And the Academy membership goes to… more of your faves! Zendaya, Beanie Feldstein, Kelvin Harrison, Jr., and Yalitza Aparicio are among the actors to receive invitations to join the voting member bloc of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization announced on Tuesday.
The group is tasked every year with voting for the films and performances to earn Oscars. As Entertainment Tonight notes, the class of 2020 includes over 800 invitees from across the film industry, 36% of whom are people of color, and 45% of whom are women. Awkwafina, Zazie Beetz, Ana de Armas, Kaitlyn Dever, Florence Pugh, Lakeith Stanfield, John David Washington, and Constance Wu all earned invites, as did Parasite stars Choi Woo-Shik, Jang Hye-Jin, Jo Yeo-Jeong, Lee Jung-Eun, and Park So-dam. Directors Stella Meghie, Lulu Wang, and Olivia Wilde all earned invites, Vanity Fair reports, as did writer Han Jin Won, who co-wrote Parasite with Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho.
The Academy had previously been taken to task for its majority white, majority male voting body. In 2015, April Reign created the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag to draw attention to the lack of diversity at the Academy, both in its membership and in the films honored each year at the Oscars. As a result of widespread demands for change, the Academy committed to diversifying its member body and providing appropriate resources to support those efforts.
In a statement, Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said the organization takes "great pride in the strides we have made in exceeding our initial inclusion goals set back in 2016, but acknowledge the road ahead is a long one. We are committed to staying the course… We look forward to continuing to foster an Academy that reflects the world around us in our membership, our programs, our new Museum, and in our awards."
There’s still more work to be done, however, and the Academy shouldn’t be off the hook yet. In 2019, Reign reinforced the need for #OscarsSoWhite in an interview with Variety. “Until we see everyone having the opportunity, whether it's race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, Indigenous peoples in this country, until we all have an opportunity to see ourselves represented on screen, not just during awards season but all year long, I'll still continue to talk about #OscarsSoWhite,” she said.
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