Whoopi Goldberg: Boycott movies not Oscars

Actor Will Smith, his actress wife Jada Pinkett Smith, director Spike Lee and a handful of others have said they will skip the February 28 awards ceremony.

We want the Oscars to be voted on by people who are now working in motion pictures, or who have been active for a long time. Are you saying that I have voted (consciously or unconsciously) to exclude women, members of the LGBT community and other minorities?

“You must be employed in the same kinds of quality films that got you into the Academy in the first place”, the document says, adding, “The intention is to be inclusive”.

However, many Academy members are feeling snubbed and insulted by this move. Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status.

But the most seismic of reforms was the declaration that new members’ voting status would be guaranteed only for 10 years – renewed only if the new member remains active in the industry or if they have completed three successive membership periods.

The group gave detailed answers to a number of questions evidently being asked of it by current and would-be Academy members, clarifying the announcement it made on Friday, January 22, in which it vowed double its female and minority membership by 2020, following the #OscarsSoWhite controversy.

Goldberg touted her own win as a reason why the issue is not that the Academy is discriminating against black actors. “We are not lowering any standards, we’re widening our net”.

The two announced that they will introduce new members and strip old members of their membership. The award giving body was charged with not being diverse enough to allow more colored people in their Oscars nomination lists.

“We appreciate what the Academy has done so far, but understand one thing, it is still just a promise to make change”.

The Oscars have received a lot of criticism in the past two weeks for the lack of diversity in their nominees, as well as their voting methods, to which they responded with a plan to overhaul the system.

In order to immediately increase diversity on the Board of Governors, the Academy will establish three new governor seats that will be nominated by the President for three-year terms and confirmed by the Board.