Diversity protest at Oscars cancelled at Ava DuVernay's request

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/22/diversity-protest-oscars-academy-award-ava-duvernay

Version 0 of 1.

A protest over a lack of diversity in the Academy Awards has been called off at the last minute before the ceremony on Sunday, at the request of Selma director Ava DuVernay.

The LA chapter of the National Action Network (NAN), a civil rights group founded by Al Sharpton, had planned to stage a rally near the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles, protesting against a lack of diversity among Academy Award voters, who are predominantly white and male.

At their Harlem headquarters on Saturday morning, Sharpton told NAN members that the protest was not about snubs of the film Selma, which depicts Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement, but about how “the selection, the process, the Academy … itself shows a lack of diversity.”

“There is no black [person] in Hollywood that can greenlight a movie,” Sharpton said.

But the LA chapter called off the protest“due to the request of Ava DuVernay, who is helping set up a meeting” with leaders of the Academy, NAN spokesperson Jacky Johnson told the Guardian. Johnson said that the protest was a local initiative and not planned by Sharpton or the national organization.

Najee Ali, political director of the chapter, sent the Electronic Urban Report a statement explaining the decision.

“Upon the request of Selma director Ava DuVernay, the Los Angeles chapter of the National Action Network has agreed to forgo our planned protests of the Oscars today and pursue instead a direct dialogue with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences via Cheryl Boone Isaacs and Dawn Hudson,” he wrote, referring to the Academy’s president and CEO respectively.

Ali said that NAN members “salute all the artists being celebrated today”, they will continue to demand “an examination of the sidelining and underrepresentation of artists of color and women artists.”

“Art can change the world and the world is more diverse than this year’s honorees. Addressing that disconnect is vital and necessary and will be done,” he wrote.

This year’s Oscars have been especially criticized for a dearth of diversity among both the Academy’s members and its chosen nominees. DuVernay was not nominated for best directing despite critical acclaim for her film; neither was actor David Oyelowo for his role as King. In the past 17 years only twice have the acting categories included no black or minority actors: in 2011 and 1998.

Although the Academy does not release demographic information about its members, estimates by the Los Angeles Times and Darnell Hunt, the director of African American studies at UCLA, suggest the Academy is about 93% white, 70% male and on average older than 60. The Academy includes more than 6,000 people, each of whom is a member for life.