Oscar's Little Problems

"The University of Southern California released a study Thursday about the preferences of the academy and found that in almost in any given year of best picture nominations, the roles in the nominated films for people who are not white and male are few and far between.

After looking at 30 years of such nominations, the study said, “The data show there are almost three speaking males for every one female and more than four white speaking characters for every one nonwhite character.”

“Unfortunately, females are grossly underrepresented in these prestigious films,” said Stacy Smith, a communications professor at U.S.C. Annenberg and the study’s principal researcher. “The gender-imbalance findings are a microcosm of a much bigger representational phenomenon in American film and television.”

That imbalance will be on remarkable display Sunday night, when only one of the 20 nominated actors, Ruby Dee, is black. At a time when it’s actors like Will Smith and Denzel Washington who are actually bringing people into the multiplex, it seems as if Oscar has a chronic problem with color preference."

Oscars The NY Times, Carpetbagger