What Time Do the Oscars 2016 Start?

For the answers to these pressing matters, we turn to red carpet coverage, that pre-Oscars marathon of presenters, nominees and assorted celebs talking about who they’re wearing, and where they got their borrowed jewelry.

Harvey Weinstein has urged stars not to boycott this year’s Oscars.

The Academy recently revealed that its 6,000-plus voting members are 93 percent white and 76 percent male.

Doubling the number of women and minority members over the next four years figures to be daunting. Other contenders are “Bridge of Spies”, “Brooklyn”, “The Martian”, “Room” and “Mad Max: Fury Road”.

Chris Rock has been given what some see as the ultimate honour in showbusiness – but this year hosting the Oscars is a double-edged sword.

Despite speculation, Academy Awards producer Reginald Hudlin told ET that Rock would not be dropping out of the Oscars but was re-working his material to incorporate the controversy. “[The academy is] a white boys’ club”.

Eddie Redmayne, Kate Winslet and Christian Bale are up for their second Oscar, while first-time nominees Mark Rylance, Charlotte Rampling and Tom Hardy could also win big on the night.

In a recent study, Stacy L. Smith, Marc Choueiti, and Dr. Katherine Pieper at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Journalism and Communication examined 109 current movies and 305 television series for their portrayals of ethnicities, race, and gender bias.

More than a savvy handoff of a successful franchise, the film about a struggling young fighter who comes to Philadelphia to find himself, and prove himself, evokes the black experience in specific, personal, essential ways.

“Speaking on the red carpet at the Golden Globes, the best actress nominee said, “I didn’t know what to expect because I’d never been here before so I spoke with my dear friend Emma Stone and was like “What do I do?’ and she said ‘You’re going to love it. You’re inside the TV” and so going in here with that perspective that like ‘I’m inside the TV right now” makes it so silly and amusing that I’m having a blast”. Dave Grohl is also set to perform. She received the best actress award in 1942 for her movie Mrs Miniver and delivered a speech that lasted more than five minutes.

The fact is, it would take a massive change in Hollywood’s mindset to make the movies in any way representative of their audiences. Even a more diverse academy can’t fix that.

The spell Hollywood casts over popular culture has changed every decade: Today, a lot of what passes for film writing – especially on the Internet – is devoted to parsing teaser trailers of the latest comic-book adaptation or debating the philosophical underpinnings of The Force Awakens. So, by all means, tune into the Oscars, but also keep up the noise.