While this week’s Golden Globes were initially praised for their diversity in nominees, the BAFTAs has been slammed for missing the mark with their nominations, which were announced yesterday.
Out of the 18 people nominated across BAFTAs four leading and supporting actor categories, not a single person of colour is up for an award.
The leading actor nominees include Leonardo Di Caprio for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Adam Driver for Marriage Story, Taron Egerton for Rocketman, Joaquin Phoenix for Joker and Jonathan Pryce for The Two Popes.
As for leading actress, the nominees are Jessie Buckley for Wild Rose, Scarlett Johansson for Marriage Story, Saoirse Ronan for Little Woman, Charlize Theron for Bombshell and Renee Zellweger for Judy.
It was a similar story for the supporting actress category, and whilst we’ve been celebrating our very own Margot Robbie receiving two nominations for her roles in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and Bombshell, the lack of diversity is still rather staggering.
Since the nominations were announced, the BAFTAs have copped major backlash on social media with the hashtag #BAFTAsSoWhite and both the chairman and CEO of the awards has acknowledged the problem.
“Clearly everybody knows that everybody in the four acting groups of nominees are white, it’s infuriating, we can’t make the industry do something, all we can do is encourage and push and inspire and try to help people coming in at the bottom end,” Marc Samuelson, chairman of BAFTA’s film committee told PA Media news agency.
Speaking to Radio 4, BAFTAs CEO Amanda Berry said, “if I’m being totally honest, no, I’m very disappointed…I’m going to totally agree with you because that’s how I felt when I first saw the list and this isn’t being disrespectful to anyone who has been nominated because it’s an incredibly strong list this year.”
“If you look at the director category this year in which I hoped we would see at least one female director, that is an incredibly strong list. When I’m looking at the performance categories and the lack of diversity, I think you positioned it very well.”
While Berry acknowledged that BAFTAs “has a role to play,” she also said that the awards “can’t tell the industry which films to greenlight and who to hire.”
“Talent is everywhere but opportunity is not,” she said. “We need to up our efforts and keep the pressure on the industry to create these opportunities.”
While it’s up to the awards to shine a light on a diverse range of talent, it’s equally-as-important for the film industry to cast a diverse range of talent in the first place. However, as many have pointed out – there were plenty of diverse cast members for the BAFTAs to choose from in 2019.
We’ve come so far in recent years but quite clearly there is still a long way to go in terms of equality and representation in Hollywood. Keeping the conversation going is the first step – now it’s time to stop shifting blame and make some real, lasting changes.