Motion Picture Academy makes strides on diversity with new members - Los Angeles Times

Earlier this year, when I wrote a story about the under-the-radar success of producer Will Packer, who’s had a string of hit movies, notably “Think Like a Man,” I said that Packer, who is African American, was still waiting for someone to invite him to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

His wait is over.

Packer was one of 176 film industry luminaries who were invited today to become academy members. And even though most of the headlines will inevitably focus on such A-list talent as Terrence Malick, Jonah Hill, Jessica Chastain and Matthew McConaughey, the academy did something that had somehow eluded the hidebound organization in recent years: It took a significant step toward diversifying its new membership.

In addition to Packer, the academy invited several other African Americans to the club, including “Eve’s Bayou” filmmaker Kasi Lemmons, “Ray” costar Kerry Washington and Octavia Spencer, who won the best supporting actress Oscar this year for her role as Minnie in “The Help.”

The academy also made huge strides in recognizing international film talent, inviting as members French actors Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo, who costarred in “The Artist”; Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, who won the best foreign language film Oscar for “A Separation”; Belgian filmmakers the Dardenne Brothers, whose most recent feature was “The Kid With a Bike”; Michelle Yeoh, best known for her roles in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Memoirs of a Geisha’’; Mexico’s Demian Bichir, who earned a lead actor nod this year for his role in “A Better Life”; and Rodrigo Garcia, the versatile Colombian-born film and TV director.

And, oh yes, the academy even made room for Wong Kar-Wai, the brilliant filmmaker from Hong Kong, who has been a critical favorite for years, thanks to such visually arresting delights as “Chungking Express,” “Happy Together” and “In the Mood for Love.”

It’s not exactly a coincidence that the academy made strides on diversity just months after the L.A. Times did a lengthy investigation of the academy’s membership that revealed that its nearly 5,800 voting members were largely old, white and male. The story prompted a flurry of controversy inside and outside the industry. Most important, it made a dent inside the academy, the ultimate insider’s club, which has finally sped up its often desultory process of broadening its membership horizons.

The academy says 14% of the new class of invitees is nonwhite, and 30% are women.

It is important to note that the new arrivals are hardly the beneficiaries of affirmative action. To the contrary, they are a who’s who of impressive talent being given long-overdue recognition. I’m not complaining, but I have to admit I did a double-take when I saw that filmmakers of the stature of Wong Kar-Wai and the Dardenne Brothers were only now being given entry to the academy. The academy is at least a decade late in issuing an invitation, but considering that such cinematic giants as Francois Truffaut, Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa never won an Oscar, maybe late is better than never.

Of course, this is just a beginning. The academy still has more work to do. Having more people of color on its board of governors would be a good start.

On the other hand, if the academy is making strides on embracing people of color, it is easily outpacing the industry itself, which remains a bastion of white male influence, both in terms of its leading filmmakers as well as its studio brass. There are still no African American studio executives in the industry who can make a green-light decision. There are shockingly few people of color at the town’s leading talent agencies and management firms.

We can argue till the cows come home about why Hollywood is so overwhelmingly white, but until people of color find their way into key decision-making jobs, actresses like Spencer are likely to discover that they may get only one turn in the Oscar spotlight.

This is also true of international talent, who rarely get a second chance at the kind of high-profile films that earn Oscar plaudits. I hope Dujardin enjoyed every minute of his whirlwind tour of the Oscar circuit. In the last 50 years, he is one of only two men from a non-English speaking country to win a lead actor Oscar (Roberto Benigni was the other).

But today’s membership choices offer cause for optimism. The academy has often given voice to the ideal of film as an art form that included people of all colors and rewarded work that crossed all borders. Today that ideal is a step closer to reality.

Follow me on Twitter: @patrickbigpix

ALSO:

Oscar voters overwhelmingly white, male

Oscar voters aren’t always who you might think

Oscar voters who’s who: Who they are and where they live