LOS ANGELES — The Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences isn’t as much of an old-boys’ club as it used to be.
The group named two women to
prominent positions this week, including Friday’s announcement thatEllen
DeGeneres will host the 2014 Oscar show. Earlier in the week, the
academy’s board of governors elected Cheryl Boone Isaacs president, the first
African-American to hold the post and the first woman in three decades.
In June, the organization invited 276
new members to join — 100 more than the previous year and arguably its most
diverse slate ever.
Could this be in response to the 2012 Los
Angeles Times study that stung the academy by pointing
out what many suspected: Hollywood’s pre-eminent film organization is a mostly
white, male group?
“This is all in the shadow of Dawn
Hudson’s appointment as C.O.O. last year,” said awards expert Tom O’Neil. “The
academy is making an extraordinary effort to embrace women and minorities, and
be (more) inclusive.”
Other industry watchers say these
visible appointments are part of the academy’s continuing effort to shed its
old-boy image — one that may have been reinforced last year by Seth
MacFarlane’s sexist humor and the departure of short-lived Oscar producer Brett
Ratner after publicly making homophobic remarks.
“If you wanted to pick somebody that
would tacitly or implicitly be an absolute rejection of the bad behavior of the
last couple years, what could be a better way to distance yourself from that
than to pick the most famous and popular lesbian entertainer in the world?”
said Scott Feinberg, an industry analyst for The Hollywood Reporter.
Such prominent academy appointments
for Hudson, DeGeneres and Boone Isaacs send a message to women interested in
making movies.
“This is the kind of leadership and
these are the kinds of examples that stand out for those women who will
follow,” said Cathy Schulman, president of Women in Film. “This is what gives
people hope and encouragement.”
DeGeneres is also a proven commodity.
She successfully hosted the Oscars in 2007, drawing almost as many viewers as
MacFarlane did last year.
“The academy doesn’t want to take any
chances with the performance skills of the host,” O’Neil said. “This is a good,
smart choice that will put the focus back on the content of the show, rather
than will the host crash and burn.”
Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, who
produced the 2013 telecast, are returning for next year’s show. O’Neil notes
that the veteran producers are also openly gay and vocal supporters of gay
rights.
DeGeneres, 55, has developed a
devoted following with her 10-year-old daytime talk show, which can serve as a
built-in platform to promote the Academy Awards.
Boone Isaacs, the academy’s new
president, is a veteran marketing executive and longtime academy member and
governor.
“She’s a very worthy candidate
regardless of what she looks like,” Feinberg said. “But the fact that she is a
relatively younger African-American woman and that’s the face of the academy,
that’s a significant symbolic thing.”
For real change, these appointments
can’t just be exceptions, Schulman said, but “exceptions converted into the
norm.”
“Change happens when the numbers
increase,” she said. “Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it was long overdue
that the academy made some appointments like this.”
Among the diverse new members invited
to join the academy are Prince, Jennifer Lopez, writer-director Ava DuVernay,
Sandra Oh, Paula Patton and songwriter Siedah Garrett.
DeGeneres, Boone Isaacs and the Oscar
producers were not available to comment on this story.
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