The don’t-call-it-a-boycott Oscars might be more interesting for who won’t be in attendance than who will. Spike Lee, Jada Pinkett Smith, and now Will Smith have all said that they’re not planning on attending the Oscars, which, for the second year in a row, nominated 20 white people in the acting categories. Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo, one of the stars of presumed Best Picture front-runner Spotlight, also thinks that the all-white slate is reflective of deeper injustices in America. “It isn’t just the Academy Awards,†Ruffalo told BBC News. “The entire American system is rife with a kind of white privileged racism that goes into our justice system.â€
Will he attend the ceremonies? “I’m weighing it. That’s where I’m at right now,†said Ruffalo. “I woke up in the morning thinking, what is the right way to do this? Because if you look at Martin Luther King’s legacy, what he was saying was, the good people who don’t act are much worse than the people, the wrongdoers that are purposely not acting and don’t know the right way.†Well, you may have just answered your own question, Mark Ruffalo.
Update: On Twitter, Ruffalo clarified his position, saying he would attend the ceremony to honor the survivors of the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse scandal.