New Oscars standards say best picture contenders must be inclusive to compete

[brucejoel99]

This is how they stop Sonic from winning Best Picture this year, isn't it?

[Ferguson97]

Serious question: if these rules were in place last year, would that not disqualify Parasite (which WON Best Picture)?

It would not.

Which 2 of the 4 does it check off? "Diversity" means DIVERSITY, not "non-white". It's a Korean film with a Korean cast and Korean film crew AFAIK. There's no diversity. There's no racial themes in the movie either.

Did you read the rules? They're in the article the OP linked to. Parasite would auto-check all 4 criteria since Asians are counted as an "underrepresented" group per the rules. But even if that wasn't the case, Parasite would probably meet most of the criteria by virtue of featuring a significant number of female characters as well as women in significant roles behind the scenes.

Does the fact that Koreans are not under-represented in Korean film come into play at all? Probably not I guess, but IMO it's at minimum SOMEWHAT relevant.

Foreign films are underrepresented in general.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's a start.

What I'd prefer is a requirement for cast and crew makeup together to reflect the average US ratios. So you gotta have at least 18% Hispanic or Latinx, 13% African American, 6% Asian, 1% First Nations, .2%  Pacific Islander. Obvs these would be thresholds. With gender, though, I'd actually prefer male vs female to be about equivalent, with trans folks being at least .5% of the total and non-binary folks getting a representative amount as well, which unfortunately there isn't data on yet really, but let's say .5% for them as well.

And if you want to make a movie that doesn't fit these standards, ain't nobody going to stop you. You just wouldn't be eligible for whatever award was brave enough to have these requirements as necessary for being considered for their award.

It'd also be cool to have adult age ratios in there too, basically with the under-18 numbers going to allow you to use as buffer. So at least 9% folks being 19-25, at least 12% 26-34, 26% 35-54, 13% 55-64, 16% ≥65, and then the remaining 20% to fit in any age category. Though my categories would be 18-27, 28-37, 38-47, 48-57, 58-67, ≥68, but I couldn't find a quick source on the percentages of those breakdowns that didn't require me to do my own math.

The fact that there are 20% of Americans who are under 18 would give lots of buffer room. This would, I think, help weed out "old white dudes" being a large percentage of producers and directors and also help somewhat with the always using actors younger than the ages they're supposed to represent, but the buffer would still let you make Grace and Frankie or Grumpy Old Men or a college movie.

Genuine question: Is this a joke?

Imagine trying to make a super realistic WW2 war film about nazis under those criteria.

Do the Right Thing, one of the most pointedly antiracist movies ever made, would be ineligible under these criteria because only one of the named characters is Latina, none are Asian, and very few of them are old.

[Alben Barkley]

I guess we're gonna see Black Panther 2 and Captain Marvel 2 nominations then.

Black Panther 2 and Boseman are locks for nominations just because of his death.

[Koharu]

It's a start.

What I'd prefer is a requirement for cast and crew makeup together to reflect the average US ratios. So you gotta have at least 18% Hispanic or Latinx, 13% African American, 6% Asian, 1% First Nations, .2%  Pacific Islander. Obvs these would be thresholds. With gender, though, I'd actually prefer male vs female to be about equivalent, with trans folks being at least .5% of the total and non-binary folks getting a representative amount as well, which unfortunately there isn't data on yet really, but let's say .5% for them as well.

And if you want to make a movie that doesn't fit these standards, ain't nobody going to stop you. You just wouldn't be eligible for whatever award was brave enough to have these requirements as necessary for being considered for their award.

It'd also be cool to have adult age ratios in there too, basically with the under-18 numbers going to allow you to use as buffer. So at least 9% folks being 19-25, at least 12% 26-34, 26% 35-54, 13% 55-64, 16% ≥65, and then the remaining 20% to fit in any age category. Though my categories would be 18-27, 28-37, 38-47, 48-57, 58-67, ≥68, but I couldn't find a quick source on the percentages of those breakdowns that didn't require me to do my own math.

The fact that there are 20% of Americans who are under 18 would give lots of buffer room. This would, I think, help weed out "old white dudes" being a large percentage of producers and directors and also help somewhat with the always using actors younger than the ages they're supposed to represent, but the buffer would still let you make Grace and Frankie or Grumpy Old Men or a college movie.

Genuine question: Is this a joke?

Imagine trying to make a super realistic WW2 war film about nazis under those criteria.

Do the Right Thing, one of the most pointedly antiracist movies ever made, would be ineligible under these criteria because only one of the named characters is Latina, none are Asian, and very few of them are old.

I didn't say cast and crew separately, did I? You could have a cast of one and still meet these criteria.

As for the person asking if it was a joke, no, it's not. Why shouldn't the entertainment industry be representative of America as a whole, especially if they want to be considered for an award?

Imagine trying to make a super realistic WW2 war film about nazis under those criteria.

Oh no, the crew and directors etc would just have to have some PoC included, how terrible. 🙄

[Big Abraham]

It's a start.

What I'd prefer is a requirement for cast and crew makeup together to reflect the average US ratios. So you gotta have at least 18% Hispanic or Latinx, 13% African American, 6% Asian, 1% First Nations, .2%  Pacific Islander. Obvs these would be thresholds. With gender, though, I'd actually prefer male vs female to be about equivalent, with trans folks being at least .5% of the total and non-binary folks getting a representative amount as well, which unfortunately there isn't data on yet really, but let's say .5% for them as well.

And if you want to make a movie that doesn't fit these standards, ain't nobody going to stop you. You just wouldn't be eligible for whatever award was brave enough to have these requirements as necessary for being considered for their award.

It'd also be cool to have adult age ratios in there too, basically with the under-18 numbers going to allow you to use as buffer. So at least 9% folks being 19-25, at least 12% 26-34, 26% 35-54, 13% 55-64, 16% ≥65, and then the remaining 20% to fit in any age category. Though my categories would be 18-27, 28-37, 38-47, 48-57, 58-67, ≥68, but I couldn't find a quick source on the percentages of those breakdowns that didn't require me to do my own math.

The fact that there are 20% of Americans who are under 18 would give lots of buffer room. This would, I think, help weed out "old white dudes" being a large percentage of producers and directors and also help somewhat with the always using actors younger than the ages they're supposed to represent, but the buffer would still let you make Grace and Frankie or Grumpy Old Men or a college movie.

Genuine question: Is this a joke?

Imagine trying to make a super realistic WW2 war film about nazis under those criteria.

Do the Right Thing, one of the most pointedly antiracist movies ever made, would be ineligible under these criteria because only one of the named characters is Latina, none are Asian, and very few of them are old.

I didn't say cast and crew separately, did I? You could have a cast of one and still meet these criteria.

As for the person asking if it was a joke, no, it's not. Why shouldn't the entertainment industry be representative of America as a whole, especially if they want to be considered for an award?

Because identity doesn't determine how good a movie is? Hell, identity doesn't determine how good anything is. When you buy a product from the store, do you really sit there and perseverate over the race/sex/orientation of the laborers who produced it? If not, then why care about what the people who make your films look like? And if you do, I'm sorry you have such a sad life with priorities that are so misplaced you find something as trivial as this worth devoting any mental energy to

Imagine trying to make a super realistic WW2 war film about nazis under those criteria.

Oh no, the crew and directors etc would just have to have some PoC included, how terrible. 🙄

How do I "unrecommend" a post?

[Koharu]

You can click "remove recommendation;" it's pretty self-explanatory.

As for why I care about the makeup of the crew, it's because minorites have been kept out of all aspects of Hollywood for decades, and that keeps out unique ideas and development. I think encouraging the entertainment industry to be more representative of America as a whole would lead to fresh stories, different cinematic techniques, and lots of other variation. This is already happening with shows that have more women or Latinx production crew, and I'd love to see more of that.

It's not necessary for good movies, for sure. But our current concept of what makes movies good is framed mostly by white dudes. More exposure to movies and entertainment outside that realm would be fantastic, and that involves minority involvement across the spectrum of the entertainment industry.

[emailking]

I guess we're gonna see Black Panther 2 and Captain Marvel 2 nominations then.

Black Panther 2 and Boseman are locks for nominations just because of his death.

It hasn't been filmed yet. Unless they CGI him, he's not in it.

[kyc0705]

A lot of people have probably observed this already, but all this really does is bias the Oscars further towards studio films: just about every major studio title basically meets criteria (c) or (d) automatically.

As with many things that the Academy does to make themselves look less embarrassing, it starts out by looking too weirdly grandiose, and then once you actually parse it, you realize that they're not actually doing anything to fix anything at all.

[Indy Texas]

My main issue is with #1.

It's applying a design-by-committee approach to art.

"Okay, we need an Asian person, put them here. Make this other person gay and in a wheelchair. Now the protagonist should have a pansexual Afro-Latina grandmother but she's not in the script so rewrite the dialogue from scene 2 to refer to her."

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You can click "remove recommendation;" it's pretty self-explanatory.

As for why I care about the makeup of the crew, it's because minorites have been kept out of all aspects of Hollywood for decades, and that keeps out unique ideas and development. I think encouraging the entertainment industry to be more representative of America as a whole would lead to fresh stories, different cinematic techniques, and lots of other variation. This is already happening with shows that have more women or Latinx production crew, and I'd love to see more of that.

It's not necessary for good movies, for sure. But our current concept of what makes movies good is framed mostly by white dudes. More exposure to movies and entertainment outside that realm would be fantastic, and that involves minority involvement across the spectrum of the entertainment industry.

There's plenty of sh!tty movies made worldwide by people of all races. There's Tyler Perry's movies and nonsense from Eddie Murphy, and South America and Asia are fully of plenty of schlocky romantic comedies, low brow horror, and cheap action movies just like the US. The reason people tend to associate foreign movies with being better is we only see the best ones from those countries, for every Parasite from Korea there's at least a dozen schlocky horror and low brow chick flicks.

This is mostly just meaningless virtue signaling because so many of the qualifying roles are already mostly done by women anyway though. I don't believe any recent Best Picture winner would be disqualified.

[Big Abraham]

You can click "remove recommendation;" it's pretty self-explanatory.

It was a joke. I was making a tongue-in-cheek comment about how I disagreed so strongly with the content of your post that I wanted to give it the opposite of a "recommendation", whatever that is.

As for why I care about the makeup of the crew, it's because minorites have been kept out of all aspects of Hollywood for decades, and that keeps out unique ideas and development.

Um... what? Have you been paying attention to cinema, at all, for like the past 30 years? There are a ton of iconic non-white characters and actors in entertainment. Dwayne Johnson is currently the highest-paid actor. The highest-grossing film this year has two black leads (Will Smith & Martin Lawrence). The three highest-grossing films of the last decade had a multiracial ensemble cast. I could go on and on. What are you even talking about?

I think encouraging the entertainment industry to be more representative of America as a whole would lead to fresh stories, different cinematic techniques, and lots of other variation.

If you're interested in fresher stories, different techniques, and story variations, then we should be striving for creative or intellectual diversity, not racial diversity. There's a much larger difference between the directing styles of, say, Tarantino and Scorsese (two white directors), than there is between, say, Ryan Coogler and the Russo brothers, just to name one example. Having a different skin color or being of a different sex does not automatically confer on you a more "unique" perspective than the already-large variations between established screenwriters and producers, white male or otherwise

[Fight for Trump]

So this was done to appease the Chinese market? Not good, I've never seen a decent Chinese film.

No, the Chinese market has little appetite for American "diversity".

And there are plenty of decent Chinese films these days. The industry has come leaps and bounds in the past 10 years, and they're capable of producing a very mature product now.

[Alben Barkley]

I guess we're gonna see Black Panther 2 and Captain Marvel 2 nominations then.

Black Panther 2 and Boseman are locks for nominations just because of his death.

It hasn't been filmed yet. Unless they CGI him, he's not in it.

My mistake, I thought it had already been made for some reason.

[John Dule]

Sorry, I can't get mad about this. My opinion of the Oscars bottomed out a long time ago.

[7,052,770]

The only way a movie could ever fail this is if they went out of their way to. It would have to be an independent movie that intentionally only hired straight white men for everything, including costumes, makeup, hairstyling, etc.

I don't doubt there are some straight white men out there qualified to do hair and makeup, but they would also have to willingly go along with the white-only, straight-only project, as would all the actors, camera crew, etc., making your pool of talent even smaller.

And even if you got all of that together, what percentage of movies are considered for Best Picture, especially films not produced by the major studios? Even after contriving all of that, you would still have to hit lightning in a bottle to get into the Best Picture discussion? It's just not going to happen. I think it's safe to say these "new rules" will never prevent a film from being nominated.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I actually am interested in hearing out an argument that Do the Right Thing having a crew that reflected the racial demographics of the US as a whole would have improved the movie. I'll concede that these sorts of quotas do make some sense for genres that don't tend to be "about" any identity group's concerns in particular (generic romcoms, high fantasy, superhero movies that aren't Black Panther), but the idea that they would improve all movies across the board is just not a mature approach to how to get minority stories told.

[emailking]

So this was done to appease the Chinese market? Not good, I've never seen a decent Chinese film.

No, the Chinese market has little appetite for American "diversity".

And there are plenty of decent Chinese films these days. The industry has come leaps and bounds in the past 10 years, and they're capable of producing a very mature product now.

I've tried a lot of them bu haven't liked one yet. Their style just doesn't click with me unfortunately. Their fantasy movies though, can't deny how beautiful the imagery in those movies is.

Anyway, I just saw Tenet and my brain is still trying to catch up with what I just saw, even though it should have been right up my alley. Definitely need to give this a few more watches when it comes out on UHD. It's the kind of movie they'll never nominate but should probably win.

[Beet]

So this was done to appease the Chinese market? Not good, I've never seen a decent Chinese film.

No, the Chinese market has little appetite for American "diversity".

And there are plenty of decent Chinese films these days. The industry has come leaps and bounds in the past 10 years, and they're capable of producing a very mature product now.

The Chinese films from 10+ years ago were better. Any Zhang Yimou film from before 2010, most Wang Kar Wai films, most John Woo films, and Bruce Lee's Hong Kong films.

Ever since Xi Jinping came to power it's been awful. Creativity has been completely stifled. Wolf Warrior 2 was cringeworthy.

[Brittain33]

Serious question: if these rules were in place last year, would that not disqualify Parasite (which WON Best Picture)?

It would not.

Which 2 of the 4 does it check off? "Diversity" means DIVERSITY, not "non-white". It's a Korean film with a Korean cast and Korean film crew AFAIK. There's no diversity. There's no racial themes in the movie either.

There's no symmetry between an underrepresented minority and the majority. This is like arguing that HBCUs are as racist as an all-white school.

[Brittain33]

Suggested new title for this thread

[jaymichaud]

I’m all kinds of a minority and think this is dumb

[Brittain33]

I’m all kinds of a minority and think this is dumb

Do you work in the film industry or tried to break into it? A lot of this is inside baseball related to a lack of diversity in the film business, in particular its leadership, of which who is on screen is only one part of the picture.

[Battista Minola 1616]

I actually am interested in hearing out an argument that Do the Right Thing having a crew that reflected the racial demographics of the US as a whole would have improved the movie. I'll concede that these sorts of quotas do make some sense for genres that don't tend to be "about" any identity group's concerns in particular (generic romcoms, high fantasy, superhero movies that aren't Black Panther), but the idea that they would improve all movies across the board is just not a mature approach to how to get minority stories told.

I am interested in hearing out an argument that international films should be racially representative of the US as a whole.

[Figueira]

I actually am interested in hearing out an argument that Do the Right Thing having a crew that reflected the racial demographics of the US as a whole would have improved the movie. I'll concede that these sorts of quotas do make some sense for genres that don't tend to be "about" any identity group's concerns in particular (generic romcoms, high fantasy, superhero movies that aren't Black Panther), but the idea that they would improve all movies across the board is just not a mature approach to how to get minority stories told.

I am interested in hearing out an argument that international films should be racially representative of the US as a whole.

Honestly Korean movies have way too many Koreans in them. Don't they know that Asians are only 6% of the US population?