George Clooney, one of the most visible and well-known faces in Hollywood, has chimed in on the Oscars’ diversity problem. He suggested that things were better a decade ago, but the issue should really be about how many opportunities minority actors have in Hollywood’s Oscar-bait.
“If you think back 10 years ago, the Academy was doing a better job,” Clooney wrote in a column for Variety. “Think about how many more African Americans were nominated. I would also make the argument, I don’t think it’s a problem of who you’re picking as much as it is: How many options are available to minorities in film, particularly in quality films?”
Clooney noted that the industry has made strides to include women, although it is still difficult for an actress over 40 to find good roles. Clooney wrote that Hollywood should have also been paying attention to African Americans, who “have a real fair point that the industry isn’t representing them well enough.”
The Money Monster actor pointed out that actors like Don Cheadle and Morgan Freeman had been nominated in the past and now “you feel like we’re moving in the wrong direction.” He pointed out that Creed, Concussion and Beasts of No Nation could have all received nominations and he is still not happy that director Ava DuVernay wasn’t nominated for Selma last year.
“But honestly, there should be more opportunity than that. There should be 20 or 30 or 40 films of the quality that people would consider for the Oscars,” Clooney said. “By the way, we’re talking about African Americans. For Hispanics, it’s even worse. We need to get better at this. We used to be better at it.”
Clooney’s column came just after Academy President Cheryl Boone-Isaacs said she was frustrated by the lack of diversity of this year’s nominees. David Oyelowo, Spike Lee, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Don Cheadle have all criticized the lack of black nominees this year. It’s the second consecutive year that all 20 acting nominees are white.