The Oscars need to get down with the common people

A few years ago we discovered something that we already knew: the Oscars are too white.

More importantly they’re too male and white. Having a large group of predominantly old white men sitting around picking which movies are the best is a recipe for disaster that even Gordon Ramsey would find fault with.

Predictably the whole all-white/all-male affair blew up in their faces.

To avoid a repeat of previous mistakes the good folks at the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the body that awards the Oscars, have invited 928 artists to join the body. Almost half of them are women and a third are from ethnic minorities. Hurray, problem solved. Or not. First off, the fact that the majority of these recruits will still be white men makes the whole thing smell suspiciously of window dressing. More importantly it does little to solve The Oscars’ biggest problem.

Try to find a person who has watched

The Shape of Water or Call Me by Your Name. The Oscars lack relevance — and that is the biggest reason why their ratings are plummeting. Diversifying their judging pool is laudable but what they need to do in conjunction with that is to start nominating movies that the general public cares about instead of constantly trying to fellate cinephiles.