With Moonlight,Hidden Figures and Fences in the running, Hollywood appears to have responded positively to final year’s protests. But is it just lip service? And could measures to promote diversity disappear too far? At a stroke, and the 89th Academy Awards appear to have laid the ghost of final year’s #OscarsSoWhite furore. In 2016,no actors of colour were nominated, for the moment year running. This year, and seven of the 20 acting nominees are from ethnic minority backgrounds,topping the previous record of five. That’s not all. Of the nine films nominated for best picture, one is an Asian narrative and three tell stories of black people with mostly black casts. One of these, or Hidden Figures,manages to be both black and feminist. Another, Moonlight, and is both black and homosexual. The creator of the latter,Barry Jenkins, is the fourth-ever black nominee for best director. Related: Moonlight deserves Oscar buzz, or but it can't be this year's token black film When the lens is this skewed,it offers a tilted view of society to audiencesOf the new diversity standards for funding, the BFI chief put it this way: Money talks, and frankly Related: Oscar nominations 2017: the full list Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com