By Ed Diokno
Hailee Steinfeld and Dev Patel got shut out in the Critics Choice Awards, but they still have a chance for a Golden Globe Awards
It’s award-show season and Asian American actors are getting recognized, even if they don’t bring home the statuettes.
If the two awards shows are predictors for Oscar nominations, the Academy Awards should be more diverse than it has been the last two years when no actors of color were nominated in any of the acting category spawning the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite.
Nevertheless, AAPI actors are considered long shots for any of the categories they were nominated in, but that’s better than not being recognized at all.
Filipina American actress Steinfeld, who convincingly played a white teenager in Edge of Seventeen, lost out to Lucas Hedges in Manchester by the Sea in the Critics Choice category of Best Young Actor/Actress and to Meryl Streep in Florence Foster Jenkins in the Critics category of Best Actress in a Comedy. Moonlight’s Mahershala Ali got the nod over Dev Patel in Lion for the Best Supporting Actor category of the Critics Choice.
The Critics also favored Kate McKinnon of Saturday Night Live over Constance Wu in Fresh Off the Boat in the Best TV Actress in a Comedy Series.
Steinfeld was also nominated for a Golden Globes Award in the category for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy where she faces some stiff competition.
Patel also received a nomination in the Globe’s awards in the category Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture.
In the category of Best Animated Feature, there were two AAPI-related nominees: Moana and Kubo and the Two Strings.
Moana also got a nomination for Best Original Song for How Far I’ll Go.
The HBO movie The Night Of, the story of Muslim American young man caught in a web of sex and murder and gave us an inside look at the American criminal justice system received three nominations, in the category of Motion Picture Made for Television and actors Riz Ahmed and John Turturro will compete against each other for Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series.
Ed Diokno writes a blog :Views From The Edge: news and analysis from an Asian American perspective.
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