After Breitbart News exposed the numerous loopholes in the Academy Awards’ new DEI quotas, the New York Times has published its own version of the story, which includes unnamed Hollywood insiders trashing the diversity rules as little more than window dressing — “flimsy and showy.”
Some Hollywood executives — who were also granted anonymity — told the Times that the mandates have changed little about how they make movies, in large part because the standards are so easily met.
Spike Lee even used Breitbart’s description — “loopholes” — when he characterized the Oscars’ diversity effort to the Times.
On Sunday, the 96th Academy Awards will usher in a new, woke era by being the first Oscars to have required all best picture hopefuls to meet so-called inclusion standards. Call it the first DEI Oscars. As thrilling as that may sound to some, the reality is much more prosaic. Like so much of Hollywood, the Oscars’s diversity rules are mostly an illusion.
As Breitbart News reported, no on-screen diversity is actually required.
In fact, no behind-the-camera diversity is required either. A movie’s entire cast and crew can be all white, heterosexual men and it could still qualify as “diverse.”
That’s because the DEI rules come with loopholes galore.
A movie only has to meet only two of the Academy’s four requirements to be eligible for best picture consideration. Two of those requirements pertain to cast and crew “diversity,” while the others cover the studios financing and distributing the movie.
As a result, a movie can skip the first two requirements and still count as “diverse” if the studio releasing the title has a minority internship program and employs minorities in key executive roles. This explains why Oppenheimer qualifies as “diverse” even though its cast is wall-to-wall straight white males.
In another loophole, women and gays count as minorities. As a result, Anatomy of a Fall can call itself “diverse” even though it features not a single non-white person on screen.
Neon
Those affiliated with the Academy are defending the quotas.
“The standards are not difficult to meet; I will be the first person to say that,” Jeanell English, who worked at the academy on its impact and inclusion efforts until last summer, told the newspaper. “But what they are doing is starting critical conversations in this community about representation.
“Had they been too strict, she added, “you would have lost a lot of support and momentum.”
Sunday’s Oscars telecast on ABC will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.
The ratings-challenged Oscars has been losing tens of millions of viewers over the years as Americans alienated by celebrity left-wing grandstanding opt to stay away.
Last year’s show drew 18.7 million viewers, the third-lowest in Oscars history. At the height of its popularity in 1998, the Oscars managed to attract more than four times as many viewers.
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