But whatever it did may simply be a Band-Aid. It may even be placed on the wrong end of the process. The changes expand the Academy membership, and that’s good. But it certainly doesn’t do much to assure more Oscar nominees or Oscar winners.
On Friday, the Academy said it would establish new goals to increase the number of women to 48 percent and people of color to 14 percent by 2020.
That sort of thing always raises a red flag only because it uses number goals. And those of us who follow affirmative action battles in the high court know that numbers can lead to quotas.
And quotas are verboten.
In general though, diversity is great for membership. It just won’t do anything to push producers to greenlight more diverse projects or to hire more people of color in the first place.
It also only assumes there will be more hiring and work for people of color in Hollywood. That’s a big assumption.
