You understand they have completely different voting systems? You also understand that Baftas and Oscars have near enough the same members maybe with a 1000 differences? Baftas have three rounds of voting and nominees are wittled down, Oscars just counts the ones with the most votes. So if the Baftas aren't racist. How can the Oscars be? The use different criteria to judge.
I think the internet often mistakes the fact that a lot of people fancy Idris Elba for him being an amazing actor. He's a good actor - great in The Wire, mumbly in Luther - but his personal popularity is far greater than his proven track record.
Actually the problem is actually 3 different problems: - The folks who choose the oscar stuffs are almost wholly white and american or european (and if I'm not mistaken, often admit to not watching all the films) This means they aren't representative of the international or even domestic or english speaking film industry. theres no intent to discriminate but homogenous groups often do hold assumptions about other groups and that affects their judgement. - Beasts of No Nation was snubbed for an obvious reason - it was released via Netflix. Nominating the film would have support a competing model of entertainment which is bad for many involved in the oscars. Otherwise Elba and the director Cary Joji Fukunaga would have got a nomination. - There isn't enough opportunities for non-white folks in writing or acting in hollywood. If theres no way into the industry how do we expect representation. I mean, cmon, emma stone was cast as a person of native hawaiian and chinese descent...
Most industry awards are back-patting cronyism, the Oscars more than most. I'd much rather people worry about who's actually getting jobs, rather than who's mixing in the right circles to get an Oscar.
No one said that. Strawman argument. The Oscars can only nominate who appears in films, if black people are not cast as often it stands to reason they are not nominated, and don't win as often. The problem would appear then to be with the casting of Hollywood studios, not the nominations of the Oscars. Although as only 13% of the population of America is African American, I don't see that they are under-represented at all. "Those who identified only as African American made up 13.2% of the U.S. population". I don't see Spike Lee complaining that white people are under represented in his beloved NBA, why, becasue players are chosen on their performance, not their colour. If you're not good enough, you don't play. Same with the Oscars, if your performance inst good enough, you don't get nominated.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...76-men-and-an-average-of-63-years-old/284163/ This is pretty damning about the demographics if it's true. Gregory Peck had a cull when he became president of the academy. He created associated members for people who use to work on film but had retired or weren't very active. The associate membership gave all the benefits of academy membership, but they couldn't vote for the Oscars anymore. This significantly lowered the voting age average of the then academy membership, and kept the demographic (in terms of age) more in keeping with the movie going public. I think having a electorate that is more reflective of the general population would be a good start for the Academy.
But the Academy have strict rules on how someone can join. They have to be very distinguished in the industry. It's a club not a public body. For an Actor to join they have to have a lead role in three different films, and/or be nominated for an Academy Award, or made outstanding contributions to movies. They then have to be nominated and approved by members. Most of the members are producers, directors writers and other backroom staff who have MORE rules on joining than an actor does. They have to be very good at what they do. http://www.oscars.org/about/branch-requirements/producers That would explain the age and the demographics, most of these people have been in the movie business for 20-40+ years. In time it will change. Baftas, Globes etc have different rules on joining and considerably "easier" that's why the Oscars are seen as the most prestigious.
The NBA argument is stupid... If you can't see the obvious recruitment differences between film and basketball then i can't help you.