CHRISTIAN TOTO: ‘Reagan’ Not Diverse Enough for Oscars. “2024 biopic one of many films blocked from Best Picture consideration.”
Whatever slim hopes the film had for earning a Best Picture nomination vanished in a DEI snap. The film was ruled ineligible for the top prize because it didn’t meet the Oscars’ new diversity requirements.
The rules in question rose up from the fires of 2020’s BLM protests. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences proposed diversity mandates, which went into effect last year, demanding Best Picture hopefuls check multiple progressive boxes.
Example? A film must have diverse crews or tackle subjects pertaining to marginalized groups. Jews, apparently, don’t qualify.
“Reagan,” apparently, didn’t check enough boxes. And it’s not alone. TheWrap.com reports 116 films released last year didn’t qualify for Best Picture consideration.
Excluded from consideration under the new rules: Patton, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Sting, The Godfather Part II, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (one Indian is not enough diversity and while the bad guy is white, she’s also female), Rocky, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter (probably), and Kramer vs. Kramer.
Those are just the ’70s winners from a decade when auteur directors shot the movies they wanted to shoot. I’d love to hear what Francis Ford Coppola, George Roy Hill, or Milos Forman (among others) would have to say about today’s rules.