Diversity at the Oscars must not be just a walk-on part

Michelle Yeoh made history by becoming the first Asian woman to win Best Actress at the Oscars. AFP

When Rami Malek, an American actor of Egyptian parentage, won an Oscar in 2019, he completed a journey started in 1963 by Egyptian star Omar Sharif, the first Arab actor to be nominated for an Academy Award.

It was an important moment for the region, although other Arab performers and filmmakers had been knocking on the door for years. Also in 2019, Lebanese director Nadine Labaki was the first Arab woman to have her film, Capernaum, nominated for an Oscar. Malek's was a relatively rare win for a non-white actor.

Diversity, again, has been an issue that was raised in coverage of this week’s Academy Awards. While it was heartening to see Indian production RRR win the Oscar for Best Original Song, Michelle Yeoh make history by becoming the first Asian woman to win Best Actress and former refugee Ke Huy Quan become the first Asian man in 38 years to win Best Supporting Actor, no black talent was nominated for a lead acting award and there were no women in the best director category.

The Oscars’ role as one of the world’s most significant cultural events lends the issue a seriousness that extends beyond mere entertainment. The prestige attached to the Academy Awards, which are meant to be a meritocratic celebration of achievement, means that any whiff of bias – unconscious or otherwise – can have a ruinous effect on their reputation.

It is a reputation that has come in for some very serious scrutiny in recent years. Research from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and the Adobe Foundation published this month found that of the more than 13,250 nominees at the Academy Awards since 1929, 17 per cent were women and 83 per cent were men. Of these nominees 6 per cent were from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups. The ratio of white to underrepresented nominees is 17 to 1.

There have been some improvements over the past decade in part due to vigorous activism. The #OscarsSoWhite hashtag started by writer and campaigner April Reign eight years ago was a reaction to the fact that in 2015 no women, outside female categories, or actors of colour were nominated in the 88th Academy Awards. According to the Annenberg research, since then “there have been notable increases in nominations for people of colour across 16 of 19 categories examined... Additionally, the overall percentage of underrepresented nominees more than doubled from 8 per cent (pre #OscarsSoWhite) to 17 per cent (post #OscarsSoWhite)”.

The campaign also led to changes in the Academy’s membership and operation, a process that is continuing. Next year, for example, the body will introduce new rules for Best Picture nominees, designed to foster inclusion, although time will tell what their impact will be.

None of this is to downplay the achievements of those who won this year, and films should, ultimately, be judged on their artistic merits. Neither are the Oscars the only awards where there can have been some startling results over the years – this year’s Bafta awards in the UK came in for criticism after its diverse selection of nominees resulted in not a single non-white winner.

It has been 83 years since Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Oscar. Nevertheless, last year it was reported that membership of the Academy is still more than 80 per cent white and nearly 70 per cent male. When it comes to diversity and inclusion at the top levels of filmmaking, it seems the final script has yet to be written.