Anna-Sung Park ‘22
Hollywood’s highly anticipated annual award season, which spans December through February, recently ended. With everything from the People’s Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, and the BAFTAs, the Oscars is the year’s last major film award show. This year is certainly unusual, as it has seen all nominees present in video form, and a limited audience, if any at all, yet the shows themselves have been drawing more and more criticism over the past few years for a lack of diversity. Women and people of color set records this year, yet the general consensus is that Hollywood still has more work to do. Confused about why people are criticizing these shows, and what has changed? Let’s break it down:
In 2015, media strategist and advocate April Reign created the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite to highlight the lack of diversity in their nominees--only one actor of color. This hashtag then got more attention as people began criticizing not just Hollywood’s whiteness, but also their exclusion of women, as no female directors were nominated that year either. The movement grew into an intersectional criticism, yet died out when the Academy did basically nothing to amend their mistakes. The hashtag was repopularized in 2020, when upon seeing the nominees, Reign was “disappointed, but not surprised,” (Ishani Nath, Why are Awards Shows Still so Damn White?). The Farewell, Hustlers, and Queen and Slim are all critically acclaimed films centered around women and people of color, and yet not a single one was even nominated for an award. Instead, the (majority white, majority male) Academy voting members nominated Joker, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Irishman, Ford Versus Ferrari, and other white and male-centric stories. To clarify, no one is trying to slam these latter films. Instead, we want to raise awareness of the coincidence that the films which were snubbed, such as The Farewell and The Last Black Man in San Francisco starred women and people of color.
Out of 336 acting awards given by the Academy, the Oscars have awarded 32 to POC--just over nine percent of the total number of awards (Megan C. Hills, Only 32 Oscars have been Awarded to Actors of Color). This small number includes actors who have had multiple wins, as well as honorary awards. Starting with Hattie McDaniel in 1939, black actors have won 19 Oscars, LatinX actors have five, Asian actors have three, and only one of the elusive awards have been claimed by Arab and Native American actors each.
In an effort to make the Oscar nominations more diverse, the Academy set out a new series of guidelines. Starting 2024, all films that want to be eligible for nominations have to meet at least two of the new four diversity standards. While these guidelines might seem helpful, albeit a little late-coming, they are not as all-encompassing as we might like to believe.
The standards are broken up into four categories: A, B, C, D. Within each guideline are a set of qualifications; if a film meets one of each standard for two different categories, it can be nominated (Kyle Buchanan, The Oscars’ New Diversity Rules are Sweeping but Safe). The categories and qualifications are as follows:
1. Standard A
This standard focuses on representation in front of the camera for more diverse actors. To be considered for a nomination, a film must either:
Have at least one actor from a historically underrepresented racial/ethnic group in a lead role.
Have 30% or more of the cast be either women, LGBTQ+, disabled, or a racial/ethnic minority.
Center on a character from the previously mentioned groups.
This sounds nice in theory, but in reality, it can result in there being a single “token” character.
2. Standard B
This standard looks at people behind the cameras, in an attempt to diversify who is telling the stories. Films must include either:
Two or more department heads (wardrobe, composing) be a member of the underrepresented groups.
A minimum of six crew members from the four groups.
30% of the crew from these underrepresented groups.
This standard, unfortunately, is also relatively easy to work around, because department head jobs like wardrobe, makeup, and casting often skews females.
3. Standard C
Focusing even higher up than simply the people behind the camera, Standard C looks at the production company financing the movie. The company has to have:
Training/work opportunities presented to people from the underrepresented groups.
At least two interns from the underrepresented groups.
Most production companies are huge, and if they have even some semblance of an intern program, chances are they fit the standard. The two qualifiers are also quite similar, leading to less potential growth in diversity in these companies.
4. Standard D
Last but not least is Standard D, the simplest one by far. It asks that there are:
A few senior publicity, marketing, or distribution executives from underrepresented groups involved.
That’s the only qualifier for Standard D, and as many women work in marketing, lots of films pass this test with flying colors, making Standard D the easiest to get around.
Clearly, there are several loopholes around these standards, and will most likely be taken advantage of by those who abhor change. The standards aren’t exactly in place to force diversity--instead, they are there to spread awareness of the current lack of diversity in the film industry. The hope is that while production companies are thinking about who to hire, they will look at the diversity in their candidates and not think about how many POC or women they need to have to fill the quota, but just how many jobs they can offer to them.
The 2021 Academy Awards just happened, and people were excited for what was hailed as the most diverse Oscars ever. Nine actors of color were nominated, and for the first time in history, the Best Actor category was not filled with a white majority (Adam B. Vary, Oscars Diversity Record). Chloé Zhao was the first woman of color to be nominated for, and win, Best Director, while Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson were the black women to win for Best Hair and Makeup. Of course, the Oscars wouldn’t be the Oscars without some hint of controversy, and this years’ came in the Best Actors category: people all around the world were angry that the late Chadwick Boseman, the predicted winner, didn’t get the posthumous honor for his work in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. This snub reminds us not to be caught up in our victories. Yes, this year broke records for women and people of color--but there also were no disabled or openly gay nominees, and the diversity record comes nowhere near actual U.S. demographics. Still, we’re making progress, however slow, and we must remember that change takes time, as long as we keep demanding it.
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