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As soon as the Oscar nominations were revealed to the public on Monday, the controversy started pouring in with the various snubs. One actress who’s notably left out of the Best Actress category is Lupita Nyong’o and the people of Twitter were not happy.
Nyong’o played two characters in the Jordan Peele-directed “Us” — Adelaide, the wife and mother going on vacation with her family and Red, the “tethered” doppelgänger who violently comes after Adelaide and her family in a twist of events. Nyong’o received acclaimed for her ability to switch between two roles. Many believed she was a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination.
However, the Oscars completely overlooked her. Instead, Renée Zellweger was nominated for her role in “Judy”, Charlize Theron for “Bombshell”, Scarlett Johansson for “Marriage Story”, Saoirse Ronan for “Little Women” and Cynthia Erivo for “Harriet”.
From the jump, folks on Twitter couldn’t help but notice that the Academy loves to nominate Black actresses when the role is tied to slavery or servitude. Back in 2014, Nyong’o won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the 2013 movie “12 Years A Slave”.
“The Academy dead ass looked at Lupita Nyong’o and said, ‘We prefer you as a slave,'” one user tweeted. “Lupita had 7 mins screen time on 12 years a slave but on us where she plays 2 different roles it’s quiet,” wrote another user.
Even outside of Nyong’o’s performance in “Us”, many people drew attention to other praised performances by Black actresses or actresses of color such as Alfre Woodard in “Clemency” and Awkwafina in “The Farewell”. Neither one of these women received a nomination.
“Nominating one Black woman for playing a famous slave doesn’t [sic] make The Academy immune to criticism,” one user tweeted. “Lupita, Alfre Woodard and Awkwafina delivered great performances this year. This is nonsense.”
Some of the funniest tweets came when folks brought up the fact that Scarlett Johansson managed to get two nominations, one for Best Supporting Actress in “Jojo Rabbit” and another for Best Actress in “Marriage Story”.
“Scarlett Johansson was nominated TWICE and yet Lupita Nyong’o didn’t get an Oscar nomination for playing TWO incredible roles in the same movie,” one user questioned.
Some users even went as far to say that Johansson’s performance in “Marriage Story” wasn’t even worthy of a nomination. “Sorry but Scarlett was straight up bad in this film and Lupita played TWO people PLEASE SWAP THEM,” one user wrote.
Twitter was quick to smell white privilege and mediocre white talent in these nominations, and they didn’t go easy. Check out some more reactions to Lupita’s snub below.
