Oscar nominations are out but are Academy Awards in 2022 inclusive?
When it comes to inclusivity, film and music award events haven't always had the best track record. More than once have celebrities been 'snubbed' for award nominations that, most would argue, they rightly deserved.
However, 2022 seems to be a year of change as the Brit Awards awarded artists in gender-less categories, while this year's Oscar nominations include People of Colour and people who identify as LGBTQA+.
The Oscar 2022 nominations managed to upstage the nominations of 2021 in some categories but also failed in other categories. For the first time in Oscar history, two openly queer women have been nominated.
Kristen Stewart has been nominated for Best Actress for her potrayal of Princess Diana in Spencer, and West Side Story's Ariana DeBose has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The queer refugee-based documentary, Flee, has also received 3 nominations.
But Oscars 2022 failed to nominate more Black people. Only 4 have been nominated: Will Smith and Denzel Washington for Best Actor, and Ariana DeBose and Aunjanue Ellis for Best Supporting Actress. This is a letdown for the community, given that 9 actors were nominated at Oscars 2021.
As far as Asian representation goes, the Oscars fell quite short this year.
Indian films Jai Bhim and Marakkar: Arabikadalinte Simham did not make the cut. But India's documentary film submission, Writing With Fire, on the rise of Khabar Lahariya, India's only newspaper run by Dalit women, has been nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category. Writing With Fire is directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh.
Drive My Car is the only Asian movie to be nominated for Best Picture this year.
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Disney's Encanto, a Latino-based story and Raya and The Last Dragon, a film on a South Asian princess, have been nominated in the Animated Feature Fim category.
If there is one category that the Oscars committee has received massive backlash for, it is the Best Directors category (remember Natalie Portman's Dior cape on the 2020 Oscars red carpet?).
This year, it's hard to tell whether Jane Campion's nomination for The Power Of The Dog should be celebrated or not.
In 2021, both Emerald Fennell and Chloé Zhao scored nominations in this category. But in 2022, only Jane has been nominated. Jane is now the first woman to earn multiple directing nominations, after her 1994 nomination for The Piano.
Based on the 2022 nominations, it seems like the Oscars are still trying to play catch-up. The world is making huge strides in terms of representation as well as equality. The question here is: how long are the Oscars going to keep playing catch-up?
At least it doesn't seem like their British counterparts are facing this issue, given that the Brit Awards announced in November 2021 that they were revamping their categories into gender-less categories, the first awards to do so. Held on February 8, award wins at the event were also dominated by women.
Instead of Best Male and Female Solo Artist and Best International Male and Female Solo Artist; this year, artists were nominated in the Artist of the Year and International Artist of the Year categories.
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The Brits committee had been facing pressure for a long time to be more inclusive. The Brits, at the time, said that its effort to be more inclusive was "solely for their (artist's) music and work, rather than how they choose to identify or as others may see them, as part of The Brits' commitment to evolving the show to be as inclusive and as relevant as possible".
At the event, Adele also dominated the big 4 categories and took home the award for Artist of the Year, Album of the Year and British Song of the Year. Accepting her award for Artist of the Year, Adele said, "I understand why they changed the name of this award [from Best Female/Male artist], but I really love being a woman, I really love being a female artist."
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10 out of 15 prizes were won by women this year, with Dua Lipa winning Best Pop/R&B Act. This year, the Brit Awards easily set a benchmark for other award shows to follow.
Will The Academy course-correct here on?