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Editorial: Oscar nominations were definitely not so white this year

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The Oscar nominations that were announced Tuesday morning went to a dramatically more diverse group of people than in the last couple of years, when all but one or two of the top nominees — in the acting, directing and writing categories — were white. Nonwhite actors garnered more than a third of the nominations in their field, including at least one in all four acting categories. Barry Jenkins was nominated for his work as director of the acclaimed film “Moonlight.” Three of the five films nominated for best feature documentary were helmed by black directors. Two black writers were nominated for best adapted screenplay. And four of the nine best picture nominations went to films with story lines that revolve around nonwhite actors.

This blossoming of diversity follows a two-year long uproar, symbolized by the hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite, over the lack of minorities and women in the venerable Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, whose members nominate and pick the recipients of the Academy Awards. Last summer the group invited into its ranks more than 600 new voters, a good portion of them women and minorities. (Women still make up only 27% of the academy and minorities only 11%.) The new members may have helped broaden the nominations, but a more likely explanation is that the controversy raised academy members’ consciousness on this issue, leading them to give more serious consideration to films with nonwhite casts.

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But there is also no denying that 2016 saw a crop of extraordinarily good films that happened to take up stories of success, failure and coming of age intertwined with issues of race and background. There was simply no overlooking many of those films.

The fact that so many African American films got made by the industry — and not just popcorn fare, but also Oscar-worthy films — is the most remarkable and hopeful sign of the Oscar nominations. As actress Viola Davis (who is nominated this year for her work in “Fences”) said when she won an Emmy for her television work in 2015: “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”

This should be a trend, not an aberration. The movie-going audience is about 40% nonwhite, and surveys show that minorities, like everyone, like to see themselves reflected onscreen. Still, the industry and the academy have far to go. Latinos and Asians and Native Americans continue to be woefully under-represented in Oscar nominations and movies in general. To truly reflect the world around it, the industry needs to widen its notion of what “people of color” means.

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