Oscars chief John Bailey gratified that Hollywood’s worst abuses being ‘jack-hammered into oblivion’

The president of the group that hands out the annual Oscars declared on Monday that some of the worst abuses in the movie industry were finally being “jack-hammered into oblivion.”

John Bailey, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, told more than 200 Oscar nominees that the Academy was working hard toward a greater diversity.

The Oscars, the highest honours in the movie business, have been criticized in recent years for excluding people of colour from nominations. In response to the #OscarsSoWhite social media campaign, it has broadened its white, old and male-dominated membership to invite more women and people of colour into its 8,000-strong ranks.

Addressing the class of 2018 nominees at an annual luncheon, Bailey said the 90-year-old Academy was reinventing itself with programs committed to inclusion and diversity “in today’s era of a greater awareness and responsibility in balancing gender, race, ethnicity and religion.’

As a 75-year old white man, Bailey said he was gratified that “the fossilized bedrock of many of Hollywood’s worst abuses are being jack-hammered into oblivion.”

Nominees for this year’s Oscars, to be handed out in March, include female director Greta Gerwig and African-American director Jordan Peele, Rachel Morrison as the first Oscar-nominated female cinematographer, …read more