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September 12, 2020 8:20 AM Subscribe
From 2024, films competing for the Best Picture Oscar will need to meet new diversity requirements for actors, production, training, and marketing, but some believe the new rules will usher in less change than hoped for. Meanwhile, BAFTA is reviewing its voting system following an overwhelming proportion of white, male nominees earlier this year, and is planing to roll out new diversity standards across its TV and games awards by 2022.
Related: More actors got nominated for playing Popes than POCs
Related: More actors got nominated for playing Popes than POCs
I saw that rundown on Reddit but there are a few problems with the analysis. For one thing, having a woman as a lead actor or significant supporting role wouldn’t qualify if the story still focused on the male lead. Secondly, the movies have to meet a minimum of two out of the four requirements, not just one.
posted by adrianhon at 8:54 AM on September 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by adrianhon at 8:54 AM on September 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
The brief version of the criticism I read is that it will be very easy for big companies to have paid internships and diverse marketing staffs and therefore easily avoid all the actual representation requirements, while small, less-funded companies will not (because they can't afford interns and may not have much if any marketing.)
posted by restless_nomad at 9:14 AM on September 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by restless_nomad at 9:14 AM on September 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
A. I stopped caring about the Oscars as meaningful representation of anything around the time Forrest Gump won everything.
B. ... something to do with inviting bureaucrats into a situation generally not serving anyone in the long term, except the bureaucrats, of course.
posted by philip-random at 10:08 AM on September 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
B. ... something to do with inviting bureaucrats into a situation generally not serving anyone in the long term, except the bureaucrats, of course.
posted by philip-random at 10:08 AM on September 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
Allowing the diversity requirement to be met with interns seems pretty cheesy.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:11 AM on September 12, 2020
posted by Dip Flash at 10:11 AM on September 12, 2020
So let me get this straight: Green Book could still win the Best Picture Oscar? Okay then.
posted by fuse theorem at 10:49 AM on September 12, 2020
posted by fuse theorem at 10:49 AM on September 12, 2020
"Allowing the diversity requirement to be met with interns seems pretty cheesy."
So, this is the one that people I know who work on the technical side of movies/TV are most excited about. The way you get jobs is you hang around set. A friend in the business brings you along to carry his heavy sound stuff, you hang around set, you learn how things work, you meet people, you're friendly, you're helpful, you're suffering the 100-degree days, you create some inside jokes. The guy in charge of sound takes a shine to you, and when he goes to his next picture, he says, "Hey, you know, Jim's friend Bob was a real hard worker, low-drama, let's bring him along and pay him, we can probably bump him up to Low Level Sound Job #2." And that's how you get a foothold in the business and start getting jobs and learn how to do "higher" jobs up the ladder. One of the technical side of movies remains VERY white and VERY male is that that's how most people get their start -- they know someone, they get a low-wage or no-wage job on set helping a friend, and then move up from there.
The key thing is that these are PAID internships and apprenticeships. So it won't be limited to Jim's friend Bob who can afford to hang around set for free. This will open the bottom rung of the movie production ladder up to minorities (and women) AND PAY THEM FOR IT. And those people will make friends, make connections, do good work, and when the sound director goes to his next movie, he'll take some of them along. And that means in 10 years, you're going to have a whole wave of minority sound people starting to move into more senior positions with a good roster of movies under their belt. And in 20 years they're going to be winning Oscars.
Diversity initiatives in movies (on the tech side) have kinda sucked because they bring people into the offices, not the sets. Or they don't pay them. Or they offer training, but no jobs materialize, because a classroom course is very different from spending 16-hour days on set for 70 days in a row.
(Ryan Reynolds actually announced an initiative sort-of like this, with very similar aims, and will pay 10 BIPOC interns out of his own pocket for his next movie.)
It's not a magic bullet and it won't fix racism in hiring, but it's going to create a lot more real opportunities for underrepresented groups on the tech side. I think a lot of companies will dodge having to develop diverse stories (Category A) and will focus on B (more diverse sets), C (more opportunities at the entry level), and D (more diverse front offices). But Netflix did just D -- just D -- a few years ago, and started producing much, much more A as a side effect.
Movies aren't going to magically get less white overnight, but I do think this is a relatively well-thought-out set of conditions that's going to open doors up and down the productions, and in five or ten years, we're going to start seeing the effects of more diverse movie sets and more diverse front offices showing up in the stories that are told. I like that three of the items are focused on changing the business over the longer run, instead of just focusing on "best actor" and "what kinds of stories." Because it would be easy to create mandatory diversity spots in the big categories, which would fix exactly nothing. But changing how sets and production offices work, that's a lot more interesting, and I think a more meaningful change in the long run, that will naturally change the stories that are told, and how they're told, and who tells them.
(I also sort-of think in 5 or 10 years, either they ratchet up the rules to have more stringent requirements, or they start requiring 3 of 4 instead of 2 of 4. A lot of commentators think the Academy will probably offer smaller production companies grants for the paid internship sorts of things, so they won't be blocked from the Oscars because they were a tiny indie that couldn't afford interns or whatever.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:55 AM on September 12, 2020 [35 favorites]
So, this is the one that people I know who work on the technical side of movies/TV are most excited about. The way you get jobs is you hang around set. A friend in the business brings you along to carry his heavy sound stuff, you hang around set, you learn how things work, you meet people, you're friendly, you're helpful, you're suffering the 100-degree days, you create some inside jokes. The guy in charge of sound takes a shine to you, and when he goes to his next picture, he says, "Hey, you know, Jim's friend Bob was a real hard worker, low-drama, let's bring him along and pay him, we can probably bump him up to Low Level Sound Job #2." And that's how you get a foothold in the business and start getting jobs and learn how to do "higher" jobs up the ladder. One of the technical side of movies remains VERY white and VERY male is that that's how most people get their start -- they know someone, they get a low-wage or no-wage job on set helping a friend, and then move up from there.
The key thing is that these are PAID internships and apprenticeships. So it won't be limited to Jim's friend Bob who can afford to hang around set for free. This will open the bottom rung of the movie production ladder up to minorities (and women) AND PAY THEM FOR IT. And those people will make friends, make connections, do good work, and when the sound director goes to his next movie, he'll take some of them along. And that means in 10 years, you're going to have a whole wave of minority sound people starting to move into more senior positions with a good roster of movies under their belt. And in 20 years they're going to be winning Oscars.
Diversity initiatives in movies (on the tech side) have kinda sucked because they bring people into the offices, not the sets. Or they don't pay them. Or they offer training, but no jobs materialize, because a classroom course is very different from spending 16-hour days on set for 70 days in a row.
(Ryan Reynolds actually announced an initiative sort-of like this, with very similar aims, and will pay 10 BIPOC interns out of his own pocket for his next movie.)
It's not a magic bullet and it won't fix racism in hiring, but it's going to create a lot more real opportunities for underrepresented groups on the tech side. I think a lot of companies will dodge having to develop diverse stories (Category A) and will focus on B (more diverse sets), C (more opportunities at the entry level), and D (more diverse front offices). But Netflix did just D -- just D -- a few years ago, and started producing much, much more A as a side effect.
Movies aren't going to magically get less white overnight, but I do think this is a relatively well-thought-out set of conditions that's going to open doors up and down the productions, and in five or ten years, we're going to start seeing the effects of more diverse movie sets and more diverse front offices showing up in the stories that are told. I like that three of the items are focused on changing the business over the longer run, instead of just focusing on "best actor" and "what kinds of stories." Because it would be easy to create mandatory diversity spots in the big categories, which would fix exactly nothing. But changing how sets and production offices work, that's a lot more interesting, and I think a more meaningful change in the long run, that will naturally change the stories that are told, and how they're told, and who tells them.
(I also sort-of think in 5 or 10 years, either they ratchet up the rules to have more stringent requirements, or they start requiring 3 of 4 instead of 2 of 4. A lot of commentators think the Academy will probably offer smaller production companies grants for the paid internship sorts of things, so they won't be blocked from the Oscars because they were a tiny indie that couldn't afford interns or whatever.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:55 AM on September 12, 2020 [35 favorites]
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Only nine of them clearly didn't meet the new diversity requirements:
- 1935: Mutiny on the Bounty
- 1944: Going My Way
- 1970: Patton
- 1971: The French Connection
- 1972: The Godfather
- 1974: The Godfather Part II
- 2006: The Departed
- 2007: No Country for Old Men
- 2012: Argo
There are a few judgement calls here - the Godfather movies are arguably about oppressed Italian immigrants and maybe count as representing marginalized people. Meanwhile, Parasite (2019) is made by Koreans in Korea, starring Korean actors; does that count as minority representation?*There was no single 'best picture' winner in 1928; there were two separate categories that map to the modern 'best picture' award
posted by Hatashran at 8:40 AM on September 12, 2020