It’s been established that audiences want more diversity in their movies. Despite some of the initiatives geared toward correcting the lack of diversity in Hollywood, both in front of and behind the camera, it still remains a problem. This is especially clear in the makeup of the Motion Picture Academy, the voting body that hands out Oscars every year; as of 2012, it was 94 percent Caucasian and 77 percent male, which is not exactly the cast of the Fast And The Furious films. But it sounds like the current bosses are making a push to get at least a slightly larger percentage of non-white-male folks into its membership.
Below is a chart, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, showing the demographic breakdown of the record 322 new Academy members by age, gender, and race. (It’s only split between “white” and “non-white,” but baby steps.) The biggest shift is in the number of non-white members, in part a result of the increasingly international scope of the membership; recent invitees include South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer) and Argentine writer-director Damian Szifron (Wild Tales). Unfortunately, the totals suggest that, when it comes to gender, there’s still some work to do; overall, it’s one percent fewer women than the current total makeup of the Academy. One thing isn’t changing, however—it’ll still cost you millions of dollars to win an Oscar.
