Al Sharpton and his national organization snapped into action on Thursday amid uproar over the lack of diversity in this year’s Oscar nominations. In an e-mail statement from his National Action Network, Sharpton called this year’s slate of nominations “appalling,” and says he will convene a task force to address the issue.
Critics of the Academy’s selections take issue with the nominees in the acting categories being exclusively white; the nominated directors are all white except for Birdman’s Alejandro González Iñárritu. While Selma, a film about Martin Luther King and the famous civil-rights march, received a Best Motion Picture nod, none of its cast nor its director were picked to be up for the award.
“It’s ironic that they nominated a story about the racial shutout around voting while there is a racial shutout around the Oscar nominations,” Sharpton said in the e-mail. “With all of the talent in Selma and other Black movies this year, it is hard to believe that we have less diversity in the nominations today than in recent history.”
He went on to compare the Academy to the Rocky Mountains: “The higher you get, the whiter it gets.”
As a result, Sharpton called on NAN’s task force on dealing with diversity in the movie industry to hold an “emergency meeting” next week “to discuss possible action around the Academy Awards.” The task force was formed following the Sony e-mail hack last month, which revealed racially charged e-mail from the company’s executives.
The criticism over the lack of diversity in the awards show comes a year after 12 Years a Slave received the top prize as Best Motion Picture, and Lupita Nyong’o’s role in the film earned her Best Supporting Actress.