The Academy Announces Plans To Diversify The Oscars Voting Process, Finally

Some of the film industry’s most prominent African-Americans – including Will Smith (widely deemed as being snubbed in the Best Actor category for his performance in Concussion), his wife and fellow actor Jada Pinkett Smith, and director Spike Lee – have publicly slammed the Academy, some even calling for an Oscar boycott.

The Academy Awards changes its rules and has unanimously decided – in the wake of criticism of this year’s Oscars – to commit to doubling the number of women and diverse members of the Academy by 2020.

(Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)Film academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs says that despite the organization’s internal efforts toward inclusion, a second year of all-white acting Oscar nominees made her think, “We need to step this up”. “These new measures regarding governance and voting will have an immediate impact”.

Other approved academy changes include limiting members’ voting status to a period of 10 years, to be extended only if the individual remains active in film during that decade.

She announced plans for an “ambitious, global campaign to identify and recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity”.

Three new seats will be added to the Academy’s board of governors to improve diversity in leadership.

Damon added the lack of diversity at this 88th Academy Awards is “shameful and embarrassing that there were two years in a row without a single actor of color nominated”.

But Variety said the problem had roots far deeper than the 89-year-old academy itself.

Those losing eligibility to vote would be moved from active to “emeritus” status, absolving them of paying dues while leaving their academy privileges intact, except for voting.

The recently released #OscarSoWhite nomination list features no actor or actress of color. There are only two ways to be admitted into the organization: either be nominated for an Oscar or receive sponsorship from two current members of the Academy.

Goldberg stated that she’s “pissed off” this conversation only comes up once a year and then forgotten the other eleven months. “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.

“People think that the Oscars so White is like the new Black Lives Matter thing”. “The Academy has 17 branches; actors nominate actors, editors nominate editors, and so on; the entire eligible membership votes on final Oscars”, the paper reported.

“Maybe it is time that we pull back our resources and we put them back into our communities…into our programs…and we make programs for ourselves that acknowledge us in ways that we see fit that are just as good as the so-called ‘mainstreams, ‘” she said.

“A lack of diversity in the entertainment industry is a complex issue without a simple solution”, the National Urban League, the National Action Network and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation said in a joint statement.