Oscars make changes to boost diversity amid backlash

To combat this dilemma, the Academy will launch a campaign to “recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity”.

The academy now aims for women to comprise 48 percent of its membership and “diverse groups” at least 14 percent as an initial step.

The Academy announced the change today.

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. “Deaf ears. Closed minds”.

If you read between the lines of essentially everything written about the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, you’ll note that Academy members, while saying they, themselves, voted for various people of color, are often quick to point out the huge number of older Academy members, who hold very different views.

Jada Pinkett Smith asked viewers to boycott the Oscars, sharing that she wouldn’t be watching or attending the 88th annual awards ceremony.

Beginning later this year, each new member’s voting status will last 10 years, and will be renewed if that new member has been active in motion pictures during that decade. Previously, all active members received lifetime voting rights.

“The Academy is going to lead and not wait for the industry to catch up”, Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who is African-American, said in a statement.

Apparently still on the table are several other ideas that have been floated for increasing the diversity of nominees, including returning the number of Best Picture nominees to a solid 10 (where it was in the years 2010 and 2011) from its current number of five to 10 nominees, and increasing the number of acting nominees. “These new measures regarding governance and voting will have an immediate impact and begin the process of significantly changing our membership composition”.

These rules also apply retroactively. There will also be three new seats on the Board of Governors established immediately, nominated by the president for three year terms and confirmed by the board.

If a member does not qualify, they will be given emeritus status and will not have to pay dues.

Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced the changes Friday, following a weeklong storm of criticism and calls for an Oscar boycott after academy members nominated an all-white slate of actors for the second year in a row.

But Ava DuVernay, who became the first black filmmaker to earn a Golden Globe bid for her for Oscar-nominated civil rights drama “Selma” past year, said the academy’s action was a long time in coming and taken only under duress.