Barack Obama weighs in on Oscars controversy

The academy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Beiman’s letter. Trade magazines are littered with critical op-eds from members.

“Tune out of boycott must go into effect”, said civil rights activist, Earl Ofari Hutchinson.

During an interview with KABC Wednesday, Obama was asked to weigh-in on the “push to make the Oscars more inclusive”.

Halle Berry is the only black woman to win the Oscar for best actress in the Academy Awards’ history.

“We all have to calm down a bit”.

Boone Isaacs and Hudson said they knew this year’s Oscar nominations would cause unrest before they were announced.

Ali Najee, one of the group’s organizers, expressed his frustration over the Academy’s failure to nominate any actors of color for the second year in a row. Ellen says that she is very disappointed by the lack of diversity at the Oscars this year but is pleased to hear that there is finally being something done about it for the future.

The response was a mix of applause for taking a stand against the industry and accusations from some calling the Academy biased.

The typically slow-moving academy acted swiftly last week, holding an emergency meeting of its Board of Governors.

The fallout from the nominations (or lack thereof) has led to calls for an Oscars boycott and the academy’s decision to revise the process by which it invited members to join, imposing term limits while making concerted efforts to increase diversity.

“At the Oscars, people of color are always welcomed to give out awards and even entertain, but we are rarely recognized for our artistic accomplishments”, Pinkett Smith wrote on Twitter Jan. 16. Are you saying that I have voted (consciously or unconsciously) to exclude women, members of the LGBT community and other minorities? That is, for two straight years, all of the nominees for Best Actor and Actress and Best Supporting Actor and Actress were Caucasian.

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% male. “It’s not about political correctness, it’s about building the best team, the best institution, the best artists”, Hudson explains. He believes outreach and mentor programs will make a difference, not manipulating demographics.