Oscars head acts over lack of nominees' diversity

Oscars head Cheryl Boone Isaacs is taking action to "alter the make-up" of their membership, after Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith's refusal to attend because of the mostly white nominees, the BBC reports.
 
Boone Isaacs praised the "wonderful work" of the nominees but said she was "heartbroken" at the lack of diversity.

Lee said on Instagram he "cannot support" the "lily white" awards show.

Jada Pinkett Smith said in a video message on Facebook that she would not be attending the awards ceremony.

Boone Isaacs added that "dramatic steps" were being taken, saying: "In the coming days and weeks we will conduct a review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond."

The 6,300 members, made up of people from the film industry, vote on who is nominated for the Oscars each year.

"This is a difficult but important conversation, and it's time for big changes," she said.

"As many of you know, we have implemented changes to diversify our membership in the last four years. But the change is not coming as fast as we would like. We need to do more, and better and more quickly."

She said such a move was not "unprecedented" for the Academy, and that in the 60s and 70s younger members were recruited and that today's mandate was about inclusion: "gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation".

Boone Isaacs has also tried to make the show on 28 February more diverse, bringing in black comedian Chris Rock to host.

This is the second year in a row there have been boycott calls, sparked by a list of nominees that is mostly white.

The profile of Oscar voters

In 2012, he LA Times conducted a study to find out how diverse the Academy membership is.
Reporters spoke to thousands of Academy members and their representatives to confirm the identities of more than 5,100 voters - more than 89% of the voting members.

They found that:

Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male. Black members make up about 2% of the Academy, and Latino members less than 2%.

Oscar voters have a median age of 62. People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership.

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 membership is 88% white.

Men make up more than 90% of five branches, including cinematography and visual effects.