two people will receive the Giraffe Award.

February 2, 1936. These five were the first in the hall of fame. the first ceremony was held on June 12, 1939. These five

On January 29th, 2016, Kevin D. Williamson a columnist of the National Review, wrote an article titled satirically titled On the Difficulties of the Movie Star. Williamson's argument revolves around the fact that although African Americans make up 12 percent of the US population, they are just six thousandths of a percent of the global population, and Hollywood is surely a “fully global enterprise”. He then reasons that it would be years even decades until an African American be nominated for an Academy Award if they were randomly distributed, just as it would be unlikely for ethnic minorities such as “Ukrainians or Comorians” to be nominated. He then stated that this shows African Americans, like white Americans are “overrepresented in Hollywood”.

This is the second straight year in which not a single person of color was nominated for an acting Oscar. Jada Pinkett took it upon herself to bring people’s attention to the lack of diversity in the Oscars and in Hollywood, in a video posted on her face book page. Diversity can be defined as the inclusion of different types of people, race, or cultures in a group or organization. United States of America is a country full of different diverse group of people, races (Black white), culture, and religion. An organization’s success and competitiveness depends upon its ability to embrace diversity and realize the benefits. For example, if workplace diversity issues are handled well in an organization, benefits are reported. Also, according to a broadcast on NPR, Mcevers says, “Right, I mean, one of the findings of your Hollywood diversity reports at UCLA is that movies with more diverse cast tend to make more

different genres. There are some movies that do not win awards but still are successful and some movies that win awards but are not very highly rated. By comparing these two results we can see if there is a difference in movie durations for award-winning movies and highly rated

What was the reason for us being: lynched, beaten, or forced to do what other’s told us? How come we were not equal? In the late 19th century, the united States were known for their brutal background due to domestic violence. And, at that time, Negros was not appreciated. We followed a strict policy, which had to do with: education and employment discrimination. So blacks decided that they had enough of being wrong all of the time. At that point the “eyes on the prize” came right on time.

Since the beginning of 2015, much debate in popular cultural discourse has involved the Academy Award “snubbing” of the hit 2014 drama Selma. Critics lauded the film as a cinematic masterpiece; Rotten Tomatoes, a noted outlet for professional and amateur film criticism honored Selma with an outstanding rating of 98%, one of the highest ratings from last season. Further, legendary film critic Richard Roper of the Chicago Sun Times referred to the film as “an important history lesson that never feels like a lecture.” However, even with overwhelming praise, Selma garnered a merger two Academy Award nominations (one for Best Picture, the other for Best Original Song “Glory”). Pop culture commentators and much of the general public viewed the lack

Everything as a beginning and that includes the Oscars. The very first Academy Awards Ceremony was privately held on May 16, 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The ceremony is infamous for being the only one held privately. There were no recording of any kind made public, and winners were simply announced in the newspapers. The hosts of the ceremony were William C. DeMille and Douglas Fairbanks, who was the president of the Motion Picture Academy at the time. Then event only lasted 15 minutes and managed to bring in only 270 people. Most of the nominees were notified in advance they had won, thus ensuring their attendance. The first film to win best picture was the silent war epic, Wings. The first actors to receive an award were Emil

The Prize is a non-fiction book written by author Daniel Yergin. It was published by Free Press Publishing on January 15, 1991 in New York City. Author Daniel Yergin is a graduate of Yale University and went on to receive his Ph.D. at Cambridge University. He is a chairman of the Cambridge Energy Research Associates and is the Global Energy Expert for the CNBC business news network. Dr. Yergin is highly respected in the field of energy. He received the Pulitzer Prize for The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power. The book was also turned into an eight hour PBS series. The book is so popular on the subject that it has been translated into 12 languages. The Prize explains how oil became one of the biggest commodities in the world, how it affects our economy, and how it steered technology farther than we could have imagined so quickly. The book is a view of world history since the mid-1800s, held together by focusing on oil, the resource that everyone now wants and needs. All of this is made possible from transforming crude oil into other oils and commercial products. It has grown to be such a largely demanded product that many everyday items are made out of oil. In the book, Yergin also describes how the quick and unstoppable advance of technology brought out some of the best traits in humans but also some of the worst traits in human nature. Yergin goes into detail as to how access to oil determined the outcome of World War I and World War II. He also spends quite a bit of time examining the conflict in the Middle East and how oil plays in that

As actors are the most influential block of the Academy, it is easy to understand why both films, “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Network” are so successful. Both films featured outstanding performances, arguably none more outstanding than that of the female lead in “A Streetcar Named Desire” Vivien Leigh. While the performances off all the actors in each of the films are notable, to accurately discuss how the actors, distinguish themselves, some context of the plot of each film must be noted, so that the characters (and therefore the actor’s performances playing said actors) can be fairly observed. The emphasis on the explanation of plot will be geared to focus on actor

Niels Abel's life was dominated by poverty and we begin by putting this in context by looking briefly at the political problems which led to economic problems in Norway. At the end of the 18th century Norway was part of Denmark and the Danish tried to remain neutral through the Napoleonic wars. However a neutrality treaty in 1794 was considered a aggressive act by Britain and, in 1801, the British fleet destroyed most of the Danish fleet in a battle in the harbour at Copenhagen. Despite this Denmark-Norway avoided wars until 1807 when Britain feared that the Danish fleet might be used by the French to invade. Using the philosophy that attack is the best form of defence, the English attacked and captured the whole Danish fleet in October 1807.