The organization will add three new seats for women and minorities and add them to its governing board.
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Cheryl said in a statement: “The Academy is going to lead and not wait for the industry to catch up”.
All of these are substantive changes that will open up our governance to a wider range of members and have a significant and positive impact on the Academy. It begs the question, why hasn’t the president been able to affect any change? Current members who do not qualify will receive “emeritus status”, which exempts members from dues but allows them all other membership privileges except for voting. No black person got nominated and this caused an uproar last week, after Jada Pinkett-Smith challenged the Academy calling for a boycott. “It’s a strong first step but that is all that it is, it’s a first step”, he told Us of the Board of Governors’ proposal to double minority membership by 2020.
It is freaky to assume that, by its voting, each Academy member represents the decisions of studios, networks and talent agencies to produce films. In order to maintain an active voting body, the Academy is mandating “activ[ity] in motion pictures” over the course of an initial decade-long membership.
The Academy committed to doubling the number of women and minorities among its 6,300 members, who are now 90 per cent white and 70 per cent male with an average age in the sixties.
The organization also plans to diversify its leadership beyond the board of governors by adding new members to key decision-making committees, and further diversify its membership with a global campaign to identify and recruit diverse talent. Boone Isaacs pointedly signaled that the academy’s actions were not sufficient for Hollywood.
When asked if he was attending, Will said: “No, my wife’s not going”.
Though it’s ridiculous that any of this has happened in the first place, we definitely like the quick response from the Academy and hope things continue in the right direction towards a more accepting and tolerant world.
“We’ve discussed it. We’re part of this community, but at this current time, we’re uncomfortable to stand there and say that this is OK”. “Everyone needs to be skewered from this, from the people that are complaining to the people who aren’t saying anything to the people that are saying there’s no problem, to the people that are saying it’s all problems”, he said. The last time African-American actors were without any nominations in acting categories for two years in a row was between 1997 and 1998.
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During an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the How To Get Away With Murder and two times Oscar-nominated actress has spoken that the real issue weren’t the nominations, but the lack of roles offered to black people.
