Big changes to the Oscars after diversity row

“You can’t boycott something that you never used to go to anyway”. Once your horse loses the race, you tear up the ticket, go home.

Grappling to reward both relevance and excellence, then-academy president Gregory Peck began recruiting younger members and culling the academy rolls of people who hadn’t worked in more than seven years.

As more stars continue to address the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, Straight Outta Compton producer Ice Cube is laughing off the Academy Award snub by hinting at a possible oversight by the film’s writers and directors.

“We got accolades from all levels, from our core fans, from curious fans and from people that didn’t even think they wanted to see that movie”. That balloting system, which prioritizes the movies academy members select as their first choice, may have hurt “Straight Outta Compton”, the well regarded box office hit about the influential hip-hop group NWA which has become a focal point of anger about lack of diversity at this year’s Oscars.

“That’s about the sanest description about this whole process of awards that I’ve ever heard”, said the British actor. “They charge that of the 3,000 plus Motion Picture Academy members at least a third are too old, or even senile, and too inactive in industry affairs to apply good judgement in choosing the best of the 25 or more categories”. “And we got so much praise for the movie”. “They usually pick 10 movies, they only picked eight this year”.

“Straight Outta Compton”, the story of gangsta-rap pioneers N.W.A., is a musical biopic in the urban war zone of South Central LA.

Cube said he does what he has to do to promote his movies but also said, “I ain’t gonna kiss no a- for nothing”.

Academy mulls changes in membership and categories to halt diversity crisis”In Hollywood, image is all-important, and board members at the January 26th meeting will work to fight the perception that the Academy is racist or elitist”. “I think that’s where we messed up. This is a hard but important conversation, and it’s time for big changes”. In the 88 years that the Oscars have been handed out, only two predominantly American Indian actors have been nominated: Chief Dan George as best supporting actor for “Little Big Man” in 1971 and Graham Greene as best supporting actor for “Dances With Wolves” in 1991. Ice Cube added. “It’s crying about not having enough icing on the cake”. I appreciate the fact that the vote was unanimous, which indicates to me that the academy is serious about making the organization more inclusive and more diverse.