Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs has promised "dramatic steps" would be taken address the diversity woes that have surfaced in an ugly way across this year’s Oscar nominees, in which 95.3% of those going for a trophy are white. And while Isaacs has already promised that Academy membership will be consciously expanded to include more people of color, even more measures are being considered to ensure that next year, a batch of nominees more reflective of society at large will be named.
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The New York Times reports that next week, the Academy will be announcing some changes to the Oscars. It’s expected that they will go with a solid ten-film roster for Best Picture, instead of a fluctuating number year-by-year. However, the other changes being discussed are a bit more eye opening. Some are calling for the acting fields to opened up to honor a larger group of nominees, possibly up to ten. There is also some chatter of temporarily revoking voting privileges for those who don’t cast their ballot frequently, or for those who haven’t worked in ten years or more (Academy membership is for life, but the latter suggestion may leave out celebrated or legendary talent, who have since retired, from weighing in).
The 51 members of the Academy board will meet on Tuesday and we’ll see how this shakes out, but the issue goes beyond the once-per-year Oscars. The entire industry needs to do better in creating more opportunities for and telling more stories by people of color, women, and more. This is a responsibility studios, agencies, production companies, and more need to take responsibility on, to affect any real change. Because the Academy can do all they can, but you can’t nominate diverse films if they aren’t being made.
Thoughts? Let us know what you think of the possible changes in our comments section.
Apparently, the Academy qualifies people like Rupert Murdoch to membership. He\’s rich, white, old, and has absolutely no expertise concerning cinematic arts and crafts. They should just kick out all those rich, white bastards if the want more diversity.
Seven sounds like a good number for the acting fields, if it ends up being 10 per category, in 10 years time I expect Jennifer Lawrence to surpass Meryl\’s record for most nominations which won\’t be as impressive.
How can u possible nominate mad max and not straight out of compton. Compton deserves to be nominated period. Creed micheal b. Jordan should be nominated.I have a dream that things are all equal for everyone including the academy awards
this is the stupidest thing i\’ve ever read.
This is just stupid.
For Your Considerationgate, 51 members and not one thought "Uh… we\’re forgetting something huge". Anyway, not much else left to point out that others haven\’t done so already.
Just stop. Pandering doesn\’t look good on you, Oscar Honey.
I\’m afraid crybabies you\’re going to have to get over yourselves, the overwhelming majority of people, including all other minorities, don\’t agree or care about your perceived slight speculation. The vast majority understand and agree the Oscars are and have been given based on artistic merit, NOT personal political diversity belief. Oh, and Spike, Jada, and the rest of you whiners, you won\’t be missed.
How about opening up a Comedy category while we\’re at it? The Academy overlooks plenty of movies/actors simply based on prestige. Enough Oscar bait, let\’s celebrate the movies people actually watched.
"More reflective of society at large"? Which society? Not every Oscar-nominated film is American (see, e.g., Brooklyn or Room, both of which are Irish-Canadian co-productions). The only fictitious American Best Picture nominee is The Martian, and that film does, in fact, have a fairly diverse cast.
Expanding the acting category to 10 actors is ridiculous, the best picture i get but the acting to 10? It looses importance on the quality of the performance.
There is no "first" and there is no "foremost", you get what you can when you can and keep working the other angles. You can walk and hire at the same time. How and who we give awards to is important and a part of the solution. With 50 people in a position to make an immediate change, that seems the easiest and least susceptible to necessary compromises (this isn\’t health care legislation).
A smart change is to the voting system. College football\’s AP poll establishes consensus opinions based on weighted votes. The Academy system establishes substantial intensity. "How many like this the most." This way, if an Academy voter picked The Revenant number 1, she needn\’t have voted for anything else. Her opinion on #2 is thus ignored. That\’s why we\’ve gotten fewer than 10 nominees because the formula is \’process of elimination\’ + \’threshold vote\’. If literally everyone voted Straight Outta Compton number 5, it wouldn\’t get a nomination.
As for actor nominations, going to 10 is nice and round but it seems like alot…except with the Golden Globes. Seems like a good move (but no genre test, please).
How about they make two acting categories. One for whites and one for blacks. That way they won\’t be left out and maybe Tyler Perry could land a nom. Eddie Redmayne got one for playing a woman let\’s not forget.
Problem lies first and foremost with a lack of minorities in positions of power around Hollywood foremost, yes, but The Academy also needs to diversify it\’s voting body/membership. Changing the categories and other on camera things isn\’t the answer. Making sure the electorate is more representative than the current 94% white, 76% men, and average age of 63 has to change…if that changes, the problem fixes itself, but that will take enormous influx of new voters.
The problem doesn\’t lie with the Academy, it\’s lies with the film industry in general.Changing the best picture nominees to 10 is fine but expanding the acting nominees to 10 is not necessary.