Diversity and the Oscars The 93rd Academy Awards are scheduled for Sunday, April 25, 2021. Experts from the University of California, Riverside are available to discuss various Academy Awards topics, including diversity, acting, gender, culture, and more. For fast access to experts, TEXT or call the 24-hour-experts hotline at 951-312-3049, or email news@ucr.edu Courtney R. Baker, associate professor, Department of English. “In recent years, awards season has become the main occasion to object to a lack of diversity in film. Though the critique usefully pressures big studios and distributors to broaden opportunities and offerings, it overlooks the larger (and in my opinion, more interesting) structural problems preventing real diversity by overly fixating upon mainstream feature film, ignoring the powerful and well-funded “For Your Consideration” campaigns, and avoiding discussion of Hollywood's pipeline problem in which uninformed gatekeepers and the bottom line drive decisions about what films get made. Even in this landscape, 2020 saw a few notable expansions of its representation of people and plots, though not all of these outings were laudable, as an increasingly vocal and discerning viewing public has expressed.”