New Inclusion Requirements for Academy Award Best Picture Eligibility

[XPac]

If it is about what people should believe is the best picture, it means this is a colour blurred category, everyone needs to bring their A Game (whites, women and minorities). with the rules, a minority can bring their D game and still get a slot over another non minority who brought the his A game. that is just unfair.

Maybe the oscars should changed their mission statement. there is nothing so ''Academic'' about this rules.

Again, it's only unfair in theory.

In practice most of the movies that win pretty much meet these requirements anyways. It's sort of hard to imagine what movie wouldn't... maybe some small indy oscar baiting period piece or something like that. That's the only thing potentially getting screwed here. Everyone else can pretty much just do what they're doing and ignore it.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Exactly.

It’s not just black people. Jennifer Lopez gave a critically acclaimed performance last year and she was totally overlooked.

The narrative that the Oscars have rewarded minorities over the years is totally false. I’m old enough to remember the controversy over films like “Do the right thing” and even “X” (which Denzel Washington should have got the Oscar for) being totally snubbed. If “Straight Outta Compton” featured say the The Beatles or the The Rolling Stones, you bet your ass the movie would get a ton of Oscar buzz.

Personally, i am sick of seeing the same **** at the Oscars. I’m am tired of Meryl Streep EVERY SINGLE YEAR getting nominations while people like Lupita Nyongo get overlooked (and it’s telling that she won for playing an abused slave). It’s played out and ridiculous. We should thank God that Jack Nicholson and Anthony Hopkins don’t act much again because the Oscars pretty much reserved slots for them.

Who would you take out for Jlo?

Zellweger (winner)
Erivio
Johansson
Ronan
Theron

I would argue every single one was clearly more deserving that Jlo. In fact the irony here is that the least lauded of the grouping was probably Erivio. So swapping her for Lopez doesn’t solve anything.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Again, it's only unfair in theory.

In practice most of the movies that win pretty much meet these requirements anyways. It's sort of hard to imagine what movie wouldn't... maybe some small indy oscar baiting period piece or something like that. That's the only thing potentially getting screwed here. Everyone else can pretty much just do what they're doing and ignore it.

Exactly. Ever major American studio will easily pass this. It’s just something for people to complain about.

[Mister Mets]

Once again you are implying that sole reason that a movie gets made is to win an Oscar, While that does happen (looking at you King Speech,Green Book,First Man) your scenario of movie not being made because internship cost too much is seems short sighted. No they would just still make up the movie if meant no Oscar chance. If winning awards is the sole reason for a making movie that is bad reason.

********

Now to more important part again they why is this happening. Imagine someone robbing you for say 40 years, When they finally catch them, Instead of making them pay back all the money they stole from you. They tell you have to wait gradually for them to pay you back for the next 40 years. Why are people who have been punished by wrong now have to wait for system to do thing correctly when the system before had no problems doing "wrong stuff"?

You can force the system to catch up as quickly as possible, yes even at expensive of the people who benefit from the system being messed up. Also let the people who where quiet when minorities were being screwed over remain quiet now that system is handing them a small handout. I don't really care for the voice anyone who is complaining about this who was not also complaining as loud that Hollywood was screwing minorities.

Why is predominantly focus white movie( I can't think of anything else getting hurt by this) more important than Hollywood trying as quickly as possible to make up for lost time with minorities? It is really hard imagine a movie not being able to meet these requirements. In the bigger picture if for some reason a smaller studio or independent movie gets hurt by the rules the greater good of all people who being put into the system outweighs the couple of incidents wrong that might happen.

"Oh nos you won't be able to make a British or American period piece that pretends that minorities don't exist in the world". Someone please help me see the great tragedy being loss here. "Oh nos Someone might not another movie about Viking or Knights and might decide to focus on another culture", I mean we have gazillion King Arthur movies, Robin Hood, William Wallace movies." God forbid someone makes a movies about maybe Moors,Maybe the Zulu tribe or Persian army. Help me please ,describe to me a movie that they are going to make with predominately white cast that they have don't ready have multiple movies of that kind. What are we actually afraid of losing here?

I certainly don't think the sole reason a movie gets made is to win Oscars.

I do think the possibility of a win or a nomination is often part of the calculations about what to finance and make.

However, if a movie is ruled ineligible for Best Picture because it doesn't focus enough on marginalized groups, that is going to be really bad publicity, and potentially damaging to the careers of the people involved, even if they never thought they had a serious shot at a nomination. It's a really liberal environment, where Viola Davis apologized for a SAG award winning performance, respected directors blame George W Bush for blowing up the levees during Hurricane Katrina, and award-nominated documentaries suggest race relations are just as bad as they were in James Baldwin's day.

I've got no problem with the push for more diverse stories with the creation of something new and different, but I'm bothered by the idea that certain stories shouldn't exist.

Some stories would naturally not include many people of color, just as some stories would naturally focus primarily on the experience of people of color, and some stories would focus on both. I doubt that this would limit period pieces involving white people just because those will be made by studios with the money to throw at publicity and internship programs. The only potential effect would be to limit independent stories that aren't represented as heavily in Hollywood, where the white working class is not represented to anything close to their share of the American population.

The stories that we're used to seeing, and that many think we've seen too much of are going to keep coming out. We'll continue to see films about middle aged white male actors, British royalty, World War II soldiers, boardroom struggles, white male writers, and the mafia. The studios will make space for that, and make token efforts to make sure it meets standards.

There are still going to be some settings that are going to favor white men that aren't really overrepresented in film. We don't have many dramas involving the staff of a red mountain state Governor, police in a white rural community, prison escapes in Belarus, a crisis of faith for a seminary/ rabbinical school student, or the lived experiences of a boy with white trash parents in Appalachia.

[Username taken]

Who would you take out for Jlo?

Zellweger (winner)
Erivio
Johansson
Ronan
Theron

I would argue every single one was clearly more deserving that Jlo. In fact the irony here is that the least lauded of the grouping was probably Erivio. So swapping her for Lopez doesn’t solve anything.

I don't agree. Not one of these women gave a better performance than JLo.

But you're entitled to your opinion.

[Username taken]

Meryl Streep is an amazing actress with almost a 40 year acting career, Lupita is not yet on the level of Meryl Streep. if Lupita was nominated again it should because she gave a wonderful performance not because she is black. Meryl is known for her talents and doing various roles.

there are films like straight otta compton which was a good movie but not necessarily oscar worthy. there are movies like Ray, that was oscar worthy and got nominated .

I can't even take this seriously because you don't even know the movies I'm referencing.

Reread other parts of what I said, there are many factors. black actors/actress should be winning 10-13% of the categories, if there is an issue that is the fault of talent agencies. two wrongs don't make a right.


The Oscars may not have awarded minorities as much as they represented in the population because they don't get roles but at least back then, we knew the few minorities that got nominated was not for tokenism.that goes a longer way
Its funny that those who seem supportive of this rules don't seem to be taken the merit criteria that makes it fair to everyone. It reminds me of the mini controversy that black panther had in 2017-2018. Got nominated as the first comic movie because of diversity, but it became irrelevant the following year because Joker another comic book movie came along with more nominations without having to meet any Diversity rules.

This new rule is only going to hurt the credibility of minorities and it is only making their white artists look unfairly better because the white artists now have a more convincing argument that their nominations was done for merit which is the real purpose of why the oscars were created. many minorities are going to loose that privilege to say so.

[/QUOTE]

Awards aren't dished out on the basis of "population demographics"

Again, you're contradicting yourself.

[Username taken]

Once again you are implying that sole reason that a movie gets made is to win an Oscar, While that does happen (looking at you King Speech,Green Book,First Man) your scenario of movie not being made because internship cost too much is seems short sighted. No they would just still make up the movie if meant no Oscar chance. If winning awards is the sole reason for a making movie that is bad reason.

********

Now to more important part again they why is this happening. Imagine someone robbing you for say 40 years, When they finally catch them, Instead of making them pay back all the money they stole from you. They tell you have to wait gradually for them to pay you back for the next 40 years. Why are people who have been punished by wrong now have to wait for system to do thing correctly when the system before had no problems doing "wrong stuff"?

You can force the system to catch up as quickly as possible, yes even at expensive of the people who benefit from the system being messed up. Also let the people who where quiet when minorities were being screwed over remain quiet now that system is handing them a small handout. I don't really care for the voice anyone who is complaining about this who was not also complaining as loud that Hollywood was screwing minorities.

Why is predominantly focus white movie( I can't think of anything else getting hurt by this) more important than Hollywood trying as quickly as possible to make up for lost time with minorities? It is really hard imagine a movie not being able to meet these requirements. In the bigger picture if for some reason a smaller studio or independent movie gets hurt by the rules the greater good of all people who being put into the system outweighs the couple of incidents wrong that might happen.

"Oh nos you won't be able to make a British or American period piece that pretends that minorities don't exist in the world". Someone please help me see the great tragedy being loss here. "Oh nos Someone might not another movie about Viking or Knights and might decide to focus on another culture", I mean we have gazillion King Arthur movies, Robin Hood, William Wallace movies." God forbid someone makes a movies about maybe Moors,Maybe the Zulu tribe or Persian army. Help me please ,describe to me a movie that they are going to make with predominately white cast that they have don't ready have multiple movies of that kind. What are we actually afraid of losing here?

Quoted for truth.

The changes here are surface level at best and don't really change anything. So the complaints ring hollow.

What really grinds my gears is that somehow the Oscars have rewarded everyone "fairly". That's absolute nonsense and is frankly not something I'm willing to even argue because the whole discussion is based on some serious revisionism.

[Username taken]

https://www.cbr.com/oscars-new-diver...-easy-to-pass/

This is from the CBR frontpage.

The new guidelines are so basic that they literally won't change anything.

Again, what's needed is more diversity in the voting pool not surface changes that mean nothing and will literally affect nothing.

[XPac]

https://www.cbr.com/oscars-new-diver...-easy-to-pass/

This is from the CBR frontpage.

The new guidelines are so basic that they literally won't change anything.

Again, what's needed is more diversity in the voting pool not surface changes that mean nothing and will literally affect nothing.

That may be the most problematic issue with these guidelines... I'm not sure they are going to make anyone happy.

It'll just make people argue over it, without improving the situation one bit.

[Vakanai]

If it is about what people should believe is the best picture, it means this is a colour blurred category, everyone needs to bring their A Game (whites, women and minorities). with the rules, a minority can bring their D game and still get a slot over another non minority who brought the.... his A game. that is just unfair.

Maybe the oscars should changed their mission statement. there is nothing so ''Academic'' about this rules.

That's not at all true. Basically this just means there's more diversity behind the scenes. Producers, cameramen, interns, so on. Any film bringing their D game isn't going to win just because of diversity points.

[Mister Mets]

The issue with Parasite is a primary English speaking Academy had to judge non English speaking roles to determine the acting they liked best. It puts them at a disadvantage. Ultimately it is an American based institution, it’s going to come with it’s own biases just like any award show in any country.

The lack of acting nominations for Parasite could just be an example of bad luck. Its biggest star would have gone for Best Supporting Actor, but it was a cycle where the a Scorsese mob picture gave two award-winners their best two performances in a generation.

The point about minorities is flat out false. Your own analogy just pointed out that it’s false.

You can count the number of black actors and filmmakers that have won Oscars with a few fingers. Denzel Washington, Jaime Foxx and Sidney Poitier are the only black men ever to win a leading man best actor award. Apart from Halle Berry, I don’t even think a black woman has won a leading actress award. We’ve had Whoopi Goldberg, Mahershala Ali, Morgan Freeman, Lupita Nyongo and Louis Gosset Jr win award but all in supporting roles. Apart from Steve McQueen, has any other black film maker won a best director award?

There’s a reason the “Oscars so white” was trending years ago. Guys like Spike Lee who’s made a ton of critically acclaimed films has been overlooked and he’s pretty much labeled the Oscars racist. I believe it was so bad that Eddie Murphy called out the Academy for it many years ago.

Let’s not pretend that the Oscars have rewarded minorities over the years. They haven’t at all. They have only very recently started making changes.

If the Oscars have gotten better, is further change necessary? Are they supposed to award a greater number of people from protected classes in the future in order to make up for previous biases? The question of nominations also gets messy. Is the main problem that work that should have been nominated wasn't nominated, or that people didn't get the opportunities granted to Laurence Olivier?

Exactly.

It’s not just black people. Jennifer Lopez gave a critically acclaimed performance last year and she was totally overlooked.

The narrative that the Oscars have rewarded minorities over the years is totally false. I’m old enough to remember the controversy over films like “Do the right thing” and even “X” (which Denzel Washington should have got the Oscar for) being totally snubbed. If “Straight Outta Compton” featured say the The Beatles or the The Rolling Stones, you bet your ass the movie would get a ton of Oscar buzz.

Personally, i am sick of seeing the same **** at the Oscars. I’m am tired of Meryl Streep EVERY SINGLE YEAR getting nominations while people like Lupita Nyongo get overlooked (and it’s telling that she won for playing an abused slave). It’s played out and ridiculous. We should thank God that Jack Nicholson and Anthony Hopkins don’t act much again because the Oscars pretty much reserved slots for them.

There are certainties about nominations that don't quite match reality.

Rocketman was about Elton John, and it was only nominated for best song. Nowhere Boy was about John Lennon, and got no Oscar nominations.

It was an upset that Jennifer Lopez wasn't nominated for Hustlers, but there are upsets all the time. Emily Blunt won a SAG award for The Quiet Place, and Aaron Johnson won a Golden Globe for Nocturnal Animals, but neither had an Oscar nomination. If the claim is that someone should have nominated, there is the implicit argument that at least one other performance was so clearly inferior that no one could reasonably have preferred it.

[Mister Mets]

That's why the "complaints" about the changes are completely hollow.

It literally doesn't change much if anything.

What needs changing IMO is the voting process.

What changes would you like to see?

Should they go further in their efforts to get a more diverse membership?

Should they allow for slate voting, so that people don't have to pick one person to be nominated and can vote for a group?

Who would you take out for Jlo?

Zellweger (winner)
Erivio
Johansson
Ronan
Theron

I would argue every single one was clearly more deserving that Jlo. In fact the irony here is that the least lauded of the grouping was probably Erivio. So swapping her for Lopez doesn’t solve anything.

You listed the nominees for lead actress (I can understand the confusion with Scarlett Johanson nominated twice in different categories.)

The nominees for Best Supporting Actress were Laura Dern (winner), Kathy Bates, Scarlett Johansson (who was also nominated for lead) Florence Pugh and Margot Robbie.

Quoted for truth.

The changes here are surface level at best and don't really change anything. So the complaints ring hollow.

What really grinds my gears is that somehow the Oscars have rewarded everyone "fairly". That's absolute nonsense and is frankly not something I'm willing to even argue because the whole discussion is based on some serious revisionism.

It's never been fair, but one can still think that we should avoid new developments that are unfair.

A problem with a lot of diversity initiatives is that the losers aren't privileged white people. It tends to be white people from under-represented backgrounds, which can lead to them being resentful, as their disadvantages aren't as obvious.

[RockyHorror]

Are they supposed to award a greater number of people from protected classes in the future in order to make up for previous biases?

Isn't the point to help ensure that previous biases don't continue to be future biases? Isn't the Academy tacitly (and correctly) admitting that biases are still a problem?

This isn't about which movie is the best, because that's an impossible standard to measure or judge. It's about what criteria should be included for a movie to be recognized for the quality of its production. I fail to see how these standards do anything but enhance that.

People who want to see a problem with new standards will see a problem, regardless of the industry or subject matter. This seems to me like the precise reason these standards are a good thing. One, it's part of the mark of a good production to invite controversy. Two, it's good to point out, to make really obvious, that controversy actually exists about subjects with this much clarity.

[Mister Mets]

This will be the first Academy Awards using the new mandates, so it's getting some renewed attention.

Of the 321 Feature films eligible for Oscars, 265 are eligible for Best Picture.

https://www.thewrap.com/oscars-best-...lms-list-2024/

In many cases, it's likely that the studio just didn't file the paperwork to confirm that a film met inclusion requirements.

Sisu, a film about a Finnish farmer killing lots of Nazis, was not in serious contention for Best Picture, so it made sense not to spend an effort demonstrating that there was Representation in marketing, publicity, and distribution or training opportunities for underrepresented groups.

An open letter by 260 Jewish entertainers calls out the Academy for not including Jews as an underrepresented group in diversity efforts for the purposes of the quotas.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/09/b...mid=tw-nytimes