Donnie Wahlberg ‘Confused’ by Straight Outta Compton Oscar Snub

Photo by Universal Pictures

Donnie Wahlberg doesn’t necessarily agree with the #OscarsSoWhite social media campaign, but he does believe that one film featuring performers of color did get snubbed at this year’s Academy Award nominations.

During a recent trip to a Wahlburgers location in Toronto, the New Kids on the Block star admitted to a radio host that he was “confused” by the lack of consideration for Straight Outta Compton. Wahlberg also felt that The Hateful Eight star Samuel L. Jackson deserved to be a nominee as well.

“I’m confused why Straight Outta Compton wasn’t nominated because it was great, and I don’t know why Sam Jackson wasn’t nominated,” Wahlberg said. “Any time he’s in a Quentin Tarantino movie, he should just get nominated because they are magic. They are poetry together.”

#StraightOuttaDorchester pic.twitter.com/4mYJ3uEDYn

— Donnie Wahlberg (@DonnieWahlberg) August 11, 2015

While Wahlberg believes that Straight Outta Compton and Jackson deserved some love from the Oscars, he doesn’t think that race played a big factor in their exclusions from the award show.

“It’s not like one person’s doing the nominating,” Wahlberg said. “It’s not like Donald Trump said, ‘I’m picking everyone but Muslims to be nominated.’ It’s a huge committee, many of whom are African American.”

However, the committee of Oscar voters does not include a significant amount of minority members, which many critics believe is the reason why African American and other groups were shut out of every acting category for the second year in a row.

According to a recent Los Angeles Times survey, the Academy is around 93 percent white and 76 percent male. As the Times also points out, even though a diverse group of 322 people were added to the voting body in June, the “large new classes only move the needle incrementally” since members serve for life.

“I am an Academy member and it doesn’t reflect me, and it doesn’t reflect this nation,” actor David Oyelowo said at an event in Los Angeles on Monday. Oyelowo was snubbed at the Oscars last year when his performance as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma failed to receive a nomination.

Despite the backlash from actors, filmmakers, and even Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Wahlberg doesn’t believe that the lack of diversity in the nominations came from “any unfair stuff.”

“I just think there were snubs,” Wahlberg said. “There’s always snubs. Sometimes it’s white people, sometime it’s black people, sometimes it’s Latinos, sometimes it’s Canadians. People always get snubbed.”

He added, “I just don’t think all the best nominees were nominated. I don’t think they were not nominated because of their color, I think maybe not enough of the voters didn’t see those things, and that could be a matter of color. I don’t know.”