The Oscars have a disgracefully racist record

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[/audioplayer]In 2017 it will be exactly 50 years since a dapper Sidney Poitier announced to Rod Steiger, in the excellent film In The Heat of the Night: ‘They call me Mr Tibbs!’ Rod Steiger, playing a somewhat right-of-centre sheriff of a small town in Mississippi had hitherto been disposed to refer to Poitier — a senior policeman on his way home to Philadelphia — as ‘boy’, if you recall. I say the film was excellent, but the plotting was flawed, convoluted and unconvincing. The pleasure was to be gained instead from decent dialogue, a very good soundtrack and, most of all, the terrific performances of its two central stars.

At the time it was regarded as a sort of breakthrough — how wonderful to see Holly-wood confronting those hot issues of segregation and racism in the Deep South, as it never had done before! Other voices were more sceptical, thinking the southern states an easy and convenient target when there was plenty of racism, and consequent riots, in the supposedly civilised states north of the Mason-Dixon Line. One such sceptic was the magnificent Mr Steiger himself: ‘A very nice film and a very good film, and yes, I think it’s good to see a black man and a white man working together… but it’s not going to take the tension out of New York City. It’s not going to stop the riots in Chicago,’ he remarked.

Indeed, the Oscars committee the following year seemed wholly unmoved by the underlying message of the film. They lavished praise and awards upon it, for sure — there was a wholly deserved Academy Award for Steiger, as well as one each for the producer, the film editor, the screenplay writer and the bloke who did the sound.