Academy invites record 744 new members amid effort to increase diversity

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday that it had invited a record 744 new members to its governing body, surpassing the 683 invitations issued in 2016.

The Academy has been under pressure to diversify its membership for several years, reaching a crescendo in 2015, when all 20 acting nominees were white, prompting the viral hashtag # OscarsSoWhite and a collective push to ensure the awards show’s governing body included more women and people of colour.

In the announcement unveiling this year’s invitees, the Academy president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, wrote: “We’re proud to invite our newest class to the Academy. The entire motion picture community is what we make of it. It’s up to all of us to ensure that new faces and voices are seen and heard, and to take a shot on the next generation the way someone took a shot on each of us.”

This year’s class, 39% of which is comprised of women, reflects a 359% jump, from 2015 to 2017, in the number of women invited to join the Academy.

People of colour make up 30% of the 744 added members, a group that includes Barry Jenkins, whose film Moonlight won Best Picture at the 2017 ceremony, Janelle Monáe, who appeared in Moonlight and the Oscarnominated Hidden Figures, and Jordan Peele, whose film Get Out has been one of 2017’s biggest commercial and critical hits.

Isaacs will be stepping down as president of the Academy next month, having completed four one- year terms. Under her leadership, the Academy pledged to open up its membership, which in 2016 was 92% white and 75% male, to more women and people of colour.

In its announcement, the Academy touted its diversified group of invitees with different graphics – one stating that seven of its 17 branches had invited more women than men, another detailing the different married couples offered membership, including the actors Anna Faris and Chris Pratt; and Adele Romanski and James Laxton, the producer and cinemat og rapher, respectively, of Moonlight.

The 2017 class also includes Wonder Woman’s Gal Gadot, as well as Riz Ahmed, John Cho, Priyanka Chopra, Rupert Grint, Donald Glover, Dwayne Johnson, Betty White, Rami Malek, Wanda Sykes, Ruth Negga, Tom Ford, Ezra Edelman, and Naomie Harris, among others. (Courtesy The Guardian,

UK)