This news should come as no surprise, but high-level staffers at Universal admitted at a SXSW panel on Wednesday that they distributed race-bias film trailers for Straight Outta Compton to Facebook.
Vulture reports that Doug Neil and Jim Underwood, Universal’s EVP of digital marketing and Facebook’s entertainment head, said that because the “general population” might not have had knowledge of N.W.A’s history, trailers were intentionally distributed based on racial demographic.
‘Straight Outta Compton’ and Nina Simone Documentary Earn Oscar Nods
Facebook users who were neither Black nor hispanic were fed a trailer that featured N.W.A. founding members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre in connection to their present day success, while African Americans saw the trailer that showed an accurate description of the history of the group and its Compton roots.
The film, which was a blockbuster success, broke records for becoming the highest-grossing R-rate film of all time and earned director F. Gary Gray the title as the highest-grossing Black director with a single film in history.
African-American Film Critics Association Declares ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Best Film of 2015
During award season, the motion picture received numerous top-prizes but was snubbed from Academy Award Best Picture contention, adding to the #OscarsSoWhite debate of 2016.
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