The film community was flooded with Opinions last week, as The Oscars announced that they were going *gasp*woke! Yes; The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have unveiled new diversity standards that films must meet before they can be considered for a Best Picture award.
They are not the first awards ceremony to do this; the BAFTAS introduced similar standards in 2019. But an Oscar is THE most coveted prize in Hollywood, and these new quotas will surely send studios scrabbling to diversify their casts and crews.
But, when you really look at the numbers, will it actually change anything?
The new standards really aren’t that high. To be considered for Best Picture (and these standards apply to that category ONLY) a film must have at least one of the following:
1. At least one lead actor or significant supporting actor from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group.
2. At least 30% of all actors coming from at least two underrepresented* groups (”underrepresented” including women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities).
3. A main storyline(s), theme or narrative of the film centered on an underrepresented group(s). This would appear to rule out several previous Best Picture winners, such as The Godfather and Lord of the Rings, not to mention countless other films also nominated over the years. It led to some grumbling on Twitter from massive celebrities such as, er, Kirsty Alley and James Woods, while Fox News accused The Academy of landing in an “ethno-aesthetic quagmire” (???).
But most of the recent winners actually DO fit these criteria, indicating that the change isn’t nearly radical as it seems. And that’s the problem that I and many other critics of the Oscars have: these standards aren’t good enough. They won’t really shake-up the Oscars or the mainstream film industry in general. Also, many films easily pass these standards while still being problematic in their depiction of race, such as in the notorious “white-saviour” narratives of Green Book and The Help.
There’s also the messy issue of what characters can be classed as “underrepresented”. For example, Joker focusses on the plight of a man who is implied but not explicitly stated to have a cognitive disability; does that mean that it can be considered under category 3? Does Lord of the Rings count if its themes of oppression are centred on a fantasy minority (#hobbitlivesmatter!)?
Look, I do support the new standards; any attempt to improve diversity is good. But it could so easily have been better. I also can’t help but feel cynical when these changes have only come in after the widespread coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests; it feels like the decision was made mainly to avoid negative publicity, rather than out of a genuine desire to improve representation.
In 2016, #Oscarssowhite infamously trended when no people of colour were nominated in the acting categories. This caused the Academy to hastily diversify its membership to being merely 84% white and 68% male (total achievement guys!). It would be nice if the Oscars, and other organisations, didn’t need a public humiliation or a global movement to prompt changes.
By Mia Crombleholme
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