It wasn’t all that long ago that The Academy (of Academy Awards fame) was justly being raked over the coals for their lily white take on the state of movies. The #OscarsSoWhite campaign began because for two years, the de facto industry leader in what matters in movies ONLY nominated white actors for their acting awards (20 nominees, 2 years in a row) and gave only the barest attention to non-white films in general.
While I understand the knee-jerk reflex t argue “it wasn’t really that bad,” no, I’m sorry, it really was. David Oyelowo gave a career-defining turn as Martin Luther King Jr. — the kind of performance that is a dependable, surefire hit with Oscar voters — and he wasn’t even so much as nominated for an Oscar. Instead, we got the off-puttingly buff Bradley Cooper as a nominee and a mumbling Eddie Redmayne as the award’s eventual winner. Ava DuVernay was somehow boxed out from the directing category for her work on the same film, as was Paul Webb for its script. The year prior was somehow bereft of the excellent and timely Fruitvale Station while the year after it was somehow absent of Straight Outta Compton.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. While Straight Outta Compton‘s outstanding director, phenomenal producers and stellar ensemble cast were ignored, the film’s White screenwriters were nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
But, eventually, the Academy listened. After years of protests over their lack of diverse, representative and quality films, they changed their milktoast approach and caught up with the rest of the twenty-first century. They retired the voting rights of inactive Academy members and inducted in a massive class of diverse filmmakers, on a scale depressingly never seen before in the establishment’s history. And wouldn’t you know it, we immediately saw results.
The 2017 Oscar ceremony saw a far more interesting and overall stronger crop of films considered for all of that night’s major awards, notably Best Picture nominees Fences, Hidden Figures, Lion and Moonlight. In fact, the last of those films, Moonlight, was awarded the ceremony’s top prize, wresting it — literally — from the hands of the presumptive Academy favorite, Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, after that film had been mistakenly announced that award’s winner. The 2018 ceremony was no different, with the Best Picture race coming down to Mexican emigre Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Jordan Peele’s Get Out.
Evidently emboldened by the results — that is to say, by the inclusion of better and more interesting pictures that better tap into the cultural zeitgeist and maintain the award’s previously waning relevance with the public at large — the Academy has continued with their efforts to diversify and expand their membership (which, although noticeably improving, still have a long way to go before becoming representative of the larger population). The new class of inductees, 928 members in all, is another masterclass of colorful, contemporary filmmakers.
Understand, these are merely invitations to join the Academy’s ranks based on these filmmakers’ demonstratively qualitative body of work. They, like Creed (2015) director Ryan Coogler before them, could always decline membership in the esteemed filmmaker body. If all the candidates accepted their membership, however, the overall Academy ranks would swell to just over 9200 members (not-quite 2000 more than they were at the start of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy).
The new class of inductees is 38% composed of non-whites and would bring the overall Academy up to 16% (from its current 13%). Additionally, 49% is female, which would bring the overall Academy membership up to 31%.
Obviously, this is only a start to the kind of reshaping that the Academy needs to undertake: but it IS at least a start. The premiere filmmaking body in the world — a tastemaker and trendsetter for the kinds of new movies that get made and seen by the public — needs to reflect the larger population that they mean to serve. And that population, obviously, isn’t 84% white and 69% male. But, inch by desperate inch, the Academy is being brought more in line with the population of the real world, and the industry as a whole is all the better for it.
One step at a time. Whatever it takes. We’ll get there eventually. Progress, thankfully, is being made at last.