The Truth About the Oscars: How and Why Women and People of Color Are Overlooked

This year's Oscars crop is overwhelmingly male and white, just like the Academy members who selected them.

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet
February 20, 2015

Inevitably, every few years, the Oscars’ lack of diversity becomes a key media talking point. And just as inevitably, in the midst of that discussion—generally on Fox News, in the comments section of a website, or in a frank conversation with an anonymous Oscar voter—someone says something like, “I thought the Oscars were about recognizing the best film/actor/writer, not about race/gender!”

It is a half-baked, overly simplistic idea that fails to consider the most basic forces at work in our entertainment industry, which is itself both a microcosm and reflection of our larger society. Can this year’s whitewashed Oscars simply be chalked up to racism? Of course not. But is there a complex system of inequality and underrepresentation of people of color that yields lily-white Oscar outcomes like the one we’re currently seeing? Absolutely.

Here’s what we know: Films featuring nonwhite leads struggle to find funding. And that’s in the rare cases when a nonwhite lead is cast. A recent study found that, in comparison to their actual numbers among the U.S. population, minorities were underrepresented by a ratio of three to one in leading roles in film. Women were underrepresented by two to one. This, despite the fact that studies find more diverse casts yield higher revenue returns. What’s more, people of color make up the majority of frequent movie goers (51 percent), despite being a minority of America’s populace. The math is simple here, but somehow, Hollywood keeps getting it wrong.

snip*Academy voters are not a diverse group. There are nearly 6,000 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. While it would be a little melodramatic to suggest they operate under a shroud of secrecy, it is true that the Academy doesn’t make members’ names available to the public. In 2012 and 2013, the Los Angeles Times did some sleuthing and found out what many suspected: the Oscar voting body is (un)surprisingly homogenous. A staggering 93 percent of voters are white, 76 percent are male, and the median age is 63. Just 14 percent of voters are under age 50.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/truth-about-oscars-how-and-why-women-and-people-color-are-overlooked