Nancy Beiman: “The Academy are robbing Paula to pay Paul”
Skwigly
I have been a professional animator for 37 years and a dues paying member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for twenty years. For ten of those years I was one of the very, very few supervising animators in Hollywood who happened to be female.Since 2005 I’ve been working in related fields (teaching, writing,) and freelancing on films for which I do not receive screen credit. I’ve been a script doctor, character designer, and storyboard artist on two unproduced theatrical pictures.
On January 22, 2016 the Academy President announced that anyone who has not ACTIVELY worked in feature motion pictures for a ten year period would not be allowed to vote for the Academy Awards in the name of a nebulous ‘diversity’.
“Activity” was not defined. It apparently means, CREDITED on completed American feature films. New members were expected to comply with this ruling and it was then retroactively applied to the current members.This will affect animators who formerly worked in Features and have now found work in Television. Or who, like me, worked on films that were never completed, and did not receive a credit.
As one of the female members in the Short Films and Feature Animation category, I am therefore ALSO a minority. Women are shockingly under-represented in craft, technical and directorial nominations every year.
No one at the Academy offered to change the voting rules when Geena Davis pointed this out in a study of female representation in film jobs in 2012. Only 7% of the ‘creatives’ (non acting) working in the film industry are female. But they changed the rules in one day for every category when one actor and one director claimed that the Oscar nomination process was racist.
This is not true, but the industry sexism is mirrored in the Academy. You can only become a member with a certain number of film credits; animators must have supervisory credits. And if women are either not hired for these positions or aren’t supervisors, well…they don’t get approved as members. The Academy refuses to release the number of female members in each category. You will rarely, if ever, see a woman nominated for an Oscar in the crafts categories.
The Academy’s problems won’t be fixed by throwing older members under the bus. It is the voting system for the Oscars that is the problem. You will sometimes find a film nominated for Best Picture without having its director or actors nominated along with it. This is because everyone in the Academy votes for Best Picture nominations but the actors and directors are nominated solely by the members of their category. This ‘snub’ has happened to Steven Spielberg more than once.
The voting for other categories is often skewed, since people will naturally vote for the films that they worked on. They are also expected to vote for films from the studios that employ them. It would make more sense to have the ‘inactive’ members nominate the Big Three (actor, actress, director) since they would not be affected by these political pressures. Or they could have Best Director, Best Actor and Actress nominated by the general membership rather than just one branch, just as Best Picture is, and the issue would cease to be a problem. Did no one ever consider that?
Foreign members of the Academy pay full membership dues while often being unable to attend any of the membership events or screenings in Los Angeles or New York. The dues actually went up this year. I paid them without complaint since I was finally able to vote again in my own category thanks to the streaming videos of the animation nominees. But if my ten year ‘activity’ is not deemed sufficiently ‘active’ for the Academy, this privilege will be withdrawn and a meaningless ’emeritus’ status conferred upon me in which I would no longer be allowed to vote but could still continue to pay full membership dues.
Voting for the Oscars is the only benefit that I receive from being in AMPAS. I can’t even go to a movie theatre in Toronto to see a new film using my Academy membership card for admittance, the way I can in London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Vail, Colorado. This despite the fact that the Toronto International Film festival has world premieres for many of the Oscar nominated films.
The Academy claims it will have a ‘worldwide search’ to seek out more minority and female members.
Try looking closer to home.
Two wrongs do not make a right.-Nancy Beiman, AMPAS Short Films and Feature Animation
What are your thoughts on Nancy Beiman’s views? Get in touch via Twitter or in the comments section below. To learn more about the work and career of Nancy Beiman you can listen back to episode 3 of the Skwigly Animation Podcast (stream below or direct download):