“It runs through Hollywood and it’s a bigger problem than the Oscars themselves and a bigger issue than just the Academy’s membership”.
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Addressing diversity on the board of governors: The academy will establish three new governor seats that will be nominated by the president.
Jada Pinkett was one of the first celebrities to slam the Academy and call for a boycott, along with filmmaker Spike Lee.
None of the nominees for acting and directing awards were people of color despite a plethora of worthy candidates, an astonishing whitewash, and the Academy’s failure to adequately recognize non-white talent extended to the Oscars’ technical categories. “These new measures regarding governance and voting will have an immediate impact”.
Others are asking their peers to get over colour issues, while Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs herself insists that greater representation is required.
A 2012 report by the Los Angeles Times showed that Oscar voters were made up of 94% Caucasian and 77% male members. Hudson added that the academy board of governors was “impatient” to make changes. Rock already had tweeted that this year’s Oscars are “the white BET Awards”. However, Kevin Tsujihara, head of the Time Warner Inc-owned studio, said there was still more work to do.
Tom O’Neil, founder of awards prediction site goldderby.com, told AFP it was a “dramatic first step” but urged caution on the numbers.
Every new member’s voting status will lapse after 10 years unless the person has been active in motion picture during that period.
The duo stepped out publicly one day after the academy announced plans for sweeping membership changes to deal with a storm of criticism that the film body does not represent minority and women voices effectively.
Under new eligibility rules, each new member’s voting status will lapse after 10 years unless he or she has been active in motion pictures during that decade, and lifetime voting rights will only be conferred after three 10-year terms or if the member has won or been nominated for an Oscar. The Academy doesn’t want those people voting on the Oscars going forward. “I have sat on committees (within the academy) trying to do just that for almost a decade”.
The academy’s membership is made up of roughly 6,200 movie professionals around the world, and it was not immediately clear how many would be purged from the voting rolls by the new rule.
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“I am both heartbroken and frustrated about the lack of inclusion“, she said. “I am sorry that they offended some people, but, at the very least, I am happy that they started a conversation about diversity in Hollywood”. We need to get out there with what we’ve been talking about internally, but now we have to put it into action. “You can change the Academy, but if there are no black films being produced, what is there to vote for?”
