On January 24th the nominations for the 89th annual Academy Awards were released, and contrary to past years featured a more diverse list of nominees for Hollywood's most coveted award.
The Academy Awards, more commonly known as the Oscars, received a great deal of flack the past two years in response to the lack of diversity in the ceremony's top six categories: best picture, best actor, best actress, best director, best supporting actor and best supporting actress. The controversy was dubbed #OscarsSoWhite because every actor/actress nominated was white and only one film with a person of color forwarding the story was nominated for "Best Picture" in the two-year period.
It all started when Ava DuVernay was left off the best director nominations in 2014 for her work on the Martin Luther King Jr. biopic Selma, despite the film generating a best picture nomination. The film's star, David Oyelowo, was also left off the nominations for best actor, despite portraying one of America's most well received political figures - a task that generally garners nominations for actors such as Colin Firth in The King's Speech, Daniel Day Lewis in Lincoln and Ben Kingsley in Gandhi.
DuVernay's snub was particularly controversial. Not only is she an African-American director, but she is also female and in the show's 89-year-history the Academy has only nominated four women in the "Best Director" category with Katheryn Bigelow becoming the first woman to win in 2010 for The Hurt Locker.
By nominating her, the Academy could have hit two birds with one stone. DuVernay, whose film 13th is nominated this year for "Best Documentary", would have been the first African-American female director to receive a nomination.
Due to the lack of diversity in the nominations, many Hollywood elitists took a stand and boycotted the show, including Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith as well as the critically acclaimed director Spike Lee, while Oscar-winning Actors Lupita Nyong'o, Reese Witherspoon and Dustin Hoffman acknowledged that a change needs to happen in the Academy.
2016 proved to be different, however, as six African-American's and one Indian performer were nominated in the acting categories; three of which are nominated for "Best Supporting Actress," making it the first time where African-Americans hold the majority in an acting category.
The actors of color nominated are Denzel Washington (Fences), Ruth Negga (Loving), Mahershala Ali (Moonlight), Dev Patel (Lion), Viola Davis (Fences), Naomie Harris (Moonlight) and Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures). Barry Jenkins, who directed and adapted the screenplay for Moonlight, received nominations in both the "Best Director" and "Best Adapted Screenplay" categories, while August Wilson received a posthumous nomination for adapting his Pulitzer-Prize winning play to the screen.
Moonlight, Fences, Lion and Hidden Figures all received nominations for Best Picture, with the latter being the first film to feature three African-American actresses in leading roles, forwarding the story, to be nominated.
The Academy had more films to chose from where a person of color was at the forefront and necessary to the film's plot. As a result, they were able to nominate people of color for their contributions to film and thankfully so.
In layman's terms, this year's ceremony is the most diverse it has ever been in the show's 89-year-history. Why does this matter? Because diversity is important.
It is important for the film industry to continue creating stories and characters that depict a person of color, and people who don't fit the white, straight, male mold. This isn't to oppress the white, straight male because there is nothing wrong with being white, straight or male. That being said, there isn't anything wrong with being black, gay or female and either way there are stories to be told from both perspectives.
In lieu of the variety of films and performers from diverse backgrounds, expect the Damien Chazelle musicalLa La Land to walk away with a majority of the Awards including best Picture, as the film generated a well deserved 14 nominations.
The Oscars are on Sunday, February 28th and will air on ABC starting at 7:30 CT.
