Awards Snubs Don’t Insult Black Art — They Canonize It
So what if the Golden Globes overlooked ‘When They See Us’? The praise and adoration we give Black brilliance creates deeper, more enduring legacies than any mainstream award show.
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
When They See Us is one of the most gripping, haunting, masterfully executed dramatic miniseries ever made, let alone released in 2019. Lupita Nyong’o transformed into two different people — a truly terrifying villain and a frightened protagonist, both with layered secrets — in Jordan Peele’s Us. Zendaya showed heavyweight acting chops as a recovering teenage addict in HBO’s Euphoria. But these three performances and projects have something in common beyond being transformative in their own right: When it was time for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to issue its 2019 Golden Globe nominations, they all became invisible.
And they’re not alone. Billy Porter (Pose), Cynthia Erivo (Harriet), and Eddie Murphy (Dolemite Is My Name) are the only Black actors nominated for any award — out of 70 nominations across 14 categories. No women were nominated for their directing work; in fact, because…
