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Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in Out of Africa: Where Are the "Under-Represented Groups"?
Photo: ddp images
In the future, American cinema producers will wish they could submit their films to a German tax office instead of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars every year.
Because from this year they have to fill out complicated forms and prove that they have met certain standards.
The new rules are intended to ensure that minorities are better represented in the films and gain influence in the industry.
That is commendable.
Standard A requires that either one of the main actors or 30 percent of the supporting actors must belong to an "underrepresented group".
As such, for example, Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans or people with disabilities are defined.
If this is not the case, the film can still meet the standard if it is thematically about one of the groups.
A film like "Out of Africa", which won seven Oscars in 1986, would fail here.
Both main actors are white, Klaus Maria Brandauer is Austrian, but is probably not considered a member of a minority, even under the new rules.
Supporting roles played by blacks are rare in "Out of Africa"; the film never reaches 30 percent.
And to claim that it is about an "underrepresented group" would be downright cynical: It is about white colonial rulers and women who live at the expense of the black majority.
Even the thriller "The Silence of the Lambs", which won five Academy Awards in 1992, would hardly have passed this test if we read the rules correctly.
Cannibals are not considered underrepresented.
And what about "The King's Speech" (2010)?
White English everywhere you look.
Maybe it would have worked out after all, after all, the film is about a man with a speech impediment, that could make up for it.
Standard B requires that management positions be filled with people from the groups mentioned or - alternatively - 30 percent of the crew.
The entire LGTQ + area is also considered to be underrepresented.
But even today some people still want to keep their sexual identity or orientation to themselves.
Will a producer ask the gay costume designer they hire to come out in order to meet the quota?
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Actor Billy Porter at the Academy Awards in February: cheerful colors instead of proportional representation
Photo: Mike Blake / REUTERS
The Oscar Academy tries with these rules, which are based on guidelines of British film funding and leave some back doors open by two further standards, to ensure more diversity.
Five years ago, the # OscarsSoWhite campaign denounced that too many white artists were being honored and that whites were over-represented in the Academy, which now has around 10,000 members.
As a result, more and more members of minorities were accepted.
That was correct and overdue, but at the same time an expression of fear of the increasing loss of importance of the price.
Because the audience ratings for the Oscar awards are falling steadily and have reached a new low this year.
The number of the best films nominated was increased to ten in order to be able to take more popular titles into account.
The dwindling public interest could not stop this measure.
The Oscars are in crisis
Hollywood industry experts are finding that it is becoming increasingly unpredictable how nominations and Oscars won translate into audience numbers.
They openly ask whether it is still worth investing millions of dollars in PR campaigns that start months before the award ceremony.
The Oscars are like shooting festivals: you have to jump a lot to win.
The former king of the Oscars, who won more trophies than almost anyone else with his productions, is in jail: Harvey Weinstein.
The Oscars are in crisis.
The question is whether you can deal with it with more bureaucracy, especially if you want to counter the impression that you are no longer up to date.
Who wants to make films that have arisen from proportional representation - and who wants to see them?
When the audience is faced with the question of whether they should watch an Oscar film or not a good one, the decision should be easy for them.
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