Academy Makes Bold Move to Diversify Membership, adds 683

The Academy announces its new class of membership which raises the number of women and people of color significantly. This was brought about by last year’s public relations nightmare as the Academy was hit hard with charges of racism when no black actors were nominated for the second consecutive year. It was made much worse when a handful of important and successful films by African Americans were nearly shut out of the major nominations. It turned into such a big deal that many chose to boycott the awards telecast, a debacle the Academy doesn’t want repeated.

The most significant difference made by today’s membership increase is in the directing branch where women young and old and of color have been added to what has been primarily a white male branch. That there are so many more women might help make the difference whenever the next Ava DuVernay or Kathryn Bigelow is considered for top honors. We’ll have to wait and see on that. All in all, this is great news. The Academy itself is an evolving, vibrant institution involved in film preservation. The only thing that has really held it back all of these years is a built-in imbalance in its own membership. Many of those Academy members deserved to be there because they worked long and hard in their careers to get there. Some will say that a few of the new invitees have simply not paid their dues to land in the Academy so soon. But changing times calls for changing methods and perhaps this refresh might help bring the membership, and thus, the Oscars, up to date.

You can check out the list of actors:
Mahershala Ali
Anthony Anderson
Adam Beach
Kate Beckinsale
Chadwick Boseman
John Boyega
Betty Buckley
Rose Byrne
Julie Carmen
Enrique Castillo
Morris Chestnut
Cliff Curtis
Loretta Devine
Carmen Ejogo
Idris Elba
America Ferrera
Vivica A. Fox
Andrew Garfield
Greta Gerwig
Jesse D. Goins
Bruce Greenwood
Carla Gugino
Luis Guzmán
Dennis Haysbert
Tom Hiddleston
James Hong
Oscar Isaac
O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson *
Dakota Johnson
Cherry Jones
Michael B. Jordan
Daniel Dae Kim
Regina King
Brie Larson
Byung-Hun Lee
Nia Long
Sal Lopez
Ignacio López Tarso
Patti LuPone
Peter Mackenzie
Rachel McAdams
Eva Mendes
Tatsuya Nakadai
Adepero Oduye
Marisa Paredes
Nate Parker
Harold Perrineau
Jorge Perugorría
Silvia Pinal
Freida Pinto
Michelle Rodriguez
Anika Noni Rose
Cecilia Roth
Mark Rylance
Pepe Serna
Martin Starr
Elizabeth Sung
Sharmila Tagore
Tessa Thompson
Lorraine Toussaint
Glynn Turman
Gabrielle Union
Jacob Vargas
Alicia Vikander
Emma Watson
Damon Wayans, Jr
Marlon Wayans
Rita Wilson
Daphne Zuniga

The directors are still the power seat, however, and I was curious to see those additions – Xavier Dolan in the house! Ken Loach in the house! Lexi Alexander in the house!

Lenny Abrahamson
Naji Abu Nowar
Maren Ade
Lexi Alexander
Haifaa al-Mansour
Ana Lily Amirpour
Amma Asante
Katie Aselton
Ramin Bahrani
Anna Boden
Catherine Breillat
Israel Cárdenas
Carlos Carrera
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Souleymane Cissé
Isabel Coixet
Ryan Coogler *
Scott Cooper
John Crowley
Julie Dash
Tamra Davis
Jonathan Dayton
Dominique Deruddere
Xavier Dolan
Cheryl Dunye
Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Valerie Faris
Shana Feste
Hannah Fidell
Anne Fletcher
Ari Folman
Anne Fontaine
Cary Joji Fukunaga
Nicole Garcia
Juan Antonio Garcia Bayona
Sarah Gavron
Lesli Linka Glatter
Ciro Guerra *
Laura Amelia Guzmán
Sanaa Hamri
Mia Hansen-Løve *
Mahamet Saleh Haroun
Mary Harron
Marielle Heller *
Albert Hughes
Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Patty Jenkins
Naomi Kawase *
Abdellatif Kechiche
Abbas Kiarostami
So Yong Kim
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Karyn Kusama
Francis H. Lawrence
Tobias Lindholm *
Phyllida Lloyd
Ken Loach
Julia Loktev
Ami Canaan Mann
Lucrecia Martel
Adam McKay *
Deepa Mehta
Ursula Meier
Rebecca Miller *
Karen Moncrieff
Cristian Mungui *
Anna Muylaert
László Nemes *
Maria Novaro
Victor Nunez
Euzhan Palcy
Park Chan-wook *
Lucía Puenzo
Lynne Ramsay
Dee Rees
Nicolas Winding Refn
Patricia Riggen
Gillian Robespierre
Patricia Rozema
Marjane Satrapi
Sam Taylor-Johnson
George Tillman, Jr
Luis Valdez
Melvin Van Peebles
Margarethe von Trotta
Lana Wachowski
Lilly Wachowski
Taika Waititi
James Wan
Keenan Ivory Wayans *
Apichatpong Weerasethakul