Well, A & B are right out.
I am dubious if “C” counts because the primary storyline is the twelve men. Does making them discuss a minority mean they meet qualification for “C” but if it was a white guy (all else being the same) then it doesn’t?
Seems pretty thin to me.
I was in a stage production of 12 Angry Men, and know pretty much every line in it. There’s really nothing that would preclude a minority from playing any but one or two roles.
The ethnicity of the accused is never expressly stated. The movie indicates that he’s a young man, who may be Puerto Rican, but outside of speculation on the part of a juror, it’s not definitively confirmed. There are frequent remarks from one or two jurors about “those people,” but who “those people” are exactly is neither stated nor established. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, but as I recall the stage script, no ethnicity of the accused is ever mentioned.
Regardless, it is important to remember that the jurors are persuadable, which is the point of the show. Many of them are neutral, just going along with the others, until they hear an argument that changes their mind. Only one or two roles must be filled by a white man (otherwise his lines make no sense), but the rest could be filled by anybody. The foreman (Juror No. 1) could be African-American, the elderly gentleman (No. 8) could be a Chinese-American; heck, even No. 2 (the timekeeper) or No. 7 (the Yankees fan) or No. 11 (the watchmaker) could be played by an African-American, a Chinese-American, or a woman without any changes in the script.
Thing is, that if 12 Angry Men were remade today, and wanted to qualify for Oscar contention, it wouldn’t take much for it to qualify.
Good news everyone. Those movies that were made sixty years ago wouldn’t be made now even if these rules were not stipulated. Instead, other movies get made now, whereas those movies were made all the way back then. So it all works out.
Well, that’s Standard 1; couldn’t the movie satisfy two other standards so long as (a) the studio does enough in the way of internships and training programs, and (b) hair and makeup get handled by someone who’s attracted to men?
To be fair it has been 25 years since I have seen that movie.
That said, I thought the movie was a part of its era and wanted it to be 12 white guys.
Do you think it would have been the same movie with three white guys, three white women, two African-American men, an African-American woman, two Hispanic men and an Asian guy?
Nothing else changes but the juror make-up.
It’s not hard to think of topics for movies that would be interesting and mostly only white guys. For instance a movie about the struggles of France or the US when ending their revolutions and trying to make a new government. I might be wrong but I think most of the people in those discussions for a new government were white men. I mentioned “Master and Commander” earlier. How else would you cast that?
To be clear…I am all for the Academy trying to push for more inclusive movies. It is a good goal. This just seems heavy handed.
If there’s historical context to keep a largely white male cast, then fine. If there’s justification (e.g. 1917 might be a recent example) then fair enough. No more Awards, but still get to make the movie. But you could mitigate that behind-the-scenes with POC in the directing, writing, or other production crew to qualify for B level.
But you’re all looking at this the wrong way. This isn’t about existing movies, it’s about new movies. You all have to change the way you think that a default cast should be white males. To get out of that mode takes a strong push.
Awards already required the fulfilment of categorising rules, why not also casting or crew rules?
You are suggesting new movies have to conform to certain metrics. I am not sure that is how art should be made.
If you are a painter would you want someone telling you there are certain parameters your paintings must conform to if you hope to get official recognition? Never mind “old” paintings. Right now…stuff you would paint today.
They already do. All art awards have parameters and guidelines. Scale, materials and media, subject matter, all have to fit guidelines to qualify for awards. I’m not going to win the portrait award with a picture of a waterfall.
Nobody’s telling me what art to make, they’re giving their requirements for their own awards qualification.
The issue here is topic and content of the art. Not format.
For example your photos for a photo award MUST include someone who is a minority.
The issue is fulfilling specified guidelines. If the requirements say “include a minority” then if I want to qualify, I will include a minority. If I want to win the National Geographic Animal Photograph Of The Year Award, I think I’d better include an animal, wouldn’t you say? It would be crazy not to. Which animals? Anyone I want. Doing what? Anything I can manage to capture. How many animals? Hundreds, or just one, up to me. As long as there’s an animal.
I don’t know if you are a creative person, but for most artists, guidelines are inspiration, a framework, that they embrace as part of the challenge towards improving their work.
Do you think they should be in the business of saying a movie must contain X, Y & Z to be considered for an award?
Put another way, is it reasonable to suppose that studios will now tell writers/directors that they need to fill out a checklist before a movie can be made and do you think that is a good thing for the art of making movies?
Yes to all those things. It’s time for change. I welcome it.
But I must point out once more that you can still make any movie you want, this is only about qualification for The Academy Awards.
Since I have been binging movies while in lockdown I have noticed their…whiteness (not kidding…I really have). I think it is a good thing to push for more inclusiveness in TV/movies.
That said, when it comes to the art, I find it objectionable to put constraints on the artist.
It seems they have decided to force restrictions on the art to promote inclusiveness.
I am not sure if that is a good thing. It might be…but then it might not. I do not know yet. Art is important and I have a nagging feeling it needs to be free to do its thing.
If they don’t take steps like this, “force” them if you will, then it will never change. They’ve been asking nicely, and waiting, but it’s not really happening at the rate it should be.
TV is doing it way better than movies. Like most things, TV seems to “get it” these days. And it hasn’t hurt their output one bit. What an amazing variety of work we get now. Not to everyone’s taste, but it’s a much wider selection, so there’s now something for everyone. That’s how it should be.
Where does that stop?
What is the next constraint that is “popular”?
Once you start it is easy to continue.
Art should be unfettered.
The problem here is movies are so expensive to make they are almost always beholden to big studios/moneyed interests and they will not fund artsy projects if they have zero chance at an award which might then make them money.
Art should be open-ended, but it needs direction, it needs structure.
That’s a whole other issue. I think the future of movies (or even the present) is that big budget big screen is reserved for spectacle. Most movies will only get TV budgets and stream from now on.
Who defines that direction and structure though?
You?
Me?
Donald Trump?
Who does it?
Our culture. The world we live in.
But that’s not what you are advocating. You are advocating that the “Academy” decides in this case.