How White are the Oscars?

By: Zachary Rosen '16

Since the announcement of Oscar nominations a few weeks ago, the Academy has come under fire after another year without any people of color nominated for any of the acting categories. Various industry professionals, such as Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett and Will Smith, have publicly criticized this dearth of diversity and did not attend the academy awards on Sunday. Chris Rock, the host this year, also touched upon this issue extensively over the course of the evening. So, in the midst of all this controversy, we must ask the question: is the Academy racist? Though the question is simple, the answer is much more complicated.

One can look at the problem from a purely statistical perspective: each acting category has five nominees every year; since the year 2000 (which is the arbitrary bench mark for this article), there have been 85 nominations in each category. For this article, we will use 2010 census data available on Wikipedia, which indicates that African Americans make up 12.6 percent of the U.S. populations, Asian Americans make up 4.8 percent of the U.S. population, and Hispanic Americans make up 16.3 percent of the U.S. population.

Since 2000, there have been ten nominations for black lead actors (11.8 percent), four for black lead actresses (4.7 percent), six for black supporting actors (7.1 percent), and nine for black supporting actresses (10.6 percent). These are all lower than the 12.6 percent for the U.S. population.

Since 2000, there has been one nomination for an Asian lead actor (1.2 percent), no nominations for an Asian lead actress (there has actually only been one, ever, in 1935), two for Asian supporting actors (2.4 percent), and three for Asian supporting actresses (3.5 percent). These are all lower than the 4.8 percent for the U.S. population.

Since 2000, there have been five nominations for Hispanic lead actors (5.6 percent), three for Hispanic lead actresses (3.5 percent), four for Hispanic supporting actors (4.7 percent), and five for Hispanic supporting actresses (5.6 percent). These are all lower than the 16.3 percent for the U.S. population.

It is important to note that the Academy Awards reflect the talents of actors from across the globe (in fact, Hispanic actors or actresses born in the continental United States were not nominated in any of the acting categories since 2000), and we are comparing nomination percentages to U.S. demographics. 85 people per category is also a small sample size. However, the fact that every ethnicity undershot in every acting category indicates that there is a problem. Additionally, the Academy is overwhelmingly white (94 percent), male (77 percent), and older. This fact is likely to subconsciously influence Academy voters.

This is not to accuse the Academy of purposeful, malicious racism; this issue is related to larger issues in Hollywood and the film industry. People of color are less likely to be cast in large roles (and roles that should go to people of color, based on their source material or geographic location of the story, often are whitewashed and played by white actors). Movies that typically feature people of color are often independent movies that get less press, are less popular, and make less money (which affects the likelihood of nomination, even though on paper it isn’t supposed to, and which produces fewer industry professionals of color who then become Academy members). However, the Academy, as an influencer of culture, needs to actively work to make sure these less well known, less profitable, but still great films, starring extraordinarily talented but perhaps less well known actors, are looked at. The Academy has a responsibility to work to fix institutional racism; otherwise, it is part of the problem.