Hollywood Reacts to Oscars Adding Diversity Quota to Best Picture

There was a bit of shocking news from Hollywood this week regarding the qualifications for winning one of Tinsel Town’s top prizes, and not everyone seems to be excited about it.

The new rules, which won’t go into effect for several years still, appear to be a response to online criticism of the Oscars from several years ago, leading some to believe that this ham-handed adjustment was just a part of some marketing scheme to help the antiquated Hollywood ceremonial appeal to the “woke” demographic.

Hollywood legend Kirstie Alley was incensed at the idea.

Ahead of the fifth anniversary of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the Academy said it is limiting Best Picture award nominees — beginning with 2024’s slate of entries — to those that can meet requirements that “encourage equitable representation on and off screen” by ensuring more people of color fill positions on a film set from the starring role to interns and everything in between, according to a press release published online.

Alley quickly took to Twitter to air her frustrations with the new standards, writing, “This is a disgrace to artists everywhere.”

Her tweet continued: “Can you imagine telling Picasso what had to be in his f–king paintings. You people have lost your minds. Control artists, control individual thought .. OSCAR ORWELL.”

The timing of the change, set against the fact that the original complaint is now 5 years old, is suspect to say the least.  The current backdrop of racial tension in the United States seems to be a far more likely catalyst, especially a young Americans and the new brand of Hollywood stars eschew the frumpy, archaic awards ceremony en masse.