Obama weighs in on controversy over all-white Oscar slate

Others, though, maintained that the academy’s steps don’t address the real problems of the industry.

Cheryl Boone Isaacs, AMPAS President, together with Dawn Hudson, CEO, held a press conference at the Producers Guild Awards detailing the changes they made in their membership list. I know that a lot of folks have had questions about why increasing diversity is so important, and I would ask for them to think about this if the roles were reversed.

Ms Goldberg’s response to Oscars boycott came after Jada Pinkett Smith’s announcement to not attend the 2016 ceremony. “They will still be members, they just will lose the ability to vote on a community that they are not really a part of”. Both Hudson and Issacs say the changes, while accelerated by the outrage over the all-white acting nominations, date well beyond the recent cries for diversity. It’s the fact that there are few people of color making movies or starring in movies in Hollywood in the first place that has led to the lack of diversity at the Academy awards.

Rock will host the Oscars on February 28.

“Of course, I was upset because Sam didn’t get nominated, but then we moved on”, says the actress about her husband’s “Hateful Eight” performance.

Geoerge Clooney, Smith, Spike Lee, David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong’o are some of the celebrities who have slammed the Oscars nominations this year.

Mmhm. (Laughter.) Well, we’ve always known he was gonna go there, right?

She added: “These new measures regarding governance and voting will have an immediate impact and begin the process of significantly changing our membership composition”.

Hillary Clinton is calling promised changes to the Oscars’ voting membership “long overdue”, saying the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences “has to catch up with our reality”. “In addition, members will receive lifetime voting rights after three ten-year terms; or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award”. “This is Chris”, Boone Isaacs said. We’ll be waiting for Chris Rock’s monologue to hit the Internets, though. He is a brilliant, brilliant, observant comedian and performer, and he is a brilliant host. So we know he’s going to do that,”adds Isaacs”.