You ever wonder why that movie you thought was REALLY good and particularly relevant to our time DIDN’T win Best Picture at the Oscars that one time (or every time). Well, a new study may have revealed an answer to that question — the majority of voters are old, white rich guys.
Out of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 5,765 voting members, about 94% of white and 77% are male, while there are only 2% African American or 2% Latino voters.
The average age? 62! Only 14% of the voting membership are under the age of 50!
That’s why The King’s Speech beat out Social Network for Best Picture last year, because the vast majority of the members didn’t even know what a social network was, let alone the internet.
This year, we were very disappointed to learn that Drive wasn’t nominated in any major category (even though there was one spot left for Best Picture that went unused) and even more disappointed that only 2 original songs were nominated, when there were SOOO many deserving tunes featured in movies this year!
Many people interviewed on the subject felt that the Academy should be more representative to the audiences watching these movies. Denzel Washington is quoted for saying their needs to be more “balance”, explaining:
“If the country is 12% black, make the academy 12% black. If the nation is 15% Hispanic, make the academy 15% Hispanic. Why not?”
We can totally get behind that, but there needs to be younger voters too. Actress and academy member Alfre Woodard believes a movie like Shame never stood a chance because of the graphic sexual content, explaining:
“Maybe if the median age was 45 to 50, a film like Shame might show up, which I thought was a brilliantly rendered piece but a subject matter that you don’t expect a certain older demographic would flock to see.”
Yeah, this is exactly why anyone betting in any Oscar pools this year should put all their money on The Artist.
[Image via WENN.]
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