Monday, 20 February 2012

Oscar voters overwhelmingly white, male

Now I understand why Academy members will always vote in strange ways as accordingly to the L.A. Times study "The Times found that some of the academy's 15 branches are almost exclusively white and male. Caucasians currently make up 90% or more of every academy branch except actors, whose roster is 88% white. The academy's executive branch is 98% white, as is its writers branch."

The LATimes article continues to give us charts that tells us the Academy members are mainly white (94%), male (77%), have a median age of 62, and are mostly not Oscar winners (64%) which obviously doesn't represent USA population distribution. Some like Denzel Washington said: "If the country is 12% black, make the academy 12% black," Washington said. "If the nation is 15% Hispanic, make the academy 15% Hispanic. Why not?" Yes, why not? But did you all notice what I immediately notice?  There is no mention to women; so, if  American population by gender is approximately 50% male and 50% female, shouldn't the Academy ALSO be 50% female?

But then I'm thinking that AMPAS is really representative of large American Industries, Corporations, etc that not only are owned but also are managed by proportions similar to what the L.A. Times is publishing about the Academy members in yesterday article.

If you wish to read the complete article please go here and maybe will like to comment about the many interesting findings from their study.  As you can see in the article above photo is from the AMPAS seen at its first organizational meeting in 1927 and if my eyes work right, I can clearly see about five women in what you can call an almost all male room.

If the Academy members distribution looks similar to what looked in in 1927, Oscar nominees this year have a little bit more female participation but look really white; take a look to the Class of 2012.



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