Women will compose over 40 percent of the membership and inclusion of three members to the 51 Board of Governors.
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As a member of the Academy himself, Damon praised Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs for taking positive action amid the scandal.
How many new female or minority members the academy would need to enlist to meet its goal, and how many older members stand to lose their voting privileges was not immediately clear.
With the new rules announced, voting members must be active in the movie industry during the past 10 years or their voting status won’t be renewed. Members will receive lifetime voting rights after three ten-year terms; or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award.
The awards ceremony, also known as the Oscars, is considered the most prestigious film recognition in America.
According to the Academy, the Board of Governors voted Thursday night to begin “an ambitious, global campaign to identify and recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity”.
Nominees are chosen by more than 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a group which is itself overwhelmingly white, male and over 50, reports the BBC’s Los Angeles Correspondent James Cook. “It runs through Hollywood and it’s a bigger problem than the Oscars themselves and a bigger issue than just the Academy’s membership”. The Academy will apply these same standards retroactively to current members.
Stars including Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Spike Lee and Mark Ruffalo have all spoken publicly about their disappointment that no black actors or actresses featured in the nominations for the 2016 awards.
Shortly after the Oscar nominations were revealed earlier this month, many Hollywood actors were outraged over it being the second consecutive year in which no people of color were nominated in any of the major acting categories.
If the rule change “sidelines a lot of geezers in the academy who don’t appreciate “Straight Outta Compton, ‘ then the next ‘Straight Outta Compton” could make the list next year”, he said. Ava DuVernay, director of last year’s best picture-nominee “Selma”, tweeted that the changes were “one good step in a long, complicated journey for people of color and women artists”.
“I’m glad that Cheryl Boone Isaacs took some action”. “But (the academy) needed to get something out right away”.
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In a conversation on “The View” on Monday, Whoopi Goldberg shared her thoughts on the current conversation surrounding the lack of non-white Oscar nominees. Some may argue the Academy’s delayed response doesn’t exactly constitute “leadership”, but at least they’re offering some sort of substantive response as opposed to maintaining the silence that’s characterized years past.
