Male, white documentary directors dominate Academy Awards

Beasts of No Nation’s Idris Elba was passed over for an Oscar nod only to be nominated and win a Screen Actor’s Guild Award weeks later on TNT.

All eyes are now on this year’s Oscar host Chris Rock who told Essence magazine in its March issue, “Black woman get paid less than everybody in Hollywood”. Similar to DiCaprio’s nomination for Best Actor, multiple predictions are already calling “The Big Short” the victor for Best Picture. Other contenders are “Bridge of Spies”, “Brooklyn”, “The Martian”, “Room” and “Mad Max: Fury Road”. Sunday night will also draw veterans of stand-out awards season fashion, from Julianne Moore and Reese Witherspoon to Cate Blanchett, a nominee this year for best actress in a leading role for her turn in “Carol”. The total ratio of male-to-female directors is 5.6 to 1, and about 71.1 percent of writers from this past year’s major film and television shows were male.

Think of Gone with the Wind, which for a long time held the record for winning the most Oscars. No, the 2016 Oscars have stirred up controversy because of who isn’t nominated. Everybody’s talking about Jennifer Lawrence.

When we at Slate started looking into the defunct categories, we wondered: If these categories existed today, who would deserve to win them? The nominations brought to fore racism debate and pointed at the lack of diversity as no black actor was nominated in the top Best actor/actress categories.

Sunday is Hollywood’s biggest night of the year, when A-list stars will strut down the red carpet before cramming into the Dolby Theatre for the 88th Academy Awards. Red-carpet coverage begins at 4 p.m.

“The findings titled ‘Journey to the Academy Awards: An investigation of Oscar-shortlisted and nominated documentaries (2014-2016)” showed that Academy Awards recognition of female documentary makers remain consistently rare.