‘The Daily Show’ Reimagined ‘Creed’ As A Slave-Based Oscar-Friendly Film Called ‘Freed’

After this year’s Oscar nominations were announced during the week, the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag made an unfortunate, but necessary, comeback to again raise awareness about the consistent lack of colour in the annual Academy Awards ceremony.

In 2016, the nominees for actors from movies that address race — Creed and The Hateful Eight — are white (Sylvester Stallone and Jennifer Jason Leigh), and the only nomination for NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton went to its white screenwriters.

Roy Wood Jr. on the Oscar nominations. #OscarsSoWhite https://t.co/04vz92n07g pic.twitter.com/0JtjNAKxfD

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) January 15, 2016

On last night’s episode of The Daily Show, host Trevor Noah and correspondent Roy Wood Jr. brilliantly took apart this stupidly regressive representation of film. Noah said black filmmakers try to win Oscars by “pandering to white Oscar voters”, noting that previous Oscar nominations and winners featuring people of colour were for films exclusively about the history of black oppression (Django Unchained, Selma and 12 Years a Slave).

“White people love feeling bad about how they treated black people,” Wood Jr. said. “So to make a hit black movie, you need a whip, a fire hose or a negro spiritual.”

“We can make any movie we want — we just need to trick white people into thinking the movie is about slavery.”

So, with that in mind, they reimagined Creed as the Oscar-friendly Freed, a film about Michael B. Jordan’s character fighting to overcome his great-grandfather’s slave past. Not even Stallone’s white-guilt apologies stole Jordan’s spotlight this time around.

Watch the skit below:

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