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Answerman - What Do The Changes To Oscar Rules Mean For Anime?

Following a unanimous vote by its Board of Governors on Thursday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced a series of sweeping changes to their membership and voting policies today in response to widespread outrage over the lack of diversity among not only the Academy's members but also this year's Oscar nominees -- the second year in a row where nearly all the major nominees were white.
This year's nominations resuscitated the trending Twitter hashtag #OscarsSoWhite that has proved a huge embarrassment for the Academy and the film industry in general.
The Academy's Board of Governors said the changes are designed to "make the Academy’s membership, its governing bodies, and its voting members significantly more diverse. The Board’s goal is to commit to doubling the number of women and diverse members of the Academy by 2020."

Here are the steps the Academy said they're implementing:

- Beginning later this year, each new member’s voting status will last 10 years, and will be renewed if that new member has been active in motion pictures during that decade.
- Members will receive lifetime voting rights after three ten-year terms; or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award. We will apply these same standards retroactively to current members. In other words, if a current member has not been active in the last 10 years they can still qualify by meeting the other criteria.
- Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status. Emeritus members do not pay dues but enjoy all the privileges of membership, except voting. This will not affect voting for this year’s Oscars.
- At the same time, the Academy will supplement the traditional process in which current members sponsor new members by launching an ambitious, global campaign to identify and recruit qualified new members who represent greater diversity.
-In order to immediately increase diversity on the Board of Governors, the Academy will establish three new governor seats that will be nominated by the President for three-year terms and confirmed by the Board.
-The Academy will also take immediate action to increase diversity by adding new members who are not Governors to its executive and board committees where key decisions about membership and governance are made. This will allow new members an opportunity to become more active in Academy decision-making and help the organization identify and nurture future leaders.

there have been reports that this year's hugely popular and lauded film Straight Outta Compton went unwatched by a huge chunk of Academy voters.

What's wrong with The Danish Girl? I haven't seen it but it looks well put together.

Quote:

there have been reports that this year's hugely popular and lauded film Straight Outta Compton went unwatched by a huge chunk of Academy voters.

Was it really that lauded? I remember people saying it seriously glossed over the actual abuse of women.

“Oscar Bait” is real as "The Passion of the DiCaprio" proves, the AMPAS tries to appear way too artsy for their own sake (they also aren´t)
This lead to incredible tunnel vision and is a reason why Father and Son sap stories as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close occasionally show up. Or why some winners smell of male prestige, white guilt or just tell the Hollywood comeback story as the admittedly great Birdman from last year. “Rebel” / genre films will also have a hard time to get recognition so don´t expect a “high concept” Nolan film to win and the days where something as boundary pushing as Midnight Cowboy or The Deer Hunter are long gone ...and arguably never existed.

Anyone serious about animation doesn't take the Academy seriously.

However, Latinos and Asians are the ones that should be upset about this. Those are the most excluded groups that have the largest problem. Yet, for some reason, black actors getting excluded is getting all the attention.

Anyway, my relevant point is that Asians are probably the most excluded in terms of award winners which is where an anime winner would fall. And I haven't really seen anything at all about addressing the issue of the lack of Asian winners.

30 years is a pretty long time, so I can't see those changes amounting to much in the end. Maybe on the order of a few percentage points here and there for things, but not a grand sweeping drastic upheaval.

Also, what would qualify as working in the showbiz? Just having a name attached somewhere to the credits of a film in some capacity?

So what if after all of these changes most of the nominations next year are still white? Does the Academy implode?

Chances are that the nominations will be that way because internationally there's just more white people acting.

In conclusion: LeBron was robbed.

(Star Wars isn't even in my town yet!)

The issue of black actors getting overlooked for oscars has been grossly exaggerated and focusing on black actor representation is rather dishonest to any actual problem. Ok, yes, the last 2 years do seem a bit odd, but look at the chart with this article:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/01/film-and-race

"Bill" didn't ask this question, a Twitter user named Todd did.

If you haven't worked in showbiz for a total of 30 years, have never been nominated for an Oscar, you are now "emeritus status," which means you still get screeners and can call yourself an Academy member, but can't vote.

I read the comments under that article and the white supremacy there was glaring (not blaming the article itself, but wow, what a cesspool!)

The prevailing theory is that films involving life as a minority often go ignored.