Obama: Oscar Boycott an ‘Expression of a Broader Issue’

Academy president Boone Isaacs said in a statement the move would “begin the process of significantly changing our membership composition”. “I think it’s really sad”.

That disappointment – and the firestorm of criticism that followed – spurred action. The academy also set a goal to double minority and women members by 2020.

Furst said the Academy was being ageist and sexist in blaming its membership, made up largely of older, white men. “But the change is not coming as fast as we would like”, Isaacs said last week.

Hillary Clinton also weighed in on the #OscarsSoWhite conversation, telling Aol.com, “I think it is overdue”. The new inductees included a record number of worldwide filmmakers.

For the second year in a row, no African Americans were nominated in any of the top six Oscar categories by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In reaction to the controversial lineup, famous Hollywood celebrities announced that they will boycott this year’s ceremony which is slated to be held on February 28.

Boone Isaacs and her academy colleagues realized the work thus far was not enough. “So that is what we did”.

But the last two years are something of an aberration in recent Oscar history. In interviews, Spike Lee and other black filmmakers referred to the whitewash as evidence of Hollywood’s institutional racism, while some industry insiders and Academy members insisted that the best films and performances were chosen in a completely colorblind manner. Previously, all active members received lifetime voting rights.

Morial is seeking wider, systemic change from the academy and the studios.

She first mentioned a boycott on Jan. 16, officially claiming it in a follow-up video on Facebook Jan. 18. But based on those L.A. Times figures, there are even fewer of them in the Academy (less than 2 percent) and the DGA (3.2 percent). But the industry as a whole is listening.

Academy CEO Dawn Hudson told THR that all the talk of the Academy caving to political correctness “makes me a little insane”. They might make for good sci-fi, but they’re a lousy mirror for our multicultural society.

Finally, we go big before we go home and do our best to predict the very, very wide-open best director race. The President of the United States has voiced his own opinion.