The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences wrote their own headline: “Academy Takes Historic Action to Increase Diversity.” Yes, after more than a week and increasingly terrible headlines about the mostly-white, mostly-old, mostly-male perspective of the Academy’s voting blocs, the AMPAS finally decided to make some changes. And to give them credit, I really do think that the actions they’ve taken are great improvements, and they will yield benefits for years to come (mostly because it will take years to reap the benefits). I also think Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs was legitimately distraught to find herself as the first African-American woman heading up the Academy only to find herself herding racist, misogynistic, out-of-touch cats.
You can read the Academy’s full press release here. The Board of Governors met late last week and approved a series of changes “designed to make the Academy’s membership, its governing bodies, and its voting members significantly more diverse. The Board’s goal is to commit to doubling the number of women and diverse members of the Academy by 2020.” Here are some of the changes being made:
Beginning later this year, each new member’s voting status will last 10 years, and will be renewed if that new member has been active in motion pictures during that decade. In addition, members will receive lifetime voting rights after three ten-year terms; or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award. We will apply these same standards retroactively to current members. In other words, if a current member has not been active in the last 10 years they can still qualify by meeting the other criteria. Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status. Emeritus members do not pay dues but enjoy all the privileges of membership, except voting. This will not affect voting for this year’s Oscars.
At the same time, the Academy will supplement the traditional process in which current members sponsor new members by launching an ambitious, global campaign to identify and recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity. In order to immediately increase diversity on the Board of Governors, the Academy will establish three new governor seats that will be nominated by the President for three-year terms and confirmed by the Board.
The Academy will also take immediate action to increase diversity by adding new members who are not Governors to its executive and board committees where key decisions about membership and governance are made. This will allow new members an opportunity to become more active in Academy decision-making and help the organization identify and nurture future leaders. Along with Boone Isaacs, the Board’s Membership and Administration Committee, chaired by Academy Governor Phil Robinson, led the efforts to enact these initiatives.
The new voting rules are interesting, especially this: “Emeritus members do not pay dues but enjoy all the privileges of membership, except voting.” You know what that’s about, right? That’s about screeners. Hand to God. A lot of Academy members are cheap bastards who don’t want to pay to see movies, and no one wants to give up their free screener DVDs. So, all of the old Academy members who love the perks of membership still get their screeners, but now they don’t get to vote. As for recruiting new members, sure. I kind of think they should have made that change a long time ago, but to be fair to Boone Isaacs, I do believe she’s been stacking the new memberships with diverse candidates for several years now.
I wonder who will fill the three new positions on the Board of Governors? I’m sure there will be some big-name people. Fun fact: minus Cheryl Boone Isaacs as president, there are currently NO African-Americans on the Board of Governors. I was looking through the list, and I think there’s only one non-white member, an Asian-American man.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Almost positive Oprah will be put on the board. She is a member and has considerable pull.
Anywho. what the AMPAS did made sense. If you haven’t done a movie in over 10 years, no votes for you. A lot of people are still voting and they hadn’t done a movie in over 20 years or more.
I hope the hell not. Oprah is one of the most self-serving… I just can’t.
I hope those who occupy those three seats are qualified and diverse, not merely big names perceived to be ‘acceptable to the minorities’.
And I’m with you, regarding those who are inactive for 10+ years can’t vote. Would love it there was closer oversight, in terms of actual viewership, in terms of the nominated films.
I think Oprah will be offered a seat. You have to be a member of AMPAS and the seemingly easy way for minorites has been Oscar Nominations.
Ang Lee would be great for the Board of Governors. I mean he started his career working with Spike Lee. He has also directed very diverse movies (Crouching tiger, Broke Back, Sense and Sensibility and Life of PI)
Yeah, they should have to pass a quiz on each movie… Maybe have supervisors to buckle them into their little seats and make sure they don’t skip out when the lights go off. It’s ridiculous that they are voting on movies they haven’t actually seen. Who does that in any artistic competition?!? Really. Maybe an IQ test would be in order also.
No, not Oprah or Spike Lee. Being on the board is time consuming, it’s not a figurehead position, and it’s based in LA. I think they’ll add people who tried for a seat on the board and missed out, such as Ava DuVernay or Lisa Cholodenko (they both lost to Michael Mann, and Cholodenko was on the board once) or Edward James Olmos (lost to Tom Hanks I think).
I hope Oprah is offered a seat. All this stuff needs to die down now. People are sick of it. Many people around the world can’t afford to pay their bills, Europe is in crisis and that’s more important than the movies.
Ava Du Vernay comes across to me as a woman full of bitterness and a chip on her shoulder. She hasn’t done her popularity any wonders. I would probably boycott anything she was associated with now. That’s just me but I’m sure there are other people who think like me and there would be some people who would seek her movies out. But all in all I think this will hurt her career bigtime.
While watching both The Butler and Selma, I was distracted throughout the entirety of both movies with the thought of how much better those films would have been if somebody else played Oprah’s parts. As the producer of those films, she chose to take jobs away from actresses.
She wasn’t a producer of the butler. She did produce Precious,The hundred foot journey and the great debaters.
And she cannot act and those roles should have gone to women who could.
Viola Davis said as much to her face.
So you saw Selma and The Butler and the main thing you took away from both films is that Oprah can’t act and she was too “distracting” for you throughout the entirety of the movies?
She bothered you that much that you couldn’t concentrate on the amazing and inspiring stories told in both films?
Watch the Color Purple before you make up your mind on Oprah
@Jess, I have seen The Color Purple. I did NOT say that was my main takeaway so please do not put words in my mouth, thank you. Oprah cannot act. She was distracting in those two films. She ruined every scene she was in. The stories in the film were amazing and inspiring, yes, but the story of Annie Lee Cooper deserved a much better portrayal than what Oprah gave her.
Yes, Oprah is an amazing business woman and yes, she has done astounding and good things in this world but she cannot act and other actresses like Viola Davis or Octavia Spencer or Taraji Henson or Mo’nique or so many others far too numerous to name, could have done far better jobs in those films without the distraction.
@lilacflowers
I didn’t know we had to pit POC actresses against one another and tear down Oprah because she dares to act in a movie. Never mind the fact that she gave Mo-nique her big breakthrough role in Precious (which led to Mo-nique winning an oscar for that performance) so your argument that “she’s taking away roles from other women” is just factually incorrect.
I also love it when people get super offended when you just repeat what they’ve said back to them. Don’t take you anger out on me because you realize how bad your original statement sounded honey.
@Jess “I was distracted throughout the entirety of both movies” is not the same as “the main thing you took away from both films.” You weren’t repeating what she wrote. You were spinning it to create something to argue against.
@Beth, thank you. Exactly.
i thought Oprah was excellent in the Colour Purple.She did not stand out in the Butler but held her own.I did not recognise her at first,It was an excellent film and I learnt a lot American politics behind the scenes
The also need to add Asian and Hispanic members stat. The governors, based on the current membership, could be that horrible frat in Animal House that hated the Delta’s. Please sir, may I have another?
I read the criteria to become an AMPAS member. You have to have been nominated for an Oscar or be sponsored by two members. If you are sponsored, you also have to have at least 3 theatrically scripted performances that were worthy of being oscar nominated.
If you are Asian or Latino, it is leveled against you.
I mean only Javier Bardem , Benecio Del Toro, Rita Moreno and Ang Lee come to mind as members of the academy. I doubt JLo is a member.
Anyway, the next problem is that there aren’t many movies with parts in which Latino’s or Asians are cast that have meat or would be considered oscar worthy.
It is an endless circle of can’t get into the club because it was created to exclude me.
That’s exactly the kind of structure that precludes change. It’s a mechanism of the social closure that I’ve been banging on about hereabouts.
The cadre of existing members who want change (and plenty of them say they do) could practically help accelerate this process by pro-actively getting together and nominating people for membership WHO DON’T LOOK LIKE THEM.
You have to ask why they haven’t already been doing that. If they had, perhaps a few more voters would actually have SEEN Straight Outta Compton, for example, and voted to nominate it.
“You have to have been nominated for an Oscar or be sponsored by two members. If you are sponsored, you also have to have at least 3 theatrically scripted performances that were worthy of being oscar nominated.”
LAMO. They don’t even follow this rule when they want someone in badly. Rooney Mara was voted in as a member right before The girl with the Dragon Tattoo came out. David Fincher and the Sony pictures crew made sure to grease the wheels for her and then surprise! she gets an academy nomination soon after. Her only films prior were that Nightmare On Elm Street movie. The L.A. Times interviewed Rooney to ask how she got the membership and she said “I don’t know”. LOL, google it.
Everyone goes on and on about “Harvey’s girls” but David Fincher has made Rooney Mara’s way all throughout Hollywood but no one says a thing because she’s not a “hottie that we love to hate”. Let this have been ScarJo and women will be up in arms saying she slept her way to membership. Anyway just another example of how being the right color will get your way paved for you, outside of the AMPAS rules. #OscarsSoWhite
And subsequently, Rooney was in Her and Carol, two films that were in the Oscar conversation. Not that this doesn’t warrant a side-eye, but there are some others who were sponsored that got in just because.
Original T.C.: I’ll say upfront that I don’t care for Mara’s acting and really don’t care for her persona.
She’s not the problem, though. Very likely, she was invited early due to a diversity initiative to recruit younger members, especially women and people of color. She’s a regularly working actress who’s been nominated herself subsequently, and I suspect she has seen a broader range of movies than the stereotypical retiree member of the Academy.
@lunchcoma, very valid point. Besides the skin color issue, there’s the issue of age and female demographics needing more representation.
You’re missing theo obvious three: Alfonso Curaron, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Innaritu. Heck I’d even put Robert Rodriguez in the academy if he’s not already even though he’s kind anti-establishment, which I love.
We really need more women directors represented – see Pajiba’s very active stream suggesting movies by women for the #52filmsbywomen
Good point. Hispanics, Asians, and also American Indians should be featured more in movies and television. Hollywood should be leading the way in promoting diversity.
Absolutely. Rooney Mara playing Tiger Lily was the worst casting ever. The Academy members do the voting and determine the outcome yet most members of the Academy take no ownership of the voting or outcomes. They should figure this out. It’s voting on movies and performances. It’s not brain surgery.
I don’t know about most people, but I don’t watch the Oscars anymore. It’s just 4 hours or pompous posturing from “some” of the people who are on the telecast. What ever happened to the good old days (God, I cannot believe I’m officially old enough with an AARP card to say that) when people were just happy to be nominated? It just seems that SOME actors and movie makers want to make movies so they could be nominated!
Well read some of the comments here. Every time an actor/actress does a film the first thing out of people’s mouths is they are trying for an Oscar. Maybe they are just trying to make a good film. And if they don’t get a nod; there is ragging on them for it not being an Oscar nominated film. So the public plays their parts in that too. The Art of film making should be that. The Art of making films. If some recognition comes great; if not fine you continue doing what you do. There is too much importance on every film being Oscar worthy. And as I said that is in large because of critics and the public on forums. Movies get trashed before they are seen. Actors and Actresses get trashed by critics. So STOP that then we can move on.
‘Tis true.
I wonder if the Academy can do something to dismantle the ‘machine’.
so true and well put lisa 2,
We should go to theatre and film based on what interests us not Oscar potential.There are Oscar tooted performances that just do not interest me like Black Mass because of subject matter and the clips I have seen.
Ya’ll should really add the bemoaning ass ridiculous opener to the letter talking about how it was so “tough days for us with so many voices in the mix” and “the academy took the courageous step” -more like people interrupted your collective fap session and you couldn’t enjoy yourselves properly in the midst of public ridicule and shaming and after George Clooney had to say something and also to prevent further commentary like Rampling’s Delphy and Caine’s we NEEDED to get on the ball
Right?!
And yet people are still insulting black celebrities for speaking up… because outrage and awareness never gets aaaaanything accomplished… oh wait.
(Not saying this is the solution we need, not by a long shot… as your quotes from the letter prove. But it’s a step in the right direction, and it sure as hell would not have happened if white voices were still the only ones with media platforms.)
THIS.
All the complaints about the ‘boycott’ and the attention it caused and look what happened? Positive change was effected.
Folks can miss me when they think nothing good can come out of truly fighting for and being vocal about your rights.
Aaaamen. This controversy revealed some disappointing/infuriating hatred in some of my closest family members… all white middle/upper-class people, of course. It’s awful that so many people are personally offended by others fighting for the same rights they already have. They’re so eager to deny something that doesn’t even affect their privileged lives…
I’m hoping The Dark Knight fanboys aren’t among them. After all, their ‘complaints’ that The Dark Knight didn’t make the cut for Best Picture may have spurred the expanding the BP category to up to 10. The Academy acted on that pretty damn quickly.
This Is Swinal Fap? Sorry. White movie pun. I couldn’t resist! Your “collective fap session” is a phrase of genius to describe the Oscars.
Now this is a real reason to boycott the Oscars. Three cheers for mediocrity.
Ah, the ROT has arrived.
–TheRealPinky
Did you just beam in here from another planet? Because the Oscars have traditionally always awarded mediocrity.
Really ?!
Birdman,12 Years A Slave,The Hurt Lockers ,The Artist are mediocre ??
Even Argo or The King’s Speech who can seem generic are good movies .you can’t hate them
The Artist would be one of those movies I point to as being specifically of interest to Hollywood and of considerably less interesting to people whose lives don’t revolve around the entertainment industry. I wouldn’t call it mediocre, but it’s an oddball that relies heavily on nostalgia and insider interest. People aren’t watching it now, let alone twenty years from now. Birdman has a little of that as well, though I think it will fare better as an early standout from someone who’s likely to be an important directing talent.
Argo and The King’s Speech were both good and a bit mediocre. Also mediocre: Slumdog Millionaire, Crash, Chicago, Shakespeare in Love, and Forrest Gump. All except Crash are perfectly enjoyable, watchable films. None of them were the best film of their year or even very close to it.
But that’s not a surprise. Awards shows always make errors, especially in hindsight. The Oscars could perhaps due with fewer of them, or at least errors that aren’t quite so predictable. There’s a reason a whole genre of films gets referred to as Oscar Bait.
Please, the Oscars have become a popularity contest that awards mediocrity ALL the time. See also, JLaw’s latest 2 Oscar nominations, Kate Winslet win, Shakespeare in Love’s wins, Crash winning instead of Brokeback Mountain for best picture etc etc etc. Diversity does not lower the standard.
I love it when diversity issue comes up and ppl complain that diversity is the problem. Like scratching my head. I didn’t know the problem was inclusion or acceptance, silly me. The implicit meaning being anything non-white is automatically less skilled or honorable or worthy.
How about The Blindside? That realistic and diverse Lifetime movie about the White Woman in the Bad Blond Wig saving the African American Boy that can play football, hopefully for her college alma matter!
I know it was based on a true story and I love Sandy but I can’t believe she won an Oscar for a schmaltzy After School Special. Gabourey Sidide was also nominated for Precious, playing a black woman that saved herself but the Oscar goes to the white woman that saved a black kid. That was 5 years ago…why has it taken this long for Hollywood to get a clue?
@Miss E. Sandra Bullock winning an oscar for the Blind Side over Gabourey, Carey, Helen, and even Meryl is favoritism and excessively praising white mediocrity at it’s finest. I love her, but you can’t throw around the word meritocracy when she made it in the door over performances that flat out out-acted her.
Lol, have at it. It’s always cute to see who throws a tantrum when their toys get taken away from them.
World keeps a changing, you keep getting left behind.
Ask yourself this: what’s more likely to encourage mediocrity: having an extremely narrow, homogenous group choosing from a narrow, homogeneous group to decide what’s the best OR a group of diverse, ACTIVE professionals choosing from a wider, more interesting group? Correct me if I’m wrong, but being the best of a tiny group to begin with isn’t actually “the best”.
Yes – it’s like entropy for the film business.
I always think – where would modern music be without black Americans? Including white modern musicians? Without black American music, all those heroes – including and especially the white ones: Elvis, the Stones, et al – would not exist. What would we all be doing now if it weren’t for those black Americans? Queuing up to buy tickets for stadiums to see the latest hip string quartet? I don’t think so. (Not that there’s anything wrong with string quartets, but you know what I mean).
Letting in new creative groups has transformative power. Without them, genres of artistic expression just stultify and die.
When we pull each other up, we can all reach greater heights.
Ugh, there’s not a comment satisfying enough for this feeling.
I LOVE it when people try to pretend they can ignore an issue and when it’s small and could have been handled properly just refuse to believe they can’t always get their way. I LOOOVE it when reality jumps up and smacks them in the face.
Sorry folks, minorities have never been more vocal and we’re NOT going to let you silence us or believe we do not have an equal right to something.
Of course I don’t believe the Oscars are important BUT I’ll be damned before I say that any competition measuring value in society is allowed to be all-whites and that by default poc are consistently lesser. THAT part of history is over. If you’ve got pickle-eating contents where whites are the only winners we’re coming for that too.
I just love that we have these older white members complaining already. Nothing like threatening a white man’s privilege to get them to show their true colors.
“If you’ve got pickle-eating contests where whites are the only winners we’re coming for that too. ”
This was so good I wanted to point it out 😀
“If you’ve got pickle-eating contests where whites are the only winners we’re coming for that too. ”
That’s funny AF…but I might be willing to let them have the pickle-eating contests…Ha!
It’s interesting that it only took one week of people complaining on social media to make such a big change. Yet people say social media is useless. It is sad that no one inside the Academy thought to make these changes years and years ago. I just hope in years to come people of all backgrounds are being recognized, not only at the Oscars but in all professions.
You know I used to disdain social media – twitter, instagram et al. But I’ve discovered that there are so many thoughtful, inspiring, thought provoking blogs, and people using twitter for good that I’ve done a complete 180 on that opinion.
I don’t believe social media did this. They don’t care about people ranting on social media; they didn’t care last year.
It was celebrities speaking up, like Jada Pinkett Smith, who suggested a boycott and the possibility that other celebrities (including Chris Rock?) might take part in such a boycott.
They fear the news and pictures that would result in.
I think what the general public thinks is what Hollywood is scared of. We are the ones who spend our money to watch these films. Hollywood only cares about money. We have the power and I do believe social media helped in this case as #Oscarssowhite trended for days, and still is. Last year there was a bit of an uproar but it’s worse this year because this happened two years in a row now.
It wasn’t really either. AMPAS is generally slow to change. The board has been planning most of these changes for a while but they were meeting resistance from members. The uproar created a perfect opportunity to push them through!
So what you’re saying is, The Palm Springs Film Festival isn’t going to be a big draw next year.
I’m also going to point out, if you go off of viewing trends this wasn’t likely going to be a hugely watched Oscars broadcast. The Martian and Mad Max are the only two commercial hits represent among the nominees, and it turns out that people don’t tune in as much when the movies that they loved weren’t nominated. It’s why Titanic and The Return of the King’s years were huge broadcasts. And it’s why they increased the field to potentially 10 best picture nominees – to hopefully inspire people to watch, though of course that doesn’t always happen. So if people don’t tune in this year, it’s not because of the boycott or Chris Rock, it’s because they weren’t going to in the first place, and I hope they don’t get blamed.
Chris Rock has a huge following. He is unapologetic and has a sharp sense of humor. A lot of people would and probably will tune in just to hear his jokes…now more than ever. Man the pressure on him must be insane.
I’m kind of hit or miss on Chris Rock, but I’d take him over Ellen Degeneres any day. And you’re right, the pressure on him must be incredible, though I wonder how much the host factor’s in to people’s decision to watch a 3 hour broadcast – he didn’t provide an uptick the last time he hosted. Even though I still laugh at “Jude Law is one of our finest actors”!
Obviously, there’s an X Factor now – Rock is expected to provide some pretty razor sharp commentary, and I just hope he can meet the challenge. Hopefully he won’t crumble and just do his own version of “I saw your boobs”
The thing is that people only think about the acting/directing/producing winners when thinking about past winners. There are a LOT of technical categories in the Oscars. All categories except the female acting categories have been dominated by white men for a very long time. So even with these changes the lifetime members will be absolutely dominated by white men.
At the end of the day, the Oscars can make these changes and work harder to be diverse; but the real problem still remains the industry itself and the lack of roles and opportunities for women and minorities.
You are making very valid points, but I’m just going to point out that those old white guys in the technical categories choose the nominees for the technical categories (where more diversity is definitely needed) and Best Picture but they do not choose the nominees for the acting categories, where the most visible lack of diversity is occurring. Only actors nominate actors.
Yes, and directors choose directors and writers choose writers. Those aren’t as visible as the acting categories, but nominations in those categories can bring many millions to a small film, and I think it’s easier to call out apparent bias in the Best Picture nominations if the writing and directing categories differ from them substantially. It won’t fix everything by any means, but it sounds like these were changes they needed to make for awhile now.
And the only white boys club more exclusive than the directing category is The Rolling Stones (For God’s sake, Mick, give Lisa full member status!) The writing category has been a bit broader, given that women actually get acknowledged there occasionally. The tech categories, like cinematography and editing and sound tend to be where the old white guys reside, which is rather weird given the technological advances.
Good. It’s not just a race problem. We hear every year about Academy voters who let other people fill out their ballots, and we see various members discussing their voting choices, and it’s clear there are a lot of people involved in the process who care more about the perks than choosing good movies. Winnowing out some of the members who haven’t been active recently and who weren’t among the greats in their field (as far as I can tell, if you’ve been nominated for an Academy Award yourself or have 30 years of activity, you retain your voting rights for life) is a good step forward. It won’t fix everything, but I think it takes a few steps to ensure that the voting body contains more people who have watched a reasonable variety of movies over the last year.
I think these changes are a step in the right direction for the Academy. But there still needs to be a bigger focus on the industry as a whole, telling more diverse stories, and hiring diverse men and women on casts and crews.
Im still with Viola, all of this is well and good but if If no POC films are being greenlighted and POC are not cast in quality roles in mixed films , who are this new and improved academy going to vote for ?
Still need to focus on the root problem which is the widening and deepen ing of roles/work for women /POC before and behind the camera and not just the symptoms (one of which is the Oscars )
Precisely.
Honestly, I dont think this will change a thing. This is their game, they make the rules, they will win at the end. It’s what we call in Mexico “dar atole con el dedo”, they’ll make some actions to fool people, they’ll probably nominate and give a couple of awards to poc, keep talking and talking about it, and thats it. This has become a cycle.
I’m glad they’ve taken some positive steps. But I would’ve preferred it if they asked every member to reapply for membership and called on other interested parties to apply too. That way they could’ve ensured that the new membership was more diverse. Anywho, I hope these changes also mean that non-English speaking films and those who worked on them start getting more recognition in the major award categories. The widely held belief that English speaking films are inherently better than non English speaking films is xenophobic and ignorant.
You’ve posted this comment approximately 800 times, and with all due respect, it’s absurd. Do you consider the BAFTAS xenophobic for primarily rewarding British films? Do you consider the Cesars xenophobic for focusing on French cinema? I highly doubt it.
I didn’t get to read all the comments, but did anyone else see the glaring loophole? Any Oscar winner or former nominee with voting rights retains those rights regardless of the work they’ve done (or haven’t done) in the previous decade…
Which means Ancient McWhite who was nominated for doing the lighting for “Cowboys & Indians 108” back in 1957 will get to vote until he dies. There are many more Oscars to be nominated for stuff other than acting, writing and directing…
Adding three seats to a 51-member board…
oh boy.