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“The body that hands out the Academy Awards on Tuesday published detailed inclusion and diversity guidelines that filmmakers will have to meet… movies that want to be considered eligible for a best picture nomination at the 2024 Oscars will have to meet two of the four new standards, the Academy said. The four standards cover diversity representation among actors and subject matter [Standard A]; behind-the-camera staff, such as cinematographers and costume designers [Standard B]; paid [apprenticeships] and training opportunities [Standard C]; and marketing and publicity [Standard D].” Reuters
Read the new standards here. Oscars
Many on both sides agree the rules are unlikely to have much effect:
“The changes will be much less dramatic than the headlines and social-media buzz implies… The on-screen rule, Standard ‘A,’ is only one of the four standards. The Academy has made it relatively easy for studios to comply with the other standards… Five years from now, we could still have best-picture winners about straight white men such as The King’s Speech, Hurt Locker, No Country for Old Men, or The Departed. And even The King’s Speech and Hurt Locker might qualify under the thematic new rules if you interpret stuttering or PTSD as disabilities. Likewise, a Jane Austen adaptation would count, as it is about women.”
Gabriel Rossman, National Review
“These are easy hoops for most modern movies to jump through. Standard B, for example, covers 14 key positions. Some of those are still white and male-dominated, such as director and cinematographer; others are already mostly done by women. According to Women in Hollywood’s statistics for movies released in 2018, a total of 84% of costume designers were women, as were 83% of casting directors, 78% of hair department heads and 76% of makeup department heads. The overwhelming majority in each case were white women. So to tick box B, most movies would not have to change a thing…
“Categories C and D are not necessarily difficult to satisfy either: most major studios and films do already. So as long as you tick two of the other boxes, you could still theoretically submit an all-white, all-male remake of Birth of a Nation and qualify.”
Steve Rose, The Guardian
Other opinions below.
“The first [criterion] is the showiest but also the silliest, calling for diversity in casting and themes; it’s unworkable if you’re starting, as do a great many Oscar contenders, with an established historical record. You can’t pretend that Ford v. Ferrari or The Irishman was about minorities or women or gay liberation or handicapped people. Most producers of top-quality films will simply laugh off that top-line requirement and try to hit two of the other three. Which won’t be that hard.”
Kyle Smith, National Review
“These new Best Picture standards will undoubtedly lead to a trend of studios hiring minority staffers based entirely on the demands of an imposed set of quotas and not for any merit or talent. It will lead to the creation of a subgenre of minority actors who are not seen as actors, but as checkmarks on a list. It will be Hollywood tokenism at its worst, and it will be institutionalized. Also, while we are on the topic, keep an eye on how Hollywood plans to square these new inclusivity standards with the film industry's eagerness to answer China's demand for more light-skinned actors in starring roles.”
Becket Adams, Washington Examiner
“In the last 20 years or so, the Oscars have started to lose their luster. It began when the Academy started honoring films that weren’t popular with anyone but the critics. Then nearly every speech turned into political polemic…
“I’ve stopped watching awards shows for many reasons, but mainly because of politics, and I’m not the only one. Last year’s Oscars reported record low viewership, [despite] the producers’ attempts to create memorable and buzzworthy moments. But what the Academy has failed to do is honor movies that viewers care about and keep far left politics from invading the ceremony. Until the Oscars fix those things, they’ll continue to slide into irrelevance.”
Chris Queen, The Resurgent
“The first thing to consider is that this new hoop to jump through is an obvious boon for the big studios… If you’re directing a prestige picture for Warner Bros. or Universal, you’ll never have to worry about any of this: someone somewhere will make sure you have the proper number of underrepresented interns. If you’re an indie putting together a movie on a shoestring in the hopes that A24 or Neon will pick you up, well, good luck.”
Sonny Bunch, The Bulwark
“We have many masters in our industry, from Steven Spielberg to Quentin Tarantino to Roger Deakins. These icons won’t live forever. It is their responsibility to take their knowledge and bestow it to the next generation. This doesn’t mean they invite the nephew of the studio head, who already has ample opportunity to follow him on set. It’s time for Hollywood to step outside of itself and look beyond the Sherman Oaks, Brentwood and Beverly Hills zip codes for their next proteges…
“There are places all over this country where a teenager has never seen a theater stage before or has no idea what a cinematographer is or does. You have been afforded one of the most unusual professions that exist. You express your deepest, most personal feelings on the world and share that with millions. The Academy, journalists, artists and countless others are merely asking you to pay it forward.”
Clayton Davis, Variety
“Will anything truly change? Yes, but it’s something far harder to measure: perception. Even if the new guidelines allow ample workarounds, they will probably spur filmmakers, financiers and studio executives to take the issue of diversity more seriously, and could especially be a boon to department heads of color. And now that the issue is on the table, Oscar voters may be interested to learn just how specifically a contender’s diversity standards were met, and which films skated by with a handful of interns.”
Kyle Buchanan, New York Times
“[The questions] are nearly endless. How should the academy consider a movie like ‘Parasite,’ Bong Joon Ho’s South Korean class tragicomedy? That film was directed by and stars people who are underrepresented on American movie screens but who are members of the ethnic majority where the movie was shot. Will there be content qualifications, say, if a film stars a Middle Eastern actor but gives him or her a cliche role as a terrorist? Are Jews White?…
“How will the Oscars consider movies about people who might be considered White in the United States, but whose ethnic identities take on a different valance in Europe, like Russians or Slavs?… All of this, and I haven’t even gotten started on what it means that the new academy rules don’t contemplate underrepresentation on the basis of class and religion.”
Alyssa Rosenberg, Washington Post
