- Thank you to the Academy for this honor.
- I want to thank the Academy for this incredible honor.
- I'm so honored, and I thank the Academy.
- Thank you very much to the Academy.
- The Academy. - The Academy.
- Thank you so much to the Academy.
- Thank you to the Academy. - Thank you.
Thank you to the Academy, first of all.
This is really [bleep] sick.
- What's winning an Emmy, Oscar, or Grammy
without a nod to the Academy?
You've heard the ambiguous shorthand before,
but who are they?
These voting bodies have come under scrutiny in recent years,
mainly for some non-transparent practices and lack of diversity.
It's important to know that these groups vary
in size and structure.
There's the Television Academy, which votes on the Emmy awards.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
takes the Oscars, which we'll come back to later.
But first, let's explore the voting body
behind music's biggest award,
the Recording Academy and the Grammys.
In 2021, The Weeknd boycotted the Grammys after being snubbed
following a Super Bowl halftime performance
and the release of his fourth studio album,
"After Hours," which included multiple number-one hits.
One reason for his boycott --
the latest in a long line of artists
calling out the biases largely against women and black artists.
- When the Grammy nominations didn't turn out the way
that he expected, the way that a lot of people
watching this type of stuff expected,
he actually made a point of calling out
these secret committees kind of saying the system is rigged.
- Turns out these indiscrete, anonymous,
and secret expert committees played a pivotal role
in the Grammys selection process.
- The controversy with the Grammy voting
often comes from kind of the middle round
when all the eligible music goes through these secret committees.
Basically, they're just groups of experts.
Whether it's artists, labels, publicist people,
have been accused of kind of playing to their own interests.
Nobody really knows who they are
or what it is that they're considering.
- Then Recording Academy CEO Deborah Dugan
alleged gender discrimination, sexual harassment,
and unequal pay at the organization.
She largely brought the secret voting committees
and alleged widespread voter corruption to light.
She was placed on administrative leave and eventually fired.
- There's just been a lot of scrutiny
on these kind of institutions.
- In April 2021, the Recording Academy
announced the dissolution of the secret committees.
- Every year, they're adding more people to the Academy,
slowly improving diversity of that voting body.
I think the goal here is to see that kind of snowball
into something bigger.
- The Oscars, on the other hand,
have more than 9,000 members in its Academy,
and like other award shows, have been called out
for its lack of diversity among that membership.
In 2015, the hashtag
#OscarsSoWhite became popular after the Oscars awarded all 20
acting nominations to white actors.
- Welcome to the 87th Oscars.
Tonight we honor Hollywood's best and whitest --
sorry, brightest.
- The same thing happened the following year.
- It's the 88th Academy Awards,
which means this whole no black nominees thing
has happened at least 71 other times.
- The most obvious incitement to that was the movie "Selma,"
because it was nominated for Best Picture,
but Ava DuVernay was not nominated for Best Director,
nor was David Oyelowo nominated for his
really masterful portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr.
- When will we be free? Soon, and very soon.
- It was started by the media strategist April Reign,
who just had this really reflexive reaction to that.
- I saw that there was an issue, and I presented it,
and then it became this moment turned into a movement,
and I had to decide whether I wanted to be committed to it.
But it truly is now my life's work.
- To understand this in that context takes away
from her deeper meaning,
which is let's look at how movies are made,
why they're made, who gets to make them.
You know, what stories are elevated
into being Oscar movies?
What narratives typically and traditionally have earned
that respect, and then who's behind them?
Who are they about, and who's in them?
I think that's the brilliance of her strategy,
was to get us to talk a lot about that.
- We haven't yet mentioned the Golden Globes,
a night dedicated to recognizing excellence in TV and film,
or, as Ricky Gervais once put it --
-For any of you who don't know,
the Golden Globes are just like the Oscars,
but without all that esteem.
- The Golden Globes officially kick off award show season
and are usually a good indicator of how certain actors, shows,
and movies will perform at award shows the rest of the year.
The Golden Globes have an entirely different voting body
called the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, or HFPA.
It's made up of California-based entertainment journalists
from outlets all over the world.
It has about 90 voting members.
The group's size came into the spotlight
right before the 2021 award show.
The LA Times published a breakdown
on the HFPA's membership,
revealing the group had no black members.
- The HFPA is the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,
and when left untreated,
it can -- -No. - Oh.
- She's kidding.
There is, uh, no known cure for the Hollywood Foreign Press.
- The HFPA's ultimately moving in a direction
similar to the Academy.
After 2016, the Academy said it would double
the number of women and minority members by 2020.
- Our audiences are global and rich in diversity,
and every facet of our industry should be, as well.
- And it did. - The argument for diversity
and equity and inclusion,
I think it gets misunderstood as box checking.
Movies with more diverse casts do better commercially.
Movies with more pluralistic points of view
and more creative points of view,
movies that don't exclude people just from reflexive sexism
or racism or blind spots, they're better.
- I am making a vow, and it's going to be tough,
to make sure that everything
that I produce that is 50% women.
- This industry is acknowledging the world that it's in.
It's reflecting its audience more precisely and accurately,
and it's more likely, then,
to be telling stories that are universal.
- I feel like a very opportune moment in history
is happening right now.