February 21, 2012

Academy Awards decided by old white guys

Los Angeles Times - About 37 million people tuned in to the Academy Awards last year, and a great deal rides on the show's outcome. Winning a golden statuette can vault an actor to stardom, add millions to a movie's box office and boost a studio's prestige. Yet the roster of all 5,765 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a closely guarded secret.

Even inside the movie industry, intense speculation surrounds the academy's composition and how that influences who gets nominated for and wins Oscars. The organization does not publish a membership list.

A Los Angeles Times study found that academy voters are markedly less diverse than the movie going public, and even more monolithic than many in the film industry may suspect. Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male, The Times found. Blacks are about 2% of the academy, and Latinos are less than 2%.

Oscar voters have a median age of 62, the study showed. People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership.

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