Hillary Clinton Says Oscars Need More Diversity

The Academy does not have power over what films producers and studios make, but the Academy can take steps in assuring that member see a certain percentage of films before they are allowed to vote.

Hudson and Boone Isaacs said reaction to the changes had been mostly positive, but acknowledged that some long-time members were unhappy at the insinuation they are racist or out of touch. And I think the Oscar debate is really just an expression of this broader issue. The board voted unanimously to approve a slate of reforms, which include the appointment of three new governors by the president and a new requirement that voting members must be “active in motion pictures”.

After announcing big changes to its voting membership in order to improve diversity, the film organization posted a new set of Frequently Asked Questions to its site, the Wrap reports. In other words, if a current member has not been active in the last 10 years they can still qualify by meeting the other criteria.

Stephen Furst, the actor known to many as Animal House’s Flounder and Babylon 5’s Vir Cotto, has become one of the Academy’s first constituents to publicly push back against the forthcoming membership and rules overhaul, alleging ageism and sexism in the process.

“Unbelievable”, Boone Isaacs told The Hollywood Reporter. This will not affect voting for this year’s Oscars. That elite institution is part of who we are, and that definition won’t change.

What the board did not do was change any of its voting processes, such as raising the number of best picture nominees to 10 or eliminating its complex preferential ballot system, which some speculated might have hurt Straight Outta Compton, a popular, critically acclaimed film on the hip-hop group Niggaz with Attitude that failed to secure a best picture nomination. A hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite, spread like wildfire throughout social media.

Amid an outcry over not a single actor of color being nominated for an Oscar for a second year, the Academy last week pledged to double female and minority membership by 2020 and to strip lifetime Oscar voting privileges from members who have not worked in the industry for decades. 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. I think you’ll find it all quite enlightening. “So we know he’s going to do that”. “They are doing that”.