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MPAAS : No diversity, no OSCAR


bruce marshall

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John Boyega recently gave a magazine interview which included him talking about being 'sidelined'. 

A major part in the most recent trilogy of what is still arguably the world's biggest movie franchise ... there'd be a lot of actors who would kill for that kind of 'sidelining'. 

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7 minutes ago, Holko said:

Or that they can't have ties to places like China that are actively working on the violent reduction of their ethnic diversity? Oh, silly me, what am I saying, that doesn't count, they have money.

 

RACISM!

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I’d be curious to know what Best Picture nominated movies would have been deemed ineligible with this. It seems like you’d have to seriously go out of your way to hire exclusively white dudes at every single level. Movies like The Godfather and Amadeus don’t meet Standard A but have Standard B covered since they had women heading creative departments. The studios would have just had to meet C or D at the time so if they had some female interns and/or marketing execs then there you go. Perhaps not. These days I’d be surprised if studios aren’t meeting both groups of criteria so theoretically any movie’s cast and crew could still be a white sausage fest and get nominated. 

 

But isn’t this already pretty much considered the bare minimum? I’m skeptical their goal here was spurring change rather than just to cover their asses by putting it in writing.

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3 hours ago, Romão said:

This seems like a silly way to tackle the problem. The awards might be a symptom or a consequence of the problem, never its cause. If you want to tackle it, start by providing equal opportunity in education and getting projects off the ground. The awards will (at least in theory), follow where the quality is. 

 

Sure, but mainstream cinema has already been siloed off so much that education only gets things so far. It's already become almost impossible for talented filmmakers to make independent films fresh out of school, regardless of race or gender. And as an awards institution, this seems like a logical move for the Academy to make to actively incentivize the industry to start opening up spaces that have historically been blocked off.

 

Again, no one is saying don't hire for talent. Or to replace talented directors/actors/etc to fill quotas. It's a matter of making production teams be more proactive about finding talent (especially around crew members) where they might not be looking.

 

It's no perfect solution. But it actually works toward change without relying on empty rhetoric or stupid gestures like quotas in award nominations.

 

1 hour ago, mrbellamy said:

But isn’t this already pretty much considered the bare minimum? I’m skeptical their goal here was spurring change rather than just to cover their asses by putting it in writing.

 

Yup. And yet it's still enough to rile JWFan up... :rolleyes:

 

Good intentions or not, it is one of the less empty gestures Hollywood has made in recent years.

 

4 hours ago, Holko said:

Will the guidelines include that producers and other crew can't be sleazy sexual predators, paedophiles etc.? Or that they can't have ties to places like China that are actively working on violently reducing their ethnic diversity? Oh, silly me, what am I saying, that doesn't count, they have money.

 

One step at a time. Liberal Hollywood has always been slow to action.

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I saw someone make the point that there’s no economic factor in the internships requirement and therefore, really, producers could recruit from their friends’ Beverly Hills High School buddies as long as a couple of them identify as bisexual. If they actually wanted to shake things up they could require kids from families making <$25k.

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Yea, but the more specific they get with their conditions, the more they're going to piss off angry white folk crying "This is not art anymore!".

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Well it does mean you can't really make a movie like you want to if you have to meet a bunch of inclusion and diversity criterias. Then anything mildly controversial is going to be censored out if it possibly offends some people

 

I dunno about historical dramas suddenly showing minority groups that weren't there at the time.

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The thing is that the guidelines represent the status quo in Hollywood already and will especially favor major studios who don’t actually have to do anything based on this. Indies lacking in internship programs and marketing/distribution arms will be more pressured to diversify the films themselves.

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8 minutes ago, King Mark said:

Well it does mean you can't really make a movie like you want to if you have to meet a bunch of inclusion and diversity criterias. Then anything mildly controversial is going to be censored out if it possibly offends some people

 

I dunno about historical dramas suddenly showing minority groups that weren't there at the time.

 

I don't think that's what the new requirements are asking for. Diversity doesn't just refer to what you see on screen. Nor does it ask for censorship.

 

5 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

The thing is that the guidelines represent the status quo in Hollywood already and will especially favor major studios who don’t actually have to do anything based on this. Indies lacking in internship programs and marketing/distribution arms will be more pressured to diversify the films themselves.

 

This, is a more pressing issue.

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9 hours ago, AC1 said:

If Netflix's TV series Away was a movie it would win every Oscar.

 

away-2-1.jpg?w=620&h=420&crop=1

 

Judging by the hair, the second gentleman from the right is also the gay one?

 

Also, it would be fucking hysterical is the black gentleman had the Russia patch... :stir:

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Same mindset regulating art in Germany in the 30s, and in Russia 20 years earlier. 

A clutch of sinister pseudo intellectual ideologists force into the spotlight what they think should be right and wrong, and because they can articulate it well enough and use Charme, they lure well-meaning but gullible people into their crusade. 

 

It doesn't matter one rat's crap for what reason you restrict free expression of whatever. 

I let you in on a little secret: totalitarian structures can establish themselves only because the people behind it and supporting it feel they have the 100% justification.

 

And these Hollywood parasites think they have an obligation to use their status for perpetuating "the right thinking". Well I have another news for you, the worst things are done by people who think they have the best intentions. 

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Diversity is good, but in no way affects the art of films. And isn't that what the Oscars is, an art award show for movies, and not a 3-hour political speech?

 

Also, wouldn't this also impact all-black or all-Asian films? Would Parasite have been disqualified for a lack of diversity?

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14 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

Also, wouldn't this also impact all-black or all-Asian films? Would Parasite have been disqualified for a lack of diversity?

 

This. After all, an all Asian-cast excludes white people, and an all-female cast excludes men.

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I'd love to see Spielberg et.al. resign in protest ( he already expressed his disapproval about new members being chosen based on the same criteria).

The OSCARS is a giant advert for the industry. It was created for that reason by Capra and Columbia).

It has never been about ' art'.

That is why they are so protective ( and litigenous) about their trademark.

 

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

This. After all, an all Asian-cast excludes white people, and an all-female cast excludes men.

That's taboo, Chen!

 

I guess it's a diversity quota when it's in the west, elsewhere no such requirements are imposed. 

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This is pure idiocy.

 

They could just as well rename it right away, from "Best Film" to "Most Politically Correct Film".

 

If they want proper change, then start by exchanging some of the old white men in the academy itself - the people who actually nominate. They're attacking this from the completely wrong end, and by force.

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However you look at it, at the end of the day somebody will be counting the number of members in the film who are of a certain race/gender in order to fit a "standard", which doesn't sound like a good idea. I'm also not sure even how feasible it is to check if you've met some of those listed "standards" (e.g. B3 Overall crew composition)

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