Calls for boycott over diversity throw Oscars into turmoil

Jada Pinkett Smith took to Facebook to address her comments about a lack of racial diversity at the 2016 Oscars and her intent to boycott the event alongside husband Will Smith, prior to an apology by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

But, How Is It Possible For The 2nd Consecutive Year All 20 Contenders Under The Actor Category Are White?

Top actress Jada Pinkett Smith has not been shy about her frustration with the whitewashed nomination list and states she plans to boycott the Oscars. She finished with a call to other minorities to join her in boycotting the Oscars.

The Academy has hired black comedian Chris Rock to host and black producer Reginald Hudlin to co-produce this year’s Oscars show. Rock has already acknowledged the dearth of black nominees, calling the Oscars “the white BET awards”.

A 2014 Los Angeles Times study found that out of around 6,000 members, the film academy was 93 percent white and 76 percent male.

The black cast and director of hip hop biopic “Straight Outta Compton” were also left out. “We are not in the room”, Lee said, describing the place “where they have these green-light meetings quarterly, where they at the scripts and look at who is in it and decide what we’re making, what we’re not making”. Isaacs said she is “heartbroken and frustrated by the lack of inclusion”, and called attention to efforts made over the last four years to diversify the Academy’s membership. “I would like to walk away and say it doesn’t matter, but it does, because that acknowledgment changes the trajectory of your life, your career, and the culture of the world we live in”.

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Last year #OscarsSoWhite spread all over Twitter, this year it broke the internet.

She said: “Maybe it’s time we pull back our resources and we put them back into our communities, and we make programmes for ourselves that acknowledge us in ways that we see fit, that are just as good as the so-called mainstream”.

John Singleton, Oscar-nominated for directing the 1991 film “Boyz n the Hood”, said nominations for the industry’s most prestigious awards are a lottery.

Whoopi went on to insist casting directors are also partly to blame for failing to include more minority actors in blockbusters like The Avengers, stating, “I would like to be one of those people saving the earth, but they’re not coming to me…!”