Charlotte Rampling: Oscars Diversity Row Is ‘Racist Against White People’

Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling has weighed in on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy by suggesting Spike Lee’s proposed Oscars 2016 boycott over the lack of black actors amongst the nominees is “racist against white people”.

Rampling, herself nominated in Best Supporting Actress for ‘45 Years’, was asked by French radio station Europe 1 whether she understood why Lee was angry about the lack of black nominees.

Rampling says, in French, but translated: “No, I think that’s… it’s… that goes in the other direction. Racist. Racist to white people.”

“Yes, because you can never be sure if it’s really the case, but maybe black actors didn’t deserve to be nominated in the final stretch.”

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The interviewer then suggests that quotas could be introduced to help represent minorities in American cinema, to which the 69-year-old British actress responded:

“Why do we need to classify people? We live in places where everyone is more or less accepted… you will always have issues/discussions about ‘this one is more handsome’, ‘this one is too black’, ‘this one is too white’. You will always find someone to say: 'You are too much’ so, we are going to create thousands of minorities.”

The interviewer than suggest that black actors do feel like a minority, that they say “we are black actors, and we don’t exist.”

To that Rampling simply replied “no comment”.

This is just the latest chapter in the ongoing furore currently dominating the conversation around the upcoming Academy Awards. There are no black actors represented in any of the 20 available acting nominations, and this inspired the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite.

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have both publicly stated they plan to boycott the ceremony over the lack of diversity, and many have called for host Chris Rock to step down as presenter in protest.

According to the New York Times, the scandal has rocked the Academy who plan to introduce changes to the voting system in the future to improve diversity.

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Image credits: Artificial Eye