Oscars voters: new diversity rules for Best Picture ‘completely ridiculous’

nypost.com:

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is beholden to new inclusivity standards. Starting with the March 2024 awards, movies will not be considered for a Best Picture nomination unless they feature a lead or significant supporting character from an “underrepresented racial or ethnic group,” have a main storyline that focuses on an underrepresented group, or at least 30% of the cast comes from two or more underrepresented groups (women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ or the disabled).It’s got some voting members of the Academy up in arms.“It’s completely ridiculous,” one director fumed to The Post. “I’m fordiversity, but to make you cast certain types of people if you want to get nominated?

That makes the whole process contrived. The person who is right for the part should get the part. Why should you be limited in your choices?

But it’s the world we’re in. This is crazy.”Richard Dreyfuss certainly agrees. In discussing the new standards of inclusion with “The Firing Line” on PBS last month, the veteran actor blasted the rules: “They make me vomit.”Describing movies as “an art form” and “a form of commerce,” the “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” actor continued, “No one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give in to the latest, most current idea of what morality is.”One of Hollywood’s biggest producers told The Post that very few people in the industry favor the new rules — but, unlike Dreyfuss, they don’t speak out for fear of cancel culture.“Everyone thinks the Academy went too far.