Academy's New Voting Rules Raise Questions, Concerns and Anger Among Members

Art imitating life...another example of reverse racism to me.  The solution these days to remedy any wrong is to punish someone else or to implement a new strategy that doesn't actually address the problem.  Now even uber liberal Hollywood appears to be eating its own to remedy the fact that most of the members don't vote for minorities in their award selection.  Do black people feel better that they are pretending to stack the deck in their favor?  How about an award for best black actor, would that make anyone feel like they had earned great achievement?  Sounds like this is a cultural problem that starts at casting, producing, and the very film industry as a whole.  I be like, why didn't Will Smith get a nod?

Tab Hunter, 84, a member of the actors branch, concurred, calling the announcement "bullshit." He elaborated, "Obviously, it's a thinly-veiled ploy to kick out older white contributors — the backbone of the industry — to make way for younger, 'politically-correct' voters. The Academy should not cave in to media hype and change the rules without talking to or getting votes from all members first."

Documentary branch member Arnold Schwartzman, an Oscar winner for 1982's Genocide, was aggrieved on behalf of his fellow members. "I'm quite angry," he said. "I'm alright, I've got my Oscar. But what about all of those people that were elected to the Academy because they are skilled, but who never got an Oscar nomination?" He continued, "I just resent being characterized by some people as a racist. We judge films on the merits. There were some great films with white people that didn't get in that I was upset about. Race had nothing to do with any of it."

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