News Article 35

Oscars: The Revenant expected to triumph

Leonardo DiCaprio is widely expected to take home his first best actor Oscar later.

The Revenant, which he is nominated for, is also seen as a strong contender for best picture and best director. The ceremony gets under way at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles at 20:30 PST (01:30 GMT).

But it is being boycotted by some Hollywood figures who are protesting about the lack of ethnic diversity among this year's nominees. All 20 nominees in the best acting or supporting acting categories are white.

Last week, Harvey Weinstein discouraged a boycott, reassuring those concerned that host Chris Rock would "annihilate" Hollywood in his opening monologue at the ceremony.

The black comedian is known for dealing with racial issues in his routines and it is expected he will make reference to the recent controversy.

Earlier this month, director Spike Lee - who was one of the first figures to speak publicly about the lack of diversity - said the boycott had been vindicated by the response from organisers.

The Academy, which hands out the Oscar honours, announced it would double the number of women and ethnic minority members by 2020 after the protests.

My opinion:

I also think it is very likely that DiCaprio will win the Oscar and there has been so much on social media/the news about it that I would be surprised if he didn't. More importantly though, I think it is shocking that all 20 nominees in the best acting or supporting acting categories are white because that is just pure dominant ideology and huge racial discrimination and it deserves to be equal and it makes you think what is the point of these award cermonies if it is just going to be the same every time with all the white males winning everything. The fact they said they will 'double the number of women and ethnic minority members by 2020' doesn't exactly help because they should have done that a long time ago and why wait until 2020. 

UPDATE: LEO DID WIN THE OSCAR