Gina Rodriguez Slams Academy Over ‘Lack of Latino’ Oscar Nominations

Co-host Gina Rodriguez speaks onstage during the Teen Choice Awards 2015 at the USC Galen
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Jerome Hudson

Actor-producer Gina Rodriguez slammed the 2018 Academy Awards nominations and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for failing to nominate a single Latin actor this year.

“How I feel about the #Oscars this morning and the lack of Latinos,” she tweeted, quoting veteran actress Viola Davis. “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity” -Viola Davis (Thank you @RealGDT and @pixarcoco for being our visibility).”

A few years removed from its #OscarsSoWhite controversy, this year’s Oscars nominations list was praised for showing some strides toward diversity. First-timer Daniel Kaluuya received an Oscar nom for Best Actor for Get Out. Jordan Peele made history snagging Best Picture, Directing, and Writing nominations.

But the criticism of representation also extends to Asians actors, who also came up short on this year’s list, as noted by actress Constance Wu.

“Oh I am SO happy for @LadyBirdMovie and @GetOutMovie but u coulda nominated the brilliant !” Wu wrote on Twitter, referring to the Downsizing star. “How many Asian Americans have been nominated for Acting in the past decade??? Zero? I think it’s zero. And Chau was wondeful!!! Like……..???”

Rodriguez, a Golden Globe Award-winner who’s currently co-producing two undocumented immigrant-focused dramas at CBS and The CW, recently urged Hollywood’s power brokers to increase representation of Latin talent in front of and behind the scenes.

“Women of color are needed to speak up and be a part of this movement. And for me, it means the world because we start to talk about inclusivity and there’s still a major lack of representation in the Latino community,” Rodriguez said. “So that is why I love to speak about Time’s Up, because I know that there is a community out there that is desiring to see themselves onscreen, and yet, we are still very sadly underrepresented. So studios, I love you guys, but we buy one of every four tickets at the box office every weekend, we hold studios up, Latinos hold studios up, we hold up movies at the box office. So cast us in your films so we can be a part of the growing demographic that so much is what we do for the studios.”

See the full list of nominations for the 90th annual Academy Awards presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences here.

Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson

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