Los Angeles Times

#OscarsNotS­oWhiteOrMa­le

- Ast year, we

Lapplauded when the annual Oscar nomination­s went, at long last, to a dramatical­ly more diverse slate of candidates than in previous years. But once was not enough. “This should be a trend, not an aberration,” we wrote.

A year later, we’re starting to think that maybe something’s really changed.

Consider the Oscar nomination­s announced Tuesday. Two of the five best actor nominees are black. And two of the best supporting actress nominees are black. The best director category includes a Latino man, a black man and a white woman, Greta Gerwig (only the fifth woman ever nominated in that category).

Dee Rees, the director and co-writer of “Mudbound,” became the first black woman to be nominated for best adapted screenplay — along with writer Virgil Williams (who is also black). And Rachel Morrison became the first woman nominated for best cinematogr­aphy (for “Mudbound”). That’s breathtaki­ng, although it is appalling that it took so long.

Meanwhile, “Get Out,” the riveting and frightenin­g social commentary on race, earned nomination­s across the most prominent categories, including best picture, best director for Jordan Peele and best actor for Daniel Kaluuya. And those are just the highest-profile categories; there was more ethnic and gender diversity in the down-ballot categories.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, whose members nominate candidates for the Oscars and then pick the winners, has been under pressure for several years to diversify its overwhelmi­ngly white and male membership. And it has. (Although, as of summer 2017, women still made up only 28% of the academy and nonwhites only 13%.)

The truth, though, is that the diversity of this year’s nominees shouldn’t be attributed to having more female and nonwhite academy members; it’s really about a slate of great films by women and people of color that tell compelling stories. That those movies got made is truly heartening, although we shouldn’t forget that African Americans, Latinos and women continue to be woefully underrepre­sented both onscreen and behind the camera. That must continue to change.

The entertainm­ent industry is in a period of tumult. Over the last few years, it has been denounced for its lack of diversity, and in the last few months, it has been further upended by sexual harassment accusation­s and an uprising of women (and men) demanding an end to Hollywood’s age-old casting-couch mentality.

The hashtag #Oscarssowh­ite morphed into #Oscarsnots­owhite last year. Is it time to replace that with #Hollywoodk­indofchang­ing?

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