Making the Academy Diverse Isn’t Enough

More inclusive membership is just one factor in fixing Oscars’ noms process

As the nominations for the 92nd Oscars have shown us, the industry and the Motion Picture Academy have a problem substantially moving the needle on diversity and inclusion. In the last few months, Jennifer Lopez, Eddie Murphy, Awkwafina, Zhao Shuzhen, Lupita Nyong’o and Jamie Foxx have received accolades at awards shows and from critics groups, but Academy voters failed to nominate any of them. Except for Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”), all of the acting nominees are white.

Female directors like Greta Gerwig (“Little Women”), Lulu Wang (“The Farewell”), Lorene Scafaria (“Hustlers”), Melina Matsoukas (“Queen & Slim”), Alma Har’el (“Honey Boy”) and Marielle Heller (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”) have received praise for being leaders of a more diverse generation of filmmakers. Even so, all of the nominated directors are men.

It’s been four years since Hollywood promised to change in the aftermath of #Oscarssowhite, but here we are.

So what happened?

Sure, the Academy lived up to its promise to diversify and grow its membership. Last year, 50% of new members were women and 29% were people of color. Today, 16% of the nearly 9,000 total members are people of color, compared with just 8% in 2015.

But something’s still very broken, inside and outside the Academy.

“There’s still progress to be made,” says Academy governor-at-large Devon Franklin. While he is “excited” by the year’s crop of nominees,“there’s still a ways to go as an industry to make the change that I think will make everyone feel like they have a seat at the table.”

Diversifying the Academy wasn’t enough. The Academy must take the lead on making sure the Oscars aren’t straight and white. All eyes are on the association because it’s responsible for the film industry’s most important night of the year.

Just days before the Oscar noms were announced, BAFTA said that it would review its voting process after no actors of color