Academy takes historic action to increase diversity

Its 51-member board of governors voted unanimously for the changes, which also include limiting members’ voting rights to 10 years and expanding recruitment outreach globally. That, in turn, had led to some to call for a boycott of the upcoming Oscars on February 28.

April Reign, an African- American activist who started the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag after last year’s nominations, said she welcomed the changes outlined by the academy but was still calling on viewers to boycott the Oscars this year.

Their ranks have been joined by Dame Joan Collins, who has turned to Twitter to express her displeasure at Lee’s description of the Oscars as a “lilly white” [sic] event.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: Hey, Rachel.

The board which oversees the Oscars released Friday what it called “historic” goals to counter an explosion of criticism over minority representation. Not least because repetition has never been a problem for Oscar voters – indeed, the one non-white director to make the shortlist this year, for The Revenant, is last year’s victor, Birdman’s Mexican virtuoso Alejandro G Inarritu.

ULABY: Yeah, it’s really an institutional issues. Academy voters should be a more diverse body.

The Los Angeles Times newspaper published a report in 2012, which suggested those given the privilege to vote for Academy Awards nominees were 94 per cent Caucasian and 77 per cent male. As a member who has stepped partially away from the industry, it feels like someone like me is being victimized.

Since then, the academy, particularly under Boone Isaacs, has stepped up efforts to bolster diversity.

MARTIN: So what will these changes be?

The Academy committed to doubling the number of women and minorities among its 6,300 members, who are now 90 per cent white and 70 per cent male with an average age in the sixties. “These new measures regarding governance and voting will have an immediate impact and begin the process of significantly changing our membership composition”, Academy president Cheryl Boones Isaac said, according to Variety.

The new academy rules are created to speed up change. “I have sat on committees [within the academy] trying to do just that for almost a decade”.

Several top industry figures have said they will not attend the Oscars.

“If you think back 10 years ago, the Academy was doing a better job”. We’ve been a more than predominantly white institution for a long time. “We need to do more, and better and more quickly”.

MARTIN: So as you pointed out, this is something they’ve struggled with for a long time. Sings And Dances In The Game Changing Broadway Musical HAMILTON, “I WANNA BE IN THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS”.

Gallery: Who Are The Oscar Contenders? “Because if you look at Martin Luther King’s legacy, what he was saying is the good people who don’t act are much worse than the wrongdoers who are purposely not acting don’t know the right way”.

Lee is a two-time Oscar nominee, having earned a Best Original Screenplay recognition for 1989’s “Do the Right Thing” and a Best Documentary Feature nod for 1997’s “4 Little Girls”. Ratings have been tanking recently, and it’s partly because the membership has been picking movies that, frankly, not a lot of people necessarily have enjoyed or even bothered to care about.