Oscars more diverse as pandemic, protests shake up Hollywood
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LOS ANGELES, April 22, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Actors of color are favorites in each category, and two female directors are nominated for the first time this year’s Oscars could set new benchmarks for diversity, thanks to long-brewing industry changes as well as Covid-19’s transformation of Hollywood, experts say.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has drastically reformed its membership in recent years, admitting large batches of new Oscars voters each year who better reflect society’s diversity, after much criticism for its mainly white, male base.
“I think that this Oscars will be forever remembered as the one where changes in the voting body made six years ago in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite has delivered on a promise by the Academy to reform itself,” Black US actor Dwayne Barnes (“Menace II Society”) wrote in a column for industry site Deadline.
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A team off loads diesel fuel from an overturned rig hauling paper goods on the on ramp of the northbound 5 freeway from the 126. Dan Watson/The Signal.
Uploaded: , Thursday, Apr 22, 2021
By Kev Kurdoghlian
A 75,000-pound semi-truck carrying paper products overturned, causing closure of the outer most lane of northbound Interstate 5 at State Route 126 Thursday morning, according to California Highway Patrol Officer Peter Nicholson.
CHP issued a SIG Alert after receiving a call about the overturned tractor trailer truck on the right shoulder at 7:20 a.m. Injuries were not reported in the incident, which closed SR-126’s westbound and eastbound onramps to the northbound I-5.
Chloe Zhao ( Nomadland ) and Emerald Fennell ( Promising Young Woman ) are the latest additions to that list, and there s a strong chance that one of them will take home the prize. After all, Zhao has already won directing awards from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Directors Guild of America.
If Zhao takes home a win, she will be the second woman to do so in nearly 100 years. The last was Kathryn Bigelow, who won the Oscar in 2010 for The Hurt Locker.
Lina Wertmuller ( Seven Beauties ), Jane Campion ( The Piano ), Sofia Coppola ( Lost in Translation ) and Greta Gerwig ( Lady Bird ) are the only other female directors who have been up for the best directing award.
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