BAFTAs 2020 winners & roundup

It’s time to tackle that big ol’ elephant again. The BAFTA academy must have let out a collective cry of anguish seconds after Graham Norton took to the stage, as the brazen host wasted no time in shining a spotlight on the institution’s glaring and continued lack of diversity in its nominees.

Norton opened the show by claiming it was ‘the year when white men finally broke through’, before commending Joker – ‘a story of a white man who makes himself even whiter’ – on its 11 nominations. While the jokes were well delivered and landed with most of the audience, the irrefutable truth behind them is anything but funny. It’s become something of a trope that film industry acclaim is predominantly dolled out by white men, to white men. And while film institutions refute these claims, the latest ceremony has only bolstered that belief.

Worryingly, all 20 nominees vying for various acting BAFTAs were white, and the academy have still yet to stop the rot in regard to overlooking female directors – with the last female nominee for ‘best director’ coming way back in 2013.

If the BAFTA organisers were hoping the storm had passed with Norton’s exit, they were swiftly dragged back into choppy waters again when Joaquin Phoenix stepped up. Phoenix revealed he felt ‘conflicted’ about accepting his BAFTA because other ‘deserving’ actors ‘don’t have the same privilege’. His message was clear to most, but for anyone who found a hint of ambiguity, he left none in his closing inditement: ‘We send a very clear message to people of colour that you are not welcome here’.

What to take away from this

At this rate it seems we’ll never get a hitch free awards ceremony where the hottest topic isn’t diversity 48 hours on. The Oscars faced censure late last month for their list of nominees, with the ‘OscarAllWhite’ hashtag resurfacing for the first time since the mid noughties, and weeks later the BAFTAs adds insult to injury with an all white actors line-up.

While we must recognise that the industry is full of some of the most privileged people on the planet, and is therefore predominantly white, that doesn’t mean that it’s okay for its content to under-represent society as a whole. Film is a medium adored by everyone and everyone involved deserves an equal opportunity to win the most prestigious prizes it has to offer.

Western society today is more progressive and inclusive than ever before regarding gender, sex, and ethnicity. Its industries should be the same.