The new Oscars diversity rules: momentous or tokenistic?

Most obviously, producers can pick and choose exactly which diversity badges they want to pin on their nominations. This means that for big studios like Warner Brothers or 20^th Century Fox, many of the Academy’s standards are a walk in the park. Studio filmmakers likely already provide internships to an ethnically diverse group of people because they simply offer more internships. For Warner, the racial and LGBT+ inclusion standards will already be met as long as their employee demographic is statistically average for the state of California.

Smaller, indie filmmakers will struggle most to meet more rigorous standards of casting and production. Notably, a number of the options don’t involve representational statistics (e.g. our cast is 50% non-white) but literal tokens (e.g. one member of our production team is trans), which are harder for small studios to fulfil.

Day-after thought: The more I look at these new AMPAS rules, the more I think their only effect, as written, is to favor large companies. Studio filmmakers will literally not have to do a thing to meet these standards; the studio can take care of all of it via standards C and D.>

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) September 9, 2020

There are other concerns too. Whilst all woke badges are judged similarly, there’s an impact imbalance between say, hiring a certain number of BAME lighting operators and hiring the first trans actor in the lead role of a Best Picture nominee. Moreover, the definition of ‘minority’ becomes a thorny issue. For example, Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite was considered a stigma-breaking choice as it represented people who are ethnic minorities by American standards, but the cast and crew were almost all members  of a majority ethnic group where the movie was actually shot in South Korea.

What’s more, none of the inclusion standards consider discrimination on the basis of class or religion.

Regulating an inherently creative industry without stifling artists is always going to be a tough ask, and it’s positive that the Academy is making moves to rectify its homogeneity. As Variety critic Clayton Davis put it in an op-ed, ‘The Academy isn’t telling Picasso what to put in his paintings. Still, if he wants to submit his artwork for an Oscar, he’s got to use more vibrant colors or invite a local young painter to watch his process.’

In the best of all possible worlds, these new rules will encourage studios and filmmakers to not just pander to the Academy but take a long hard look at the way they hire and the stories they choose to tell. We can only hope.