The 93rd Academy Award Nominations: A Road to Inclusion
The 2021 Oscar nominations reflect an industry ready for change, but perhaps not quite willing to let go of its past.
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It took 93 years for an output of Oscar nominations that reflects the diverse range and true nature of the work produced in the cinematic arts. But the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, I will say (although with great cautious optimism), has made it to the beginning of what is hopefully a road of greater inclusion and representation in film recognition.
When the Academy Award nominations for 2021 were announced on March 15, it was a day of many firsts. Steven Yeun became the first Asian-American to be nominated in the Best Actor category for “Minari” and Riz Ahmed became the first Muslim nominee in the same field for his work in “Sound of Metal.” For the first time ever, the Best Actor category is not white-dominated, and, in another first, two female directors - Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) and Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) - are nominated for Best Director. According to the Academy, this year 76 nominations were received by women – a record number of women nominees in any given year in Oscar history, marking yet another milestone.
Alongside the elation about wider female representation in the nominations this year, there was also greater recognition for people of colour. Chloé Zhao became the first woman of colour to be nominated for Best Director, while the Best Supporting Actor category includes more people of colour than ever before, with Leslie Odom Jr., Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield nominated for their work in “One Night in Miami” and “Judas and the Black Messiah”. Although Regina King was robbed of a nomination for her directorial debut with the former, it would seem that this time around, the reason was not race but much rather the Academy’s strict rule of having only five nominees per category, except Best Film.
While it took a pandemic and delaying the award ceremony for the Academy to perhaps truly reflect on its grave lack of representation in the past, it is both heartening and promising to see this year’s nominations showcase the wide variety of people who are responsible for making films that strike a special chord and rightfully deserve recognition in the present era. However, this year cannot be seen as a profound win: it is only a beginning. There are still improvements the Academy must make.
To begin with, yet again, the Academy recognised a film about Hollywood more than any other. And while “Mank” was a beautiful, creative and indeed personal endeavour by David Fincher, with much deserved nods for Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried, it was not the best film to have come out in the past year. The film is a niche that will not be - and was not - enjoyed by the regular non-cinephilic audience or frankly anyone who has not seen “Citizen Kane”. Indeed, it is not for everyone, but the point is that the plethora of nominations for "Mank" are not really merited by the film. If anything, the wide recognition of the film put to display the Academy’s age-old ‘Hollywood’ bias. No one loves a film about Hollywood or its history more than Hollywood itself, and if the Academy is to take the next step toward inclusivity it needs to start considering reducing focus on Hollywood-based dramas.
A solution to this would be to expand the quantity of eligible final nominees in all categories, so that in the future there is not an inundation of “Mank”-like films in all the major categories, despite them not necessarily ticking all the boxes in those specific creative or technical fields. And secondly, when it comes to recognising acting or directing credibility, although, luckily, unlike the Golden Globes, it is not so easy to buy one’s way into receiving an Oscar nomination, greater transparency in the nomination and voting process should be the ideal to aim for. Structural change and greater representation within Academy members who vote in their specified fields is something that should continue to be paid attention to and broadened, so as to reflect the growing film industry and its multiple outlets.
Therefore, ultimately, while the 2021 nominations have seen a great improvement when it comes to inclusivity, we are only at the precipice of a much longer road. What the Academy has shown this year is that it is indeed possible to recognise a variety of work based on both content and colour. So, if nothing else, other Hollywood-based creative institutions and awarding bodies should take this as a learning opportunity for what to strive for in the coming years – until diversity is no longer an aspiration, but the norm, as it should be.
The Oscars are live on April 25 on ABC and available in the UK through Sky Cinema or Now TV.