The Guardian
Ben Child
A plan to increase diversity among Oscars voters in the wake of the scandal over all-white lists of nominees has hit a stumbling block after a spokesperson for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences admitted the body had not followed its own rules, according to the New York Times.
Last month, the Academy announced what it called a “sweeping series of substantive changes” to its membership, following intense criticism over the lack of racial diversity in this year’s nominees. No person of colour was nominated for an acting prize for the second year in a row.
At the time, the board said that its goal was “to commit to doubling the number of women and diverse members of the Academy by 2020”. The changes also included 10-year limits on the voting abilities of new members of the Academy, which would be removed if the member was not “active in motion pictures” in the intervening time.
The plan was widely seen as a success in terms of heading off threats of a boycott over the Oscars’ diversity deficit, winning support from the African-American director of Selma, Ava DuVernay, among others. However, the New York Times reports that many of the Academy’s more vital proposals will be impossible to put into effect before the 2016 ceremony on 28 February, and in any case will require a two-thirds majority to be voted through.
The revelation will add credence to the argument put forward by many older members, including three-time Oscar-winner Steven Spielberg, that the diversity push has been enacted without due consideration.
The key element affected, reports the Times, is the plan by Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and her team to immediately add three seats to its 51-member governing board. Such positions are usually awarded following elections involving the organisation’s various individual branches – acting, directing, design etc – and any change here would require the Academy’s own bylaws to be rewritten. This, in turn, would require a members’ vote, or a governors’ meeting requiring 10 days’ notice. The special meeting at which the Academy’s diversity plans were pushed through did not comply with the latter rule.
A spokesperson for the Academy admitted the proposals would need to be rubber-stamped at the board’s next session, which will not take place until the Oscars are over. However, the spokesperson said such two-step processes were typical of action by private organisations and consistent with the adoption of “prior amendments and resolutions”. Meanwhile, Oscar-winning Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov has called threats of an Oscars boycott over diversity “ridiculous”. “OK, for two years in a row, there was no black actor who could compete with others in the best actor or best actress category,” the film-maker said, according to news agency Interfax. “Things like that happen. So, next year, there should be just black actors? Then white ones will be upset.”
Mikhalkov, who has been critical of the Oscars in recent times and is a key player in proposals for a rival ceremony sponsored by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is one of only two living Russian Oscar winners. He won the 1994 best foreign-language film prize for Stalin-era historical drama Burnt By the Sun.
Another “rival” ceremony, the Russell Simmonds-sponsored All Def Movie Awards, will be aired at the same time as the Oscars, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Billed as a hip-hop alternative to the world’s best-known film ceremony, the new event aims to showcase the diverse Hollywood talent ignored by its more famous rival. It will air on the Fusion cable network on 28 February as a one-hour highlights package.
