David Oyelowo , who played Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 2014 movie "Selma ," told Screen Daily that a reason why the movie didn't get a lot of Oscar attention was because he and the cast wore "I Can't Breathe" shirts at the movie's premiere.- It was in support of Eric Garner after he was killed by a white police officer in July 2014.
- Oyelowo said after the premiere, members of the Academy called the movie's studio and producers to say they wouldn't be voting for the movie because of the shirts.
- "Selma" director
Ava DuVernay has since tweeted out "True story" in response to Oyelowo's comments. - The Academy tweeted on its official handle: "Ava & David, we hear you. Unacceptable. We're committed to progress."
- The "I Can't Breathe" protests for Garner are back in the news after George Floyd was killed by a white police officer on May 25.
Actor David Oyelowo said that one of the reasons why his 2014 movie "Selma" only received two Oscar nominations back in 2015 was because members of the Academy Awards didn't like that he and the cast wore "I Can't Breathe" shirts to the movie's premiere.
"Members of the Academy called in to the studio and our producers saying, 'How dare they do that? Why are they stirring s---t?' and 'We are not going to vote for that film because we do not think it is their place to be doing that,'" Oyelowo recently told Screen Daily.
"It's part of why that film didn't get everything that people think it should've got and it birthed #OscarsSoWhite," the actor continued. "They used their privilege to deny a film on the basis of what they valued in the world."
At the time of the movie's release in December of 2014, there were nationwide protests over the death of Eric Garner, who that July was killed after a white New York City police officer administered a chokehold on him as officers tried to arrest him. Cell phone footage which later went viral showed Garner saying "I can't breathe" over and over again. He later died on the way to the hospital and a medical examiner called his death a "homicide," with the report specifying that "the compression of [Garner's] chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police" lead to his death. The white police officer was not indicted by a grand jury.
The cast, as well as "Selma" director Ava DuVernay, wore the shirts in support of the protests.
The Garner case is back in the news because of the recent death of George Floyd. Floyd died on May 25, 2020, after Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, kneeled on his neck for over eight minutes. An independent autopsy found that Floyd's cause of death was "asphyxia due to compression of the neck and back." Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. The three other Minneapolis police officers who had a role in the killing have been arrested and face criminal charges.
On Thursday, DuVernay retweeted the Screen Daily story with the words, "True story."
—Ava DuVernay (@ava) June 5, 2020
That was followed by a tweet by the official Academy Awards Twitter handle saying: "Ava & David, we hear you. Unacceptable. We're committed to progress."
—The Academy (@TheAcademy) June 5, 2020
Though "Selma" — in which Oyelowo played Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his quest to secure equal voting rights by organizing a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965 — found critical acclaim, the movie only received best picture and best original song Oscar nominations (it won for best song).
The 2015 Oscar nomination snubs for Oyelowo and DuVernay, as well as the lack of diversity among the nominees in the major categories that year, led to the #OscarsSoWhite viral hashtag. The Academy has since tried to change that by inviting a more diverse group of people to its membership. But that hasn't led to major change yet.
The nominees for the Oscars in 2020 saw only two people of color out of the 20 actor/actress nominees and there were no women among the best director nominees.