The Oscars always bring with them their fair share of controversy, but usually it's the individual films being targeted and not the Academy. In 2015, the overwhelmingly white collection of nominees sparked backlash, but in 2016 it sparked a full-blown revolution.
Below is a timeline of the controversy which has now become known by its succinct hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite.
Thursday, January 14
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The 2016 Oscar nominations are announced. All hell breaks loose as people notice that, for the second year running, every single one of the 20 nominated actors is white.
When this happened in 2015, everybody hoped it was an anomaly (it had been 17 years since the last all-white set of acting nominees in 1998) but this encore makes it clear that Hollywood, and by extension the Academy, has a real problem.
Films featuring non-white protagonists were either ignored completely – Beasts of No Nation, for which Idris Elba won a Screen Actors Guild award – or recognised only for their white participants – Sylvester Stallone for Creed, and screenwriters Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff for Straight Outta Compton.
Friday, January 15
Straight Outta Compton producer Will Packer writes an articulate and damning Facebook post, calling out a number of non-white actors whose work has been overlooked: "In 2016, it's a complete embarrassment to say that the heights of cinematic achievement have only been reached by white people. I repeat – it's embarrassing."
Saturday, January 16
Jada Pinkett Smith suggests that people of colour boycott the ceremony altogether: "At the Oscars, people of colour are always welcomed to give out awards, even entertain, but we are rarely recognised for our artistic accomplishments," she writes on Twitter. "People can only treat us in the way in which we allow."
Monday, January 18
Spike Lee, who received an honorary Oscar last year, announces he will boycott the 2016 ceremony.
After thanking the Academy for the award, he writes on Instagram: "How is it possible for the 2nd consecutive year all 20 contenders under the actor category are white? And let's not even get into the other branches. 40 white actors in 2 years and no flava at all. We can't act?! WTF!!"
Tuesday, January 19
George Clooney says the problem isn't just a lack of progression – the Academy's actually moving backwards.
"If you think back 10 years ago, the Academy was doing a better job. Think about how many more African Americans were nominated. I would also make the argument, I don't think it's a problem of who you're picking as much as it is: How many options are available to minorities in film, particularly in quality films?
"Let's look back at some of the nominees. I think around 2004, certainly there were black nominees — like Don Cheadle, Morgan Freeman. And all of a sudden, you feel like we're moving in the wrong direction."
He goes on to point out that only four films featuring non-white leads (Creed, Concussion, Straight Outta Compton and Beasts of No Nation) were in serious contention for Oscar nominations this year, which shows that the problem starts way before awards season.
"Honestly, there should be more opportunity than that. There should be 20 or 30 or 40 films of the quality that people would consider for the Oscars. By the way, we're talking about African Americans. For Hispanics, it's even worse. We need to get better at this. We used to be better at it."
Thursday, January 21
Will Smith confirms that he won't attend the ceremony, joining his wife Jada Pinkett Smith's boycott.
"Hollywood has to lead – the images that we deliver from Hollywood have to push America and push humanity forward. Diversity is the American super power, that's what makes our country great. That's what makes our country special.
"I'm saying on a much broader level, it's not about me or being nominated. It's not about awards… it's about delivering imagery that plants seeds of inclusion in the imagination of the minds that consume our products."
On the same day, Mark Ruffalo – who's nominated for his performance in Spotlight – admits that he is "weighing" whether to boycott the ceremony or not.
"If you look at Martin Luther King Jr's legacy, what he was saying is the good people who don't act are much worse than the wrongdoers who are purposely not acting and don't know the right way," he says.
"It isn't just the Academy Awards. The entire American system is rife with white privilege racism. It goes into our justice system."
Ruffalo later takes to Twitter to confirm his attendance:
Friday, January 22
The Academy takes action. President Cheryl Boone Isaacs announces "a sweeping series of substantive changes" in order to shift its overwhelmingly white, male voting membership, vowing to double its number of female and non-white voting members by 2020. "The Academy is going to lead and not wait for the industry to catch up," Isaacs says.
"We are not lowering any standards, we're widening our net," The Academy explained in an FAQ. "The result will be a membership that is more inclusive of the motion picture community, governance that is more representative of our membership, and a stronger Academy overall."
Also on the 22nd, Charlotte Rampling – nominated for her first Oscar this year for 45 Years – displays some spectacularly poor judgement when she calls the #OscarsSoWhite backlash "racist to whites".
"One can never really know, but perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list… Why classify people? These days everyone is more or less accepted.
"People will always say: 'Him, he's less handsome'; 'Him, he's too black'; 'He is too white' ... someone will always be saying 'You are too' [this or that] ... But do we have to take from this that there should be lots of minorities everywhere?" Rampling later issues this non-apology.
Saturday, January 23
Matt Damon praises the Academy's rule changes.
"It was shameful and embarrassing that there were two years in a row without a single actor of colour nominated. That's insane.
"So I'm glad that Cheryl Boone Isaacs took some action. It's a strong first step."
Wednesday, January 27
Just in case you're in any doubt that this whole controversy is a big deal, the leader of the free world weighs in.
"I think the Oscar debate is really just an expression of this broader issue: Are we making sure that everybody is getting a fair shot?" says US President Barack Obama.
"I think that California is an example of the incredible diversity of this country. That's a strength. I think that when everyone's story is told ... that makes for better art, It makes for better entertainment; it makes everybody feel part of one American family.
"So I think as a whole the industry should do what every other industry should do which is to look for talent, provide opportunity to everybody."
Tuesday, February 2
Looking back on her own Best Actress win from 2002, Halle Berry laments the fact that it has not opened doors for African-American actors in the way she hoped it would.
"When I said, 'The door tonight has been opened,' I believed that with every bone in my body, that this was going to incite change because this door, this barrier, had been broken.
"To sit here almost 15 years later, and knowing that another woman of colour has not walked through that door, is heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking, because I thought that moment was bigger than me. It's heartbreaking to start to think maybe it wasn't bigger than me. Maybe it wasn't."
Berry adds that Hollywood has a responsibility to reflect the world in a truthful way, and they're failing.
"The reason they're not truthful, these days, is that they're not really depicting the importance and the involvement and the participation of people of colour in our American culture."
Tuesday, February 9
Emma Thompson jokingly suggests a way to diversify the Academy's old, white, male membership: "Either you wait for them all to die, or kill them off slowly. There's so many options, aren't there?"
In a later interview, Thompson says that the only way to create more diversity in awards nominations is to create more roles for non-white actors in the first place, echoing Clooney's sentiments.
"We just have to write the stories and make them, encourage it and get behind it. You've got to get into drama schools and schools, find people who want to do this work and give them the opportunity to do it."
Friday, February 12
Steven Spielberg reveals that he is less than thrilled with the Academy's rule changes. The legendary director expressed his surprise that Straight Outta Compton and Elba were snubbed, but dismissed the idea that racism could be to blame, because people of colour have won Oscars in the past.
"You have to look back a couple of years, where Lupita [Nyong'o] was recognised for 12 Years a Slave, [and] 12 Years a Slave won best picture, you know? I don't believe that there is inherent or dormant racism because of the amount of white Academy members.
"I'm also not 100% sure that taking votes away from Academy members who have paid their dues and maybe are retired now and have done great service… to strip their votes? I'm not 100% behind that."
Spielberg went on to say that he supports the Academy's effort to increase diversity within the Academy's membership - but he thinks everyone has work to do.
"It's not just the Academy, and I think we have to stop pointing fingers and blaming the Academy. It's people that hire, it's people at the main gate of studios and independents. It's the stories that are being told. It's who's writing diversity — it starts on the page. And we all have to be more proactive in getting out there and just seeking talent."
Emma Dibdin is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles who writes about culture, mental health, and true crime. She loves owls, hates cilantro, and can find the queer subtext in literally anything.
