‘The Oscars’: Why Are Academy Award Nominees Boycotting the Hotel Chateau Marmont?
The 2021 Oscars will take place on Sunday, Apr. 25, 2021. While most people wonder who will take home the Academy Award for Best Picture, others are curious about the boycotting going on outside of the Chateau Marmont, the famed location of the Oscar’s after-party. Find out why many Hollywood stars are protesting the esteemed hotel.
Chateau Marmont is the Oscar’s after-party headquarters
The fine-dining restaurant and hotel, located in West Hollywood, California, has become synonymous with the Academy Awards. Completed in 1929, celebrities of all kinds have stayed in the hotel over the years.
Chateau Marmont has been talked about in countless TV shows, movies, literature, music, and art. More than that, the hotel has been the premier destination for awards show after-parties. In 2019, Beyoncé and Jay Z hosted one of the most exclusive gatherings the Chateau Marmont has ever seen. The party was held to honor Mary J. Blige.
More recently, Oscar-Nominated Director Aaron Sorkin was shooting Being the Ricardos at the famed “Hollywood Playground.” He pulled filming the major production, which stars Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, due to the ongoing labor dispute at Chateau Marmont.
Why are people boycotting the hotel Chateau Marmont?
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit the nation hard, but the hospitality industry really took a blow. For months, restaurants, hotels, and other travel-related businesses were forced to shut down. Many of them had to lay off their employees to stay afloat. The Chateau Marmont is one of those businesses.
After more than a year, the Chateau Marmont has fired more than 200 of its workers due to the pandemic. Many workers who dedicated decades of their lives to the hotel are still jobless and without healthcare.
Since then, many of the hotel employees have spoken out about their experiences working at Chateau Marmont. In turn, this has prompted concern from community leaders and the call for a boycott.
Throughout the highly publicized boycott of the Chateau Marmont, workers have called on the hotel to demonstrate a commitment to respect their years of service. Plus, they’re asking to be rehired in accordance with their legal rights while ensuring all workers — regardless of their race, sex, or background — feel treated with dignity and respect.
Chateau Marmont boycott slated to continue during the 2021 Oscars
According to UNITE HERE Local 11, a labor union representing over 32,000 hospitality workers, the protests aim to celebrate the decades of service those fired from Chateau Marmont have provided to the entertainment industry. Workers have events planned throughout Oscar weekend calling attention to the boycott at the hotel.
Oscar nominee Amanda Seyfried and Daveed Diggs join the boycott against Chateau Marmont
As Oscar weekend begins, hundreds of protestors are expected to gather outside the awards show after-party hotspot to call attention to the snowballing boycott. Among them are laid-off Chateau Marmont workers and celebrities like Amanda Seyfriend, Daveed Diggs, and Jane Fonda.
Other celebrities who have joined in support of the fired Chateau Marmont employees include:
- Alfonso Cuarón
- Martin Sheen
- Tom Morello
- Edie Falco
- Lena Headey
- Constance Zimmer
- Nikki Bilderback
- Thomas Sadoski
- Joshua Oppenheimer
- Eliza Dushku
- Christopher Abbott
- Sarah Silverman
- Alison Pill
