The announcement of the Oscar membership changes happened after the Academy was criticized for not making any non-white selections for Oscar nominations for the second straight year.
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The actions announced Friday by academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs following a unanimous vote by the academy’s 51-member Board of Governors were by some measure an uncommonly quick reaction to the crisis that had enveloped the Academy Awards since nominations were announced eight days earlier.
In order to bring in new members, the Academy plans an “ambitious, global campaign to identify and recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity”.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is overhauling its governance, membership rules and sponsorship process in response to intense criticism over the diversity of this year’s Oscar nominations and the Academy’s membership. Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status, which allows them to enjoy all the privileges of membership, except voting.
As BBC News reports, academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has confirmed that three new seats will be added to the Academy’s board of governors in a bid to improve the diversity of the panel.
The Academy’s Board of Governors said the changes are created to “make the Academy’s membership, its governing bodies, and its voting members significantly more diverse”. In 2012, the LA Times did a survey of about 5,000 of them, and what the survey discovered was that the membership is about 93 percent white, about 76 percent male and the average age was 63 years old.
Isaacs told USA TODAY that the academy changes had been under discussion for years, but the work needed to be made public on Friday.
The announcement also raised the question of how the Academy will define being “active in motion pictures” and what process it will use to review members’ eligibility for voting rights. “That’s insane”, Matt Damon said about the Academy adding more diverse members to their crew. Those who do tune in to the Oscars broadcast will likely be watching to see how the academy acknowledges the diversity controversy. In 1996, the Rev. Jesse Jackson organized national protests over the lack of African-American representation. So I would just appeal to peoples bottom line.
Shawn Edwards, co-founder of the African-American Film Critics Association, said this change was crucial to gradually change the academy make-up.
Spike Lee made the classic “Do the Right Thing” but the Academy also failed to “Do the Right Thing” and give him or any other black director an Oscar.
“One good step in a long, complicated journey for people of color + women artists”, she wrote on Twitter in a message attached to an official letter sent to her from members of the Academy.
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The 88 annual Academy Awards, hosted by Chris Rock, will air live on ABC on February 28.
