Even as AMPAS reaches the benchmarks set in 2016, the organziation is making dramatic changes to Oscar eligibility to fight bias
On one level, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Tuesday announcement of the 819 film professionals who will be invited to join the organization is a reason to celebrate.
But on another level, it’s a stark reminder of how much work still needs to be done — and some of that work may entail the Academy examining more closely than ever the way films are made.
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This year’s class is the successful realization of the goal that AMPAS set in early 2016, in the midst of the #OscarsSoWhite protests, to double the number of women and people of color in the Academy by 2020. Even before the new names were announced, the organization had easily surpassed the goal of doubling the number of nonwhite members — and with new invitations to more than 350 women, it has now achieved the gender goal as well.
When the benchmarks were set in 2016, the Academy had 6,436 active members, of which it said 1,446 were women and slightly more than 500 were nonwhite. Four years later, after the RSVPs come in from this year’s invitations, the organization will pass the 10,000 mark in total members, including more than 3,000 women and nearly 1,800 nonwhite members.
But rather than feeling as if it’s time to hoist a “mission accomplished” banner, the new statistics come at a time when the 2016 goal almost seems beside the point — and a time when the real battle is just beginning to address systemic bias in the Academy and the film industry at large.
Also Read: Awkwafina, John David Washington, Florence Pugh Among the 819 Invited to Join Oscars Academy
Academy President David Rubin admitted as much on a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Cannes Film Festival’s Marche du Film last week.
“In the last five years, we’ve taken a major step through the members we invite to join and the films we celebrate,” he said. “But it’s clear there is more work to be done. We are determined to continue making big moves to reflect that commitment more than ever.”
To get here, the Academy had to make a fundamental change in its mindset. Whereas in the past, AMPAS membership was considered a reward for a long and successful career in the movie business — with individual branch requirements often asking for five or even 10 years of experience — it has changed since 2016 to seek out promising artists who might not have been given the opportunity to acquire all the credits they would have needed to qualify.
It has extended invitations to thousands of filmmakers from around the world who ordinarily wouldn’t have been part of the Oscar conversation unless they had a film competing in what used to be the Best Foreign Language Film category. The prize is now called Best International Feature Film, because the Academy can no longer presume it’s operating from an English-speaking point of view.
That influx of international members, who make up nearly half of this year’s class, no doubt made it easier for the South Korean film “Parasite” to become the toast of this year’s ceremony, and the first film not in English to win the award for Best Picture.
Also Read: Oscars Academy Class of 2020: Natasha Lyonne and 11 More Stars We're Shocked Weren't Already Members
And yet diversity and inclusion in Hollywood are as problematic now as they were in 2016. Cynthia Erivo was the only nonwhite acting nominee at the last Oscars, and the public protests that have rocked the country since the killing of George Floyd have cast a light on systemic racism that definitely includes Hollywood.
Among the targets in recent weeks: “Gone With the Wind,” which won 10 Academy Awards in 1939, including Best Picture for its sympathetic and glamorized portrait of the antebellum South; Disney’s stereotype-laden 1946 film “Song of the South,” which won an Oscar for its music and another special award for James Baskett for portraying Uncle Remus; and Hollywood legend John Wayne, who won an Oscar for “True Grit” in 1969 and made his final public appearance on the Oscar show a decade later.
Bias in Hollywood, as well as the lack of opportunity for diverse voices to tell their stories, is not a problem the Academy can solve by inviting more people of color to vote for its annual awards. But AMPAS understands the power of symbolism — and the platform its golden statuettes provide — which is why a task force is currently at work on another fundamental change in the way the organization does business.
This effort was mentioned in a June 12 press release about new inclusion initiatives: “To ensure more diverse representation, and in collaboration with the Producers Guild of America (PGA), the Academy will create a task force of industry leaders, appointed by David Rubin and that will include governor and A2020 Committee chair DeVon Franklin, to develop and implement new representation and inclusion standards for Oscars eligibility by July 31, 2020.” (Boldface by AMPAS.)
Also Read: 4 Ways the Oscars in April Could Shake Up This Years Awards Season
The boldfaced phrase is a surprising one because it moves the Academy into an arena where it has rarely operated, using factors unrelated to the onscreen product to determine Oscar eligibility. On the Marche du Film panel, Loretta Muñoz, the Academy’s managing director of member relations and awards, said the committee was consulting with studios, production companies and international film organizations like the British Film Institute (BFI) and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to come up with “collaborative, not onerous and not prescriptive” requirements for Oscar eligibility.
She added that beginning with the 94th Oscars, which will take place in 2022, films will be required to submit “demographic data” as part of their application for Oscar eligibility.
What could the representation and inclusion standards look like? Could they involve quotas for members of underrepresented groups in a project’s off-camera crew, or even for characters depicted on screen? At this point, not even the AMPAS Board of Governors, which voted for the change, knows for sure. One board member called the inclusion standards “the million dollar question,” and told TheWrap, “I have a lot of faith in DeVon Franklin. Hopefully he and his committee will land in a balanced, positive place.”
BAFTA, which Muñoz said the Academy was working with, has not announced any of its own inclusion standards at this point. BFI did publish an extensive list of diversity standards last year that films must meet to qualify for funding (rather than for awards consideration). Those standards require films to meet a number of different benchmarks involving characters and casting from underrepresented groups, department heads and key jobs given to LGBTQ or underrepresented groups, hiring and mentorship opportunities and marketing strategies.
The BFI standards are likely far more extensive than any awards body would institute, but the fact that they were mentioned as Academy collaborators suggests that Oscar eligibility may soon involve more than just release dates.
We should know more about the requirements by the end of July — but we already know that they represent a new world for the Academy, and for the Oscars.
And we know, as does the Academy, that you can achieve your goals and still feel as if you’ve only just begun.
'30 Rock,' 'Scrubs' and Other TV Shows and Movies Pulled Over Blackface and Racial Insensitivity (Photos)
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The May 25 killing of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police prompted protests over police brutality and racial injustice across the country — leading many networks and streaming services to reconsider programming. Here are some movies and TV shows that have been canceled or shelved (sometimes temporarily).
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Paramount Network
"COPS"
In the wake of protests over police brutality following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, the Paramount Network canceled the long-running reality show "COPS" one week ahead of premiering its 33rd season. The show, which ran on Fox for 25 years, jumped to Paramount Network (then called Spike TV) in 2013.
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WarnerMedia
"Gone With the Wind"
HBO Max quietly pulled the Oscar-winning 1939 movie, which has long been criticized for racist depictions of black people for for glorifying the Civl War-era south, from the weeks-old streaming service. In a statement on June 9, the company explained that the "ethnic and racial prejudices" depicted in the film "were wrong then and are wrong today." The company reintroduced the film with a video introduction noting “the film’s treatment of this world through a lens of nostalgia denies the horrors of slavery, as well as its legacy of racial inequality."
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A&E
"Live PD"
On June 10, A&E abruptly canceled the Dan Abrams-hosted reality show "Live PD" that had been its top-rated series. The decision came amid ongoing protests over police brutality but also followed producers' admission they had destroyed footage of a 40-year-old Texas man who died in police custody after being tased while begging for his life.
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Australian Broadcast Company
Chris Lilley's “Summer Heights High,” “Angry Boys,” “We Can Be Heroes” and “Jonah From Tonga”
Four comedies from Australian comic Chris Lilley were pulled from Netflix in New Zealand and Australia due to criticisms of the shows’ depictions of people of color and the use of blackface and brownface makeup by Lilley, who is white, and others on the shows. Lilley uses blackface to play black rapper S.mouse in “Angry Boys” and brownface to play Jonah, a teenage Tonga native, in “Summer Heights High” and its spinoff series “Jonah From Tonga.” In “We Can Be Heroes,” he plays Ricky Wong, a Chinese physics student.
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BBC
"Little Britain"
The BBC sketch comedy show, which aired from 2003-05 and featured David Walliams and Matt Lucas playing a range of often stereotypical characters (sometimes in blackface) was pulled from most U.K. streaming services in early June, including Netflix, BBC iPlayer and BritBox.
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BBC
"Fawlty Towers"
The BBC removed a 1975 episode of the classic John Cleese sitcom that included a number of racial epithets, including the N-word, from its UKTV streaming service. After lobbying from Cleese and others, the network announced it would reinstate the episode with "extra guidance and warnings ... to highlight potentially offensive content."
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"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"
On June 11, Netflix pulled a sixth-season episode of the long-running sitcom from its service in the U.K. over the depiction of two characters wearing blackface. (The series streams on Hulu in the U.S.)
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Netflix
"W/ Bob and David"
On June 16, Netflix pulled an episode of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross’ sketch comedy series “W/ Bob and David” over a sketch that features Cross in blackface. Cross and Odenkirk have since defended the sketch.
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A scene from "The Mighty Boosh" via YouTube
"The Mighty Boosh" and "The League of Gentleman"
These English comedies were pulled from Netflix in the UK over scenes involving blackface. They were not previously available in the U.S.
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NBCU
"30 Rock"
Co-creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, along with NBCUniversal, requested the removal of four episodes containing blackface and other racially insensitive material.
Also Read: Tina Fey Pulls 4 ’30 Rock’ Episodes From Circulation, Apologizes for Blackface Use
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NBC
"Scrubs"
Hulu removed three episodes of the sitcom “Scrubs” which featured blackface at the request of the show’s producers and ABC Studios. Series creator Bill Lawrence had previously tweeted that an effort to remove offensive episodes of the show was in the works.
Also Read: Three ‘Scrubs’ Episodes Featuring Blackface Pulled From Streaming (Exclusive)
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NBC
"Community"
In late June, Netflix pulled the “Community” Season 2 episode “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons,” which features Ken Jeong’s character, Ben Chang, wearing blackface during a game of “Dungeons & Dragons."
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"Golden Girls"
Hulu pulled a third-season episode of the classic sitcom in which Rue McClanahan and Betty White's characters are mistaken for wearing blackface when they are actually wearing mud masks.
New times call for a new look at what we should watch and stream
The May 25 killing of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police prompted protests over police brutality and racial injustice across the country — leading many networks and streaming services to reconsider programming. Here are some movies and TV shows that have been canceled or shelved (sometimes temporarily).
Steve Pond
Steve Pond has been writing about film, music, pop culture and the entertainment industry for more than 40 years. He has served as TheWrap’s awards editor and executive editor, awards since joining the company in 2009. Steve began his career writing about music for the Los Angeles Times, where he remained a contributor for more than 15 years, and Rolling Stone, where he was West Coast Music Editor and wrote 16 cover stories. He moved into film coverage with a weekly column in the Washington Post and became a contributing writer at Premiere magazine, where he became the first journalist to have all access to the Academy Awards show and rehearsals. He has also written for the New York Times, Movieline, the DGA Quarterly, GQ, Playboy, the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, New York, the Christian Science Monitor, Live! magazine and many others. He is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller “The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards” (Faber and Faber, 2005). He has also written “Elvis in Hollywood” (New American Library, 1990) and contributed to books that include “Cash,” “The Rolling Stone Reader,” U2: The Rolling Stone Files,” “Bruce Springsteen: The Rolling Stone Files” and “The Rolling Stone Interviews: The 1980s.” He was the co-managing editor of the syndicated TV news program “The Industry News” and the creative consultant for the A&E series “The Inside Track With Graham Nash.” He has won L.A. Press Club awards for stories in TheWrap, the Los Angeles Times and Playboy, and was nominated for a National Magazine Award for a story in Premiere.