The Oscars Made a Record Breaking Move to Fix Its Diversity Problem
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The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences doesn't want the Oscars to be so white next year, and the Academy made a record-breaking move to fix it. A historic number of new member invitations were sent out this week and nearly half of them went to women or minorities.
The Academy sent out 683 invitations to new members and 46 percent of those were to women and 41 percent went to minorities, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Some of the names on the list include Emma Watson, Brie Larson, Michael B. Jordan, America Ferrera, and Idris Elba. Some people started using the hashtag #OscarsLessWhite to talk about the news.
However, these new invitations only bump the overall academy demographics from 8 percent people of color to 11 percent, according to the Los Angeles Times.
When the Academy Awards nominations were announced for the 2016 show, social media reacted with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite to discus that the overwhelming majority of nominations that went to white people. There was a similar reaction to the 2015 nominations.
In response to the controversy, the Academy vowed in January to make huge changes by doubling the number of women and minority members by 2020.
