Apparently these rules apply only to films that want to be considering for the Best Picture award, so your examples may be irrelevant.
Sorry, I don’t see how any of it would be irrelevant. Ultimately, every picture wants to be considered for Best Picture.
Most foreign films are content to be considered for Best International Feature.
That’s not at all what the requirements are though…
You are aware that Parasite won Best Picture last year? Not mention the abundance of UK/Australia/New Zealand (non-US) pictures that have been nominated or won in the past.
I am aware of that. I’m also aware that it was the first non-English language film to win the award, and only one of a very few foreign productions to do so (along with The Artist).
WTF?! was my initial reaction.
Outside of virtue signaling I don’t understand the point. If a raunchy comedy about white straight men on a quest to ‘score’ could achieve best picture levels of greatness it should be considered. Asinine.
So does that mean films with a very limited cast like My Dinner with Andre and Sleuth would not be able to be nominated?
So, my question stands - how do we reconcile these rules with non-US based productions?
Why shouldn’t non-US based productions be expected to meet the same requirements for inclusion, if they want to be considered for a US-based award?
Sounds like you have a great opportunity for a free market solution, start your own awards show that rejects all of these things.
Foreign films might still be eligible because their cast and crew would be considered minorities in the US.
I think it would have been better if they had stated these conditions as making a film more likely for consideration rather than mandatory requirements. So a film which has a more diverse story and cast would be more likely to be included as a nominees, but any film regardless still has the potential. I think it’s going to be weird to expect the cast and crew state potentially private things like their gender and sexual orientation so the film can be considered as a best picture. As a side effect, I would expect people who aren’t willing to go public would be less likely to be hired to work on such films.
I had another thought. Perhaps this is just the Oscars making public the new judging criteria they have been using in recent years. If so I have a bit more respect for them even though I disagree.
I think that these are ridiculous requirements for a film to be considered “best picture.” If part of the definition of a piece of art being “best in show” is that the people who worked on that art represent a particular demographic, then it seems to alter what “best” means.
That said, I’m sure the existing process is far from an objective analysis of quality (is there such a thing in art anyway?), so I don’t know that these new rules actually affect the objectivity in a meaningful way. It just tilts the subjectivity in a different direction.
And, it seems to me that altering the criteria for these awards is a great way to encourage companies to evaluate and change their processes and products without relying on some sort of mandate or regulation. If representation and access is a major problem in the industry (and it is), this is a great tool to encourage change.
Ridiculous. Another reason for my continued disinterest in the Academy Awards.
I’m sure the majority of films are made with no intention of being considered for Best Picture.
Roughly 700-800 movies are released in North America each year. So roughly 1% of all releases are nominated for Best Picture.
Let’s also keep this in perspective, artists and scientists weren’t under-represented at the Oscars because of the studios. As a matter of fact it was the rank and file in Hollywood, including many of your favorite actors who control the Academy.
OK, so you offer training opportunities to said people, to help them get up to speed. Presto, you’re now meeting Standard 3, and are already halfway to qualifying. Now pick some other piece of low-hanging fruit, like giving almost a third of your minor roles to women (who after all, make up half the population, in any given country), and you’re golden.
That sure sounds to me like a primary storyline that centres on women. There’s Standard 1. I’m not going to search up all 14 of the “major creative positions” on that movie, but were 13 of them really abled straight white men?
Really, these criteria are such a phenomenally low bar that it’s amazing that there are any significant movies that don’t already pass.
The nominations for Best Picture should be for whichever film was the best picture, for the couple of hours it runs. That should be the only criteria, nothing about “how it was made” should count.
You should call the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and let them know about that.