Motion Picture Academy Commits to Adding Women, Minority Members

Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences President Cheryl Boone Isaacs has vowed drastic changes to diversify the academy’s largely white membership.

Boone Isaacs acknowledged that the academy can only honor films that ultimately get made, but she thinks the changes announced Friday will “move the needle” in all aspects of filmmaking.

The most significant change implemented is related to the group’s voting procedures and will most likely affect older academy members who are no longer working. As it stands now, many voting members have not been active in the industry for decades.

Johnny Depp played the lead role in the box-office movie titled “Black Mass” but he failed to receive nomination for the Best Actor award. In the last two years not a single black face has even been nominated.

Meanwhile, the Academy will launch “an ambitious, global campaign” to recruit new members, while at the same time, maintaining its traditional process of having current members sponsor new ones.

They also stated a goal of DOUBLING the number of women and “diverse” members of the Academy in the next four years. Unsurprisingly, celebrities have gotten involved in the discussion, with Jada Pinkett-Smith, Romany Falco, and Spike Lee announcing their discontent with and resultant boycott of the awards show. Previously, all members had the right to vote for the rest of their lives, but now, a member’s voting status will be assessed every 10 years.

Information was released by the Academy on Friday that confirmed a massive overhaul to their governing bodies and voting members that will “make the Academy’s membership, its governing bodies, and its voting members significantly more diverse”.

The changes were approved in a unanimous vote by the Academy’s board of governors on Thursday, following days of criticism that for a second year in a row, all 20 actors nominated for Oscars were white.

Smith posted a video on Facebook announcing her plans to avoid the Oscar telecast and ceremony.

Her words may not gel well with the majority of her fellow-nominees, who have backed a call for change.

With some small exceptions, this year’s nominations for acting Oscars are largely the same as those for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which are usually a strong indicator of winners on Oscar night.

Last year’s Oscar broadcast, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, was also boycotted by some viewers because of the all-white slate of acting nominees.

Within these startling numbers and statistics that I have found, this highlights the first real issue of diversity in Hollywood (please note that this is just the surface and the Academy reflects the market of Hollywood, we will have to look at the deeper lining issue of the major film companies and their issues of diversity as well). SAG also gave an ensemble nomination to “Straight Outta Compton”.