The 2017 Oscar nominations have garnered praise throughout the nation for their diversity, which was lacking in previous years. This is just the beginning of the change needed within the entertainment industry, not the end.
April Reign, creator of the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag and managing editor of Black Broadway, said it best in a tweet after the nominations: “One year of films reflecting the Black experience doesn’t make up for 80 yrs of underrepresentation of ALL groups.”
This year, the Oscars are remarkable in featuring 20 non-white acting nominees along with ground-breaking numbers of nominations for women and people of color in behind the scenes roles such as editing, cinematography, and directing. Compared to the last two years, where not a single person of color was nominated for any acting role, this is a momentous improvement.
The progression is due to the large addition of minority voters to the Academy, the body that votes for Oscar nominees and winners, in an attempt to increase the award show’s diversity after years of criticism. Previously filled with white male voters, it is no surprise that past nominations were centered around white men; as consumers, we like art that directly connects to us.
The low number of minorities in Hollywood does not help either. Data from the Media, Diversity, and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg’s School for Communication and Journalism shows from 2007 to 2014 roughly three-quarters of all film actors were white. Sure, this means there were more high-caliber films featuring white leads, white stories and patriarchal themes — however, each year there is a growing abundance of award-deserving films, revolving around marginalized experiences, that are often snubbed by the Academy. This data proves there is still an issue with the cast of Hollywood itself.
For a nation termed the melting pot of cultures and people, we lack a homogenous entertainment industry. The problem is both on and off screen. It’s hard enough for a minority actor to land a role that isn’t an overdone stereotype, such as period pieces about the slavery era, or reducing Asian actors to comic relief, but it’s even harder for women and people of color to land a spot in the director’s chair, editing room or at the writers table.
Pressuring Hollywood to change is only the first step, and, subsequently, we are beginning to see that change. The entertainment industry is being forced to become more inclusive and create diverse stories and cast on par with what has long been the reality for Americans of various creeds and cultures.
What truly makes this award season so momentous are the steps we’ve taken in this field — with a black director nominated for the fourth time in Oscars history and a black cinematographer nominated for the second time in Oscar history. These nominations are most important for the waterfall effect they have. The more people we have in leadership roles that can accurately and respectively create stories of their communities, the more eloquent and original movies we’ll have of marginalized experiences.
We could stop here and pat ourselves on the back for having an unprecedented amount of diversity, or we could keep pushing and uncovering the wealth of beauty and reality in stories such as one of a black sanitation worker, an Indian adoptee trying to find his way back home, and a community of black women leading the civil rights in their own way.
#OscarsSoWhite does not end in 2017. Many experiences are still tragically undervalued, and the entertainment industry must continue to push themselves to achieve full diversity and equality.
Ryan Thaxton is a 20-year-old mass communication sophomore from Monroe, Louisiana.