Where is the diversity?

[kpete]

https://twitter.com/michaelwhitley/status/687823903389921280

[daleanime]

1. K&R....

[ryan_cats]

2. We

We need a quota system for Oscar nominations.
How dare the conservative, all white male nominating committee slap all other races in the face like this!

[CBGLuthier]

3. The problem isn't with the oscars it's with the movies that get made

There really weren't that many great performances this year by either African-American or Hispanic actors.

BTW, there is no all white male nominating "committee." Nominations are voted on by all the members of the academy in each branch. All the actors vote for actor, all the actresses vote for actresses, all the directors vote for directors. Yes, the membership is older and skews white and in the technical branches they skew male. The academy has been making a strong effort to change that.

But ultimately it is the lack of good roles and good films.

[Staph]

16. Close, but not quite.

Actors (male and female) vote for actors. It's not separated by gender.

And that's for the nomination process. All members of the Academy vote in the final ballot.


http://www.oscars.org/oscars/voting

[CBGLuthier]

17. Yeah, I thought I should research it further.

Either way it is a large body voting not some committee. I knew they all vote for the actual awards across the branches.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Best quote ever:

"It's past time for Hollywood to stop defining a great drama as white men battling against hardship."

[MisterP]

7. dunno, that pic's 40% female

[Baitball Blogger]

8. Kind of looks like a hidden quota system, doesn't it?

Ever since they categorize the Martian as a comedy for the Golden Globes, I tend to wonder what is going on in the award circles.

[MisterP]

9. cocaine's white, too

[Retrograde]

14. And one of those women has dark hair!

And one or two may even be mature women.

Hollywood is using a model that was developed in the 1930s, when the population is less diverse than it is today*, and when the majority of Americans went to the movies every week. Nowadays the bulk of tickets are bought by young men, so that's who the industry caters to. And the people who do the nominating and voting are the people who work in the industry, who are more than likely to give the nod to pictures that employ a lot of their friends. "Crash", anyone?

*and the studios were under control of the Hayes commission, which promulgated the notion that the US was full of WASPS - even people of eastern and southern ancestry were largely relegated to sidekicks or comic relief. Interestingly, pre-code talkies weren't afraid to have people of color occasionally be something other than servants.

[MisterP]

15. yeah, there are some real islands of self-isolated homogeneity in LA

Santa Monica's another big one, plus Beverly Hills; they're marked by nonvaccination and millions spent keeping out the Metro system--the heavy traffic keeps out the riffraff, I presume

[el_bryanto]

5. It's a fair point

But unlike last year, it's unclear that there are that many contenders for those seats. I think Andrew O'Herir said it well at Salon.

In broad strokes, this was a really good year for movies, and Thursday’s nominees offer a wide range of talented people and interesting performances. Given that by “wide range” I mean a bunch of white folks.

As I suggested earlier, the problem is first of all what movies get made, and under what circumstances. Secondarily but just as important, it’s about how those movies are positioned and marketed. It remains true that only a few mainstream big-budget pictures with leading roles for actors of color are made every year, and fewer still are produced or directed by black or Latino filmmakers.

He goes on to point out that the movies one would consider this year are mostly genre movies and, well, entertainment movies. And the Academy tends to overlook those sorts.

I think it's a systematic problem in Hollywood; the oscars are just a symptom.

Bryant

[Bluenorthwest]

6. It's not in the executive suites, the green light is not held by a diverse group of people and that

is why the films and the casting of those films is as it is. You can't vote for a film that did not get made nor for an actor who was not cast. So Oscar votes get cast for that which was made, and so the issue that must be addressed is who has the power to decide what is made...
"It’s not just us being the presidents of a Hollywood studio or network. We’ve also got to be in a position where we have some green light votes. And this is how you decide – this is the process that decides what we’re making and what we’re not making." Spike Lee
http://www.scpr.org/programs/the-frame/2015/11/30/45391/spike-lee-on-diversity-in-hollywood-if-you-re-not/

This article gives a good overview of a recent study on diversity in Hollywood which demonstrates that more diverse projects earn more money even as the industry lags in pursuit of that profitable diversity.
http://variety.com/2014/film/news/show-business-diversity-trailing-u-s-demographics-ucla-report-shows-1201098838/

This is the 2015 Diversity in Hollywood- Flipping the Script report from the UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African-American Studies for those who want to delve deeply, it's 66 pages:
http://www.bunchecenter.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/2015-Hollywood-Diversity-Report-2-25-15.pdf

[KamaAina]

10. Where are the quality roles for people of color?

[philosslayer]

12. well here's.... one

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/cbs-nancy-drew-will-be-854972

[La Lioness Priyanka]

11. does anyone under the age of 40 even watch the oscars?

[Terra Alta]

18. I'm 34, and I never watch them

I have much better things to do with my time than watch a bunch of overpaid actors and actresses reward themselves.

[Snow Leopard]

13. the writer

seems to not understand that the movie business is about profits not social engineering.

[romanic]

19. Honestly

I've stopped caring about Hollywood and the Oscars and all this celebrity crap. I don't need Hollywood to validate talented black/ethnic actors because I know they exist and are talented. I wish others would stop looking at the industry for valudation.

[FLPanhandle]

20. Who really cares about the Oscars?

Frankly it's an industry giving awards to itself. No one cares.

I'd be more interested if it was about equal pay for men / women in the real world and opportunities for all people willing to work in the real world. Once the real world is fixed, I'll worry about the fake Hollywood world.

[LittleBlue]

21. Paper surprised that Hollywood is owned and run by whites

The diversity in Hollywood has never existed, no matter who was nominated. The profits go nearly exclusively to white executives and the white (and a few Asian) investors who own the parent companies.

Hell half the time black people are nominated it's for playing demeaning roles like slaves and servants.

Nominating a few nonwhite faces doesn't make Hollywood diverse. It would be like claiming Walmart is diverse because my cashier was black.