BAFTA Support for Diversity Means All Nominees Demonstrate Inclusivity
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts have announced that as of 2019, only film and television projects demonstrating inclusivity will be eligible for BAFTA nominations. The BAFTA support for diversity follows the lead set by the British Film Institute, which set similar diversity standards in 2014.
There are of course diverse ways for film and television projects to meet the BAFTA diversity standards. A combination of two must be fulfilled: on-screen characters and themes, senior roles and crew, industry training and career progression, audience access and appeal to underrepresented audiences.
#OscarsSoWhite
These efforts are in contrast to the US’s Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which has for two years, produced all-white acting nominees. The Oscars have changed membership rules by limiting membership voting status to 10 years, and adding governers’ seats to be filled by underrepresented groups. However, the BAFTAs have made similar changes to their membership, on top of making the bold (brave) diversity requirements.
From Slate:
Starting in 2019, If Your Film Isn’t Diverse, It Won’t Be Eligible for a BAFTA Award
By Aisha Harris
In an incredibly bold move, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced last week that, beginning in 2019,works that do not demonstrate inclusivity in their
production practices will no longer be eligible for its annual awards, the BAFTAs, often considered the U.K. equivalent of the Oscars. Eligible projects must showcase this in two of the following ways, as the BBC reported: On-screen characters and themes, senior roles and crew, industry training and career progression, and audience access and appeal to underrepresented audiences. BAFTA will also remove the requirement that newly admitted voters be recommended by two existing members.
Back in 2014, the British Film Institute established similar standards for projects seeking National Lottery funding in an effort to improve representation within the filmmaking industry. BAFTA’s decision is particularly striking, however, when you hold it up against its American counterpart, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which, of course, faced an embarrassing PR backlash with the #OscarsSoWhite campaign this year. Not long after the Oscar nominations revealed, for the second year in a row, a slate of all-white acting nominees, the academy announced that it was changing its membership rules in an effort to address the issue. This included shortening members’ voting statuses to 10 years (able to reactivated so long as they remain active within the industry) and adding three more governors’ seats filled by people from underrepresented groups.
But that change was nowhere near as radical as BAFTA’s, which directly addresses the bigger and more pressing concern for representation, from acting to directing to executive opportunities, and everything in between. Stating, point-blank, that you cannot even think about receiving accolades from one of film’s most prestigious institutions unless you make an effort to bring in a wider variety of collaborators is to light a much-needed fire under the filmmakers’ butts. It won’t solve every issue overnight—surely somewhere out there there’s a filmmaker, or a funder, who really, truly doesn’t care about awards—but it’s a step in the right direction. As we’ve seen countless times, counting on people in power to do the right thing while letting them go unchecked does not lead to progress, and even hinders it.
Many people will undoubtedly find this move to be blasphemous, leaning on the tired crutch of “artistic freedom” to label BAFTA as intrusive. They can live and die by that sword if they’d like, but they’ll only be proving that they’re not quite as creative or imaginative as they claim to be.
Aisha Harris is a Slate culture writer and host of the Slate podcast Represent.