Film academy announced reforms to diversify — AP Newsbreak

Following a unanimous vote by its Board of Governors on Thursday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced a series of sweeping changes to their membership and voting policies today in response to widespread outrage over the lack of diversity among not only the Academy’s members but also this year’s Oscar nominees – the second year in a row where almost all the major nominees were white.

The Academy’s Board of Governors says it is committing to doubling the number of women and minority members within five years.

The organization is also instituting new rules affecting voting status: Each new member’s voting status will last 10 years; renewal is dependent on that new member being active in motion pictures during that decade. Lifetime voting rights will be granted only to Academy Award nominees and winners, and to members after three 10-year voting terms.

–Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status, which means they enjoy the privileges of membership, such as access to screenings and events, but can not vote on the Oscars.

Three seats, appointed by the president, are being added to the board of governors, and individual members’ voting rights will be reviewed every 10 years. “The Academy is going to lead and not wait for the industry to catch up”, said Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs in an announcement on Friday.

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”.

But to many of those who have lobbied for change, the academy’s announcement was seen as just a beginning: a first step in a growing movement for equal opportunity, on movie sets and award-show stages, in an industry that lags far behind matching the racial, ethnic and gender makeup of its moviegoing public.

Actor Will Smith, director Spike Lee and a handful of others vow to skip the February 28 awards.

The academy now aims for women to comprise 48 percent of its approximately 6,000 members and “diverse groups” at least 14 percent as an initial step.

There is historical precedent for Boone Isaac’s efforts to change the academy’s membership.

“Our members are in a business where people come in and out”, Boone Isaacs said.

Ava DuVernay, director of last year’s Oscar-nominated civil rights drama Selma, tweeted that the changes were “one good step in a long, complicated journey for people of color + women artists”.

“We all are aware that our membership is pretty closed, if you will”, she said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press.

Early reaction to the changes from academy members was mainly positive though some stipulated that all new members should be held to the same standard as current members.

“It was her call to action, for herself, and for me and for our family to be a part of the solution, ‘ added the two-time Oscar nominee for his roles in ‘Ali” and ‘The Pursuit of Happyness.’ ‘There is a regressive slide towards separatism, towards racial and religious disharmony and that’s not the Hollywood that I want to leave behind, ‘ he said.

April Reign, an African-American activist who started the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag a year ago, welcomed the changes but was still calling on viewers to boycott the Oscars.

“But we still need to put pressure on the Hollywood studio heads to make more inclusive and diverse films, because the academy can only nominate quality work that has been made”. Reminder: the voters for the Oscars are overwhelmingly old white men. “They are doing that”.