#OscarsSoWhite?

I wanted to do a critical analysis of the hot topic of whether or not there is truth behind the #OscarsSoWhite. While it is very easy to get emotional about a subject of which I am greatly interested, I wanted to look at the available statistics and see if there was in fact an issue. While its always fun to rally behind Jada or say Will isn’t telling “the Twooth” about the relative situation (and Jada could easily be forgiven for feeling her husband was being shortchanged), what is really going on?

An article by the Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/01/film-and-race) provided a lot of extremely useful facts for determining whether or not what we have is a statistical anomaly or whether we have a real issue.

After looking more closely and validating some of these numbers it is true that the vast majority of awards go to white actors/actresses — but then again so are most of the top roles. Given that ~90% of the top roles are being filled by white actors it actually stands to reason that probably near 90% of of the awards would be going to white actors as well. While the Economist tries to tie this top the population, that correlation is statistically irrelevant. The awarding of awards would never follow demographic breakdowns but instead be more closely effected by the allocation to the top roles. Statistically we also see that the nominations also reasonably closely follow the Oscar nominations as do the wins. The clear determinant here is whether or not minority actors are placed in leading roles — not whether or not there are more or less of them in the overall population.

Before we dig deeper into the issue of leading roles, it is useful to look at the overall composition of the group that nominates and awards the Oscars.

As we can see from this chart (and statically this hasn’t changed much over the past 5–10 years) we can see that its largely an older white male demographic that is making the decision. Does this mean that white people won’t vote for minority actors — of course not. But what it does mean is that the Oscars are dominated by a particular segment of the population and greatly skewed by their preferences in entertainment. Whether or not there is something there that is racist leaning is debatable, but what it certainly means is that you wouldn’t necessarily see much variance year over year in the overall trend lines for the Oscars. Even if you saw more nominations, the probability that you’d suddenly see a massive increase in Oscar wins by minorities is highly unlikely. Why? Why would a person’s personal film preferences and cultural film bias suddenly change? What it means is that minority winners would actually be statistical outliers — not necessarily part of the status quo. In a typical random scenario (yes I know this isn’t a random scenario) you should able to select a random number for each award and only if the number lands between 90–100 would you expect to have a winner in that upper 10%. Go ahead and try it here (https://www.random.org/) If you only make up ~10% of the top roles you really only have a 10% chance of a winner. But like I said, that is if it was truly random. Clearly certain preferences and biases of that demographic will make that probability larger or smaller — I would argue smaller.

So given all of that, Greg, what are you saying — I’m sure you’re asking. What I’m suggesting is that there are several larger issues at play that are causing the current situation and those are the issues that must be addressed:

1. If minorities are to win more awards — they have to be in more top/leading roles. If the statistical determinant is whether or not you’re in a top role — minorities must, as a matter of statistics, be better represented in those roles. I have no idea how that works but I will say that perhaps those actors/actresses who have made it far in the industry need to find a way to get more minorities screen time.
2. Subsequently, In order to get more screen time, there must be more stories that are written that would put more minorities in top roles. Now this overlooks the ludicrous situations where clear minority roles are not played by minorities (how can you have a film that takes place in Africa/Egypt yet ALL of the leads are white is beyond me), but minorities need better roles and a lot of that has to do with having writers that are creating MASS MARKET epics that would drive the need for minority roles.
3. If you want to have an award show that is reflecting how America views film you need to have better representation across a larger racial AND age demographic for the Academy. I liken the situation with the Academy to the situation with Congress. If you keep electing the exact same people to Congress — you would be foolish to expect drastically different behavior from Congress. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results has been quoted as the definition of insanity — but yet we keep doing it and are surprised when things end up as they are. Diversity requires diversity in the people that make the decisions — not just the people involved in the implementation.

So in the end, I don’t necessarily see this as an issue of people not accepting us. If the numbers were different I would be one of the first ones to say we should be boycotting the Oscars because of racism — but in this PARTICULAR instance that doesn’t seem to be the driving factor (though it certainly could be a contributing factor). However, the reason that people should really be boycotting the Oscars across ALL races and age groups is a lack of representation. A demographic THAT skewed will never deliver any meaningful representative award unless you believe it a requisite to be an older white male in order to understand what makes a good film. The Academy itself should have looked into this issue on its own AGES ago because it is clearly out of touch with the trends and themes of America and as such risks its own obsolescence. Similarly while some have suggested it, the solution to this situation isn’t the creation of a new award show. That simply hides where the problem is, as the real solution is having better stories that are told which push the prominence of minority actors/actresses and are funded such that those stories make it to the big screen.

Sidebar Rant

In closing, I would strongly recommend that Hollywood look at the lessons of the upstarts that are about to eat/have been eating their lunch — Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. These platforms are pushing exceptionally more variety and diversity than Hollywood and they are doing it with considerably less money and to a demographic which is demanding and consequently receiving a lot more choice in the entertainment it consumes. To ignore the need to increase the diversity of the writing, directing, and acting that reaches out to a growingly diverse audience weakens the bond between the audience and the brands and with these new digital distribution platforms you can lose your audience at a rapid pace. Don’t think so? Ask the folks at Blockbuster. Oh wait — you can’t.