THE BIG PICTURE
Most recent best movie winners would meet new diversity rules, Steven Zeitchik writes.
On Tuesday, the group that governs the Oscars announced changes marking a mainstream-entertainment first: a piece of content would need to meet inclusion standards to be eligible for the top prize.
The Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences said that, beginning in 2024, a movie that wished to be nominated for best picture had to promote diversity in measurable ways both behind and in front of the camera.
But it turns out the impact may be less than either advocates or critics of the new rules imagine.
A review of the last 15 years of best picture winners, dating back to the 2004 movie Crash, to see how much the new rules would change the landscape if those films came out now, showed that the vast majority of winners — 73 per cent — would have met the criteria without altering any casting practices or crew hires. Others could have done so with relatively minor changes.
The criteria are complicated, but they basically require that two of four elements be met: a) that a film’s story, lead actor or ensemble prominently feature the under-represented; b) that those working behind the scenes do the same; c) that the production include paid internships and training for under-represented groups; and d) that a movie’s release team had “multiple in-house senior executives” from among the under-represented.
Under-represented is defined as women, people of colour, and those from the LGBTQ+ or differently-abled communities, though some categories have requirements only for people of colour.
The message communicated by the academy was clear: having spent years diversifying its voting body, Hollywood’s most prestigious organization now wanted to influence the movies that body voted on. The news immediately met with praise from many progressive critics of Hollywood who say the academy has historically not done enough to encourage diversity, and a backlash from those who said it amounted to a form of social and artistic legislation.
But publicly available information shows that most winners of the last decade and a half would have been vaulted into eligibility simply by meeting the first two standards of A and B — the forward-facing areas of actors and themes and the behindthe scenes realms of crew and department heads. At least 11 of the last 15 winners met those two standards without question and would have been eligible to compete.
They include many recent winners, such as the 2020 trophy-taker Parasite (2019) and the 2017 prize-getter Moonlight (2016).
Some movies make it easily: Crash, with its themes of race and an African-american producer in Don Cheadle would have had no problem. Others, such as Spotlight, about the Boston Globe’s investigation of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, take a more circuitous path. But Spotlight would qualify because its focus on sexual-assault victims would likely be seen as centring on an under-represented group.
Curiously, the 2019 winner, Green Book (2018), about an interracial friendship between a Black jazz pianist and his Italian-american driver, meets the standards, but not easily; most of its department heads are white, though Kris Bowers, who is Black, served as its composer.
The only four winners that would present potential challenges because they did not meet the criteria of A (in front of the camera), or B (behind the camera) are: 2012’s Argo (the winner in 2013), 2011’s The Artist (winner in 2012), 2007’s No Country for Old Men (winner in 2008) and 2006’s The Departed (winner in 2007).
Those on both sides of the debate often came from within the film business, though among the seven people contacted (four in favour, three opposed), none would go on the record, citing the issue’s sensitivity.
Conservative celebrities also weighed in quickly. Kirstie Alley, who has been vocal in lambasting Hollywood for its alleged liberalism, offered a stream of tweets criticizing the move.
“Can you imagine telling Picasso what had to be” in his paintings? she asked. “You people have lost your minds.” She called the move a “disgrace to artists everywhere.”
The changes could also face legal challenges. Attorneys say that under the Civil Rights Act and the 1978 Supreme Court decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, race can be a factor in an institution’s eligibility requirements but quotas are not allowed. This presents a problem for any of the hard percentages set by the academy, experts said.
“The law is very clear on what organizations can do: they can take into account a wealth of circumstances, but those circumstances cannot be a determining factor,” said Sky Moore, a prominent entertainment lawyer and partner at the Los Angeles firm of Greenberg Glusker. “You cannot have quotas, and these appear to be quotas.”
Moore also cited California’s Unruh Act, which prohibits discrimination for all groups, and said the policy could face a challenge on those grounds, too.
Even bypassing A and B to satisfy C and D would be an issue, he said. “Once you say ‘multiple’ executives’ you’re saying two, and that’s a quota.” He added that lawsuits, while unlikely from mainstream Hollywood, could come from other quarters.
“I can see conservative groups lining up and suing immediately. And they’d have a good chance
(of winning).” Such a lawsuit, he said, could seek damages as a result of a film’s disqualification.
Awards consultants said that the new policies had the potential to make the controversies about Oscar eligibility — an annual rite of passage in Hollywood — more dramatic, even moving it into contenders’ production phase. Many films would not want to move forward until they could be sure of Oscar eligibility.
But even the movies that didn’t meet the standards could solve their challenges pretty easily with just a few hires or an intern program. “I don’t think anyone is saying stop making movies about white men,” said one veteran awards consultant who asked for anonymity. “The academy is forcing people to make some small changes when they do. Which, let’s face it, they should be doing anyway.”