Joker leads the nominations but the lack of diversity is no laughing matter, in the wake of the nominations this morning #BAFTASOWHITE was trending on twitter. All the leading actors and actresses and all the support actresses and actors a total of 20 are white, coming just four years after #OscarsSoWhite which was supposed to force the industry to focus on more diverse representation in terms of recognition.
Scarlett Johansson and Margot Robbie got two nominations each while actors like Jennifer Lopez for Hustlers, Lupita Nyong’o for Us, Antonio Banderas for Pain & Glory and Cynthia Erivo for Harriet, Eddie Murphy for Dolemite Is My Name were snubbed.
The directing category is no better with an all male line up of directors. So how does this happen? BAFTA’s 6700 members who are all industry professional vote for the awards, but 2017 new membership figures showed that only 18% of the members were from an ethnic minority group and only 43% female which can have a bearing on voting.
BAFTA CEO Amanda Berry said “we definitely need to do more – we did a scheme for women directors a couple of years ago and we need to do another one as the talent is there but the opportunities are not, we need to go bigger.”
In terms of the nominations Joker leads with 11 although there has been some controversy around it’s content and some have said it incites violence. Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, his love letter to old Hollywood follows with 10 nods as with Netflix’s Irishman.
Emma Baehr, the director of the BAFTA awards pointed blame at the industry for the lack of non-white nominees.
“We’d have liked to have seen more diversity in the nominations, it does continue to be an industry-wide issue,” she said. “I think more films need to be made, and entered, giving people a chance to see them. We’d absolutely like to see more diversity, but I also don’t want to take away from those celebrating today.”
An interesting comment as they have been 2019 films like Blue Story, Farming, Queen & Slim, Just Mercy and the films mentioned above so maybe BAFTA could have looked at those. When films get nominated for big awards it creates more opportunities for those nominated.
Here is a full list of the nominations:
A total of 39 feature films received nominations today. Highlights include:
11 nominations for Joker
10 nominations for The Irishman and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Nine nominations for 1917
Six nominations for Jojo Rabbit
Five nominations for Little Women, Marriage Story and The Two Popes
Four nominations for For Sama, Parasite and Rocketman
Three nominations for Bombshell, Judy, Le Mans ’66 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Two nominations for Bait
One nomination for each of the following feature films: American Factory, Apollo 11, Avengers: Endgame, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Booksmart, Diego Maradona, The Farewell, Frozen 2, The Great Hack, Klaus, Knives Out, The Lighthouse, The Lion King, Maiden, Only You, Pain and Glory, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Retablo, A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, Sorry We Missed You, Toy Story 4 and Wild Rose
The following British short films were nominated: Azaar, Goldfish, Kamali, Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl), The Trap, Grandad Was a Romantic, In Her Boots and The Magic Boat
The nominations were announced by Ella Balinska and Asa Butterfield at BAFTA Piccadilly in London.
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