Are awards shows still white?

With this year’s awards season over, many are now looking back on the strides and fumbles of each ceremony. Unsurprisingly, the one getting the most scrutiny is the most popular and omnipresent – the Academy Awards. Though many may have their own negative personal opinions regarding who did and didn’t win, the general mood is one of optimism, bolstered by the seven-win sweep of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” including a Best Picture win.

One topic that has persisted, however, is the idea of progress: particularly with how much the awards have progressed in terms of how the awards nominees and winners have grown – slowly, but surely – more diverse. While the intentions are in good faith, and necessary to the future of these organizations, the ways in which the Academy and awards shows in general have gone about doing this aren’t only problematic on a macro scale, but they also expose the failings of the film industry in terms of making actual, substantial progress.

The push for greater diversity in awards came as a result of outrage from the absolute lack of non-white acting nominees at the 88th Academy Awards. This outrage, dubbed under the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, would dominate the conversation to a point where much of that year’s Oscars ceremony centered around the debate. It was clear that there was work to be done, and the Academy responded swiftly. Initially, the goal was to expand the type of people nominating and voting, adding in more young, diverse people by 2020. This has expanded to a mandate, set to start with the next Oscars ceremony, that requires a film to feature a diverse cast or crew and narratives that will focus on marginalized communities. 

On the surface, these changes don’t seem all that odd. While the average median age of an Oscar voter still skews older at 50, the increases of female voters from 25% in 2015 to 32% in 2020 and people of color from 8% to 16%, shows a genuine – though slow – growth in who is making the decision of what gets nominated and ultimately wins. The diversity initiative, labeled the Representation and Diversity Standards for Oscar Eligibility (RAISE, for short), sounds even better.

As the industry and general public’s standard bearer of what represents the best of cinema, the Oscars are in a unique position to force the industry’s will. Want an Oscar? You have to play by their rules, no matter what you may think of them. Despite their noble intentions, however, there are flaws, both minor and major, that make these changes less radical than they may appear to be at first glance.

The most obvious limitation to these changes, especially with the diversity requirements, is how broad they are when analyzed further. While it sounds as though the guidelines are sweeping, the actual print states that only 30% of the cast or crew would need to be a part of a marginalized community. This means that most, if not all, films meet this requirement in some way. 

Take, for example, Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.” “The Irishman” seems like the kind of film the Academy would graciously move away from: a film directed by an aging white man about the evils committed by other aging white men. But one look at the crew list and it passes the requirement of having a diverse crew with flying colors; out of the 15 main crew members (directors, producers, writers, etc.), seven of them are women, including producers Jane Rosenthal and Emma Tillinger Kossoff and famed film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and while all those women are white, the film’s cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, is Mexican, adding a hint of racial diversity to the above-the-line crew. Add in whoever is working below-the-line and those who work for distributor Netflix – provided those organizations are also working on diversifying their workforces – and the film has easily met two of the required qualifications that need to be met for a nomination.

This leads into the other main issue, which involves how this process ultimately trivializes the nominees themselves. Film industry veterans like Schoonmaker and Prieto are icons in their field – and are guaranteed nominations anytime they work on a project – but rather than highlighting this, the diversity requirements downplay their achievements and only highlight their marginalization in a broader context. This only marginalizes non-white and/or non-male nominees further, given that this highlights their relation to what has been the industry standard beforehand. If this is the effect these initiatives can have on industry veterans, the effect it could have on younger, first-time nominees – especially those from marginalized backgrounds – can cause these requirements to do the opposite of what they were designed to do. 

Rather than create a more equitable field, it can make certain nominees feel like tokens instead of legitimate talent. Of course, this is all hypothetical, but given the ways certain people already freaked out over genuine (and not-so-genuine) attempts at diversity on and off-screen, it’s a authentic concern. This speaks to the main issue overall: who is making what films. While the film industry has made strides to fix its diversity issues, the types of people working in the industry – and especially those who greenlight films – are still predominantly older white men. With that in mind, there is only so much the industry can do for diversification before awards ceremonies can fully represent the modern world; expecting awards ceremonies to change the film world is equivalent to putting the cart before the horse.

All of this is not to make diversity initiatives as a whole sound like a bad thing – far from it, as they are one of the few ways to help a stagnant industry truly evolve with the times. Again, the idea – if film studios want to win an Oscars, they must play by their rules – is great. And there are far worse ways to implement systemic change currently ongoing. 

Take, for example, the British Academy of Film and Television Awards’ solution to the same issue, which is having an outside committee alter the nominees after the fact to ensure at least one person of color in the acting and directing fields. This spits in the face of how the whole process of nomination is supposed to work and ultimately trivializes the nominee of color added in after the fact, while giving fuel to bad-faith actors who may use it to demonize the whole notion of diversification in general. 

But just because there are far more patronizing versions of the same issues out there doesn’t nullify the fact that the Oscars’ solution can do more harm than good. Its broadness and unintended tokenizing effect shines light on the real reason these initiatives are started in the first place: money and social standing. By appealing to the broadest audience possible with more diverse nominations, the Oscars gain more viewers and make more money as a result. It’s a businessman’s way of rewarding artistic achievement, making it less about nominating the greatest artistic achievement and more about pretending to care about the plight of marginalized people without actually putting in the work to do so. 

It makes one wonder if the ultimate wins that feel like a step in the right direction – films like “12 Years A Slave,” “Moonlight,” “Parasite” and the aforementioned “Everything Everywhere All At Once” – won because they were genuinely believed to be the best film of their respective years or if they helped the Academy push a good narrative for themselves. Instead of making these films, and their creators, real players in the industry, they elect to make them show ponies instead.

With all that in mind, what are the solutions? The only real solution is the one Hollywood would never truly consider: let all artists – no matter who they are – make the work they want to make. It sounds painfully obvious, but the impetus of that means Hollywood having to confront the many systemic issues that lead to the need for the Oscars’ RAISE initiative in the first place. It means challenging audiences, potentially alienating viewers, making art that doesn’t always parrot the status quo and taking risks in art. It requires giving people who exist outside of what has been the predominant modes of filmic expression the ability not just to get a seat at the table but also to grow and expand it. 

Here’s to hoping that this year’s awards season dominance shows the Academy – and the film industry at large – the way forward.