In my Sunday commentary on the Golden Globes, I noted that Oscar governors were praying to avoid nominations that would trigger another season of #OscarSoWhite memes. To be fair, though, they were not relying on prayer alone.
Because Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the Academy’s first black president, initiated A2020 in 2015 to diversify the entertainment industry in five years. Most notably, with no hint of irony, Isaacs abolished the voting rights of old white people and granted them to young non-white people.
It seemed to be working, too. In 2017, blacks were nominated in all four acting categories, and more than half of the Best Picture nominees featured diverse casts.
But this only moved me to write a cynical commentary warning that Hollywood’s “miracle-gro diversity” was driven by fleeting white guilt rather than systemic change, and that without pruning diversity at every stage of filmmaking, another #OscarSoWhite episode was inevitable.
Sure enough, the irony cannot be lost even on Isaacs that her A2020 vision of diversity in 2015 has brought Hollywood back to the future in 2020 with this:
[Z]ero performers of color were nominated in the best supporting actor and best supporting actress categories, though after past #OscarsSoWhite controversies, maybe we should collectively agree to keep our hopes ground-level. … [E]ight out of the ten best supporting actress and best lead actress nominations went to blonde, Caucasian women—in a year when Jennifer Lopez and Awkwafina gave career-defining performances.
(Vogue, January 13, 2020)
In other words, iPINIONS thinks five years do not a generation or two make. So keep pruning Hollywood. Keep pruning.
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