Producer Oprah Winfrey’s Selma won two Oscar nominations Thursday morning: Best Picture and Best Song. Because the Civil Rights drama failed to win nominations for its director, star or script, people are claiming it was snubbed (it was — the Best Pic nod is an also-ran) and crying racism.

I thought some context might help.

Before he won an Oscar at age 64, Martin Scorsese directed Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, King Comedy, Color of Money, and The Age of Innocence.

Selma is only director Ana DuVernay’s third feature film. She is just 42 years old.

Before he won an Oscar at age 61 , Paul Newman starred in The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, The Long Hot Summer, Verdict, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cat On Hot Tin Roof, Sting, and Slap Shot.

David Oyelwo’s first big starring role is in Selma. He is just 38 years old.

As far as the racism charge, 10% of the acting nominations over the last 5 years have gone to black actors, which is almost perfectly in line with the 12.6% (on average over the last 5 years) population of ratio of blacks in America. Moreover, 7 films focusing on race and racism have been nominated for Best Picture in the last 5 years. Last year “12 Years a Slave” won Best Picture.

Yes, the cry of racism around Selma is, like Selma itself, just another in a long line of race-hoaxes dumped on the American people this year (Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Oprah’s Swiss purse lie).

Selma’s real problem is that it just isn’t a very good movie.

While the left crybabies over Oscar’s snub of Selma, here are 225 bigger Oscar snubs; a list of people who have never won a competitive Oscar, and a list of movies better than Selma that not only failed to win an Oscar, but were never even nominated! (Source.)

  1. Alfred Hitchcock
  2. Michael Mann
  3. Orson Welles
  4. Christopher Nolan
  5. Jean Simmons
  6. Annette Bening
  7. Glenn Close
  8. Agnes Morehead
  9. Judy Davis
  10. Gena Rowlands
  11. Mia Farrow
  12. Greta Garbo
  13. Marilyn Monroe
  14. Myrna Loy
  15. Marlene Dietrich
  16. Jean Harlowe
  17. Carol Lombard
  18. Lauren Bacall
  19. Irene Dunne
  20. Maureen O’Hara
  21. Rosalind Russell
  22. Martin Sheen
  23. Steve McQueen
  24. James Caan
  25. Harvey Keitel
  26. James Mason
  27. Montgomery Clift
  28. Eli Wallach
  29. Bruce Dern
  30. Gary Oldmam
  31. Judy Garland
  32. John Malkovich
  33. Ed Harris
  34. Donald Sutherland
  35. Richard Harris
  36. Peter Sellers
  37. Cary Grant
  38. Albert Finney
  39. Deborah Kerr
  40. Richard Burton
  41. Fred Astaire
  42. Kirk Douglas
  43. Barbara Stanwyck
  44. Edward G. Robinson
  45. Peter O’Toole
  46. Jean Simmons
  47. Ridley Scott
  48. Buster Keaton
  49. Howard Hawks
  50. Robert Altman
  51. Sam Peckinpah
  52. John Cassavetes
  53. Sidney Lumet
  54. Brian DePalma
  55. David Lynch
  56. Spike Lee
  57. Lillian Gish
  58. Errol Flynn
  59. Joseph Cotton
  60. Maurice Chevalier
  61. Peter Lorre
  62. Charlie Chaplin (except for a score award)
  63. Stanley Kubrick (except for a special effects award)
  64. George Lucas
  65. Ernst Lubitsch
  66. King Vidor
  67. Arthur Penn
  68. Fritz Lang
  69. Akira Kurosawa
  70. D.W. Griffith
  71. Cecil B. DeMille
  72. Ava Gardner
  73. Rita Hayworth
  74. Boris Karloff
  75. Robert Mitchum
  76. Thelma Ritter
  77. Joan Allen
  78. Sigourney Weaver
  79. Dana Andrews
  80. Lew Ayers
  81. John Barrymore
  82. Ralph Bellamy
  83. Roddy MacDowall
  84. Charles Boyer
  85. Lee J. Cobb
  86. Douglas Fairbanks Sr.
  87. W. C. Fields
  88. James Garner
  89. John Garfield
  90. Elliott Gould
  91. Dennis Hopper
  92. James Earl Jones
  93. Gene Kelly
  94. Arthur Kennedy
  95. Anthony Perkins
  96. William Powell
  97. Tyrone Power
  98. Walter Pidgeon
  99. Claude Rains
  100. Basil Rathbone
  101. Will Rogers
  102. Mickey Rooney
  103. Robert Shaw
  104. Richard Widmark
  105. Clifton Webb
  106. Jean Arthur
  107. Ida Lupino
  108. Jacqueline Bisset
  109. Madeline Kahn
  110. Bette Midler
  111. Kim Novak
  112. Michelle Pfeiffer
  113. Lana Turner
  114. Gloria Swanson
  115. Margaretr Sullavan
  116. Elsa Lanchester
  117. Julie Harris
  118. Blake Edwards
  119. Richard Brooks
  120. Tim Burton
  121. William Wellman
  122. Josef von Strernberg
  123. Otto Preminger
  124. W.S. Van Dyke
  125. F.W. Murnau
  126. Alan J. Pakula
  127. Mervyn LeRoy
  128. Stanley Kramer
  129. John Frankenheimer
  130. Stanley Donen
  131. Advise and Consent (1962)
  132. Bananas (1971)
  133. Beat the Devil (1954)
  134. The Big Clock (1948)
  135. The Big Heat (1953)
  136. The Big Sleep (1946)
  137. Blood Simple (1984)
  138. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
  139. Brute Force (1947)
  140. City Lights (1931)
  141. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
  142. Destry Rides Again (1939)
  143. Dinner at Eight (1933)
  144. Dirty Harry (1971)
  145. Don’t Look Now (1973)
  146. Dracula (1931)
  147. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
  148. Duck Soup
  149. A Face in the Crowd (1957)
  150. Fail-Safe (1964)
  151. Farewell My Lovely (1944)
  152. Fort Apache (1948)
  153. Frankenstein (1931)
  154. Freaks (1933)
  155. The Front Page (1975)
  156. Gilda (1946)
  157. Gun Crazy (1949)
  158. Hard-Boiled (1992)
  159. Heat (1995)
  160. High Sierra (1941)
  161. His Girl Friday (1940)
  162. In a Lonely Place (1950)
  163. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
  164. The Invisible Man (1933)
  165. It’s a Gift (1934)
  166. The Killing (1956)
  167. The Parallax View (1974)
  168. King Kong (1933)
  169. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
  170. The Lady From Shanghai (1948)
  171. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
  172. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
  173. Lonely are the Brave (1962)
  174. The Long Goodbye (1973)
  175. The Long Riders (1980)
  176. M (1931)
  177. Mean Streets (1973)
  178. Medium Cool (1969)
  179. Metropolis (1927)
  180. Miller’s Crossing (1990)
  181. The Misfits (1961)
  182. Modern Times (1936)
  183. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
  184. The Mummy (1933)
  185. Murder, My Sweet (1944)
  186. My Darling Clementine (1946)
  187. A Night at the Opera (1934)
  188. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
  189. Nightmare Alley (1947)
  190. Nothing Sacred (1937)
  191. Oliver Twist (1948)
  192. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
  193. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
  194. Out of the Past (1947)
  195. Paths of Glory (1957)
  196. Play It Again, Sam (1972)
  197. Point Blank (1967)
  198. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
  199. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
  200. Ride the High Country (1962)
  201. Rio Bravo (1959)
  202. The Roaring Twenties (1939)
  203. Scarface (1932)
  204. Scarlet Street (1945)
  205. The Searchers (1956)
  206. The Shining (1980)
  207. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
  208. A Shot in the Dark (1964)
  209. Sid and Nancy (1986)
  210. State of the Union (1948)
  211. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
  212. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
  213. They Live By Night (1949)
  214. The Thing (1951)
  215. Things to Come (1936)
  216. The 39 Steps (1935)
  217. This Gun for Hire (1942)
  218. 3:10 to Yuma (1957)
  219. To Have and Have Not (1944)
  220. Touch Of Evil (1958)
  221. A Walk in the Sun (1946)
  222. The Wild One (1953)
  223. Winchester ’73 (1950)
  224. The Women (1939)
  225. The Wrong Man (1957)

Cry me a river, Selma…

 

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