Janet Jackson
Janet Jackson (Photo: Gabriel Olsen/FilmMagic)

In the years since #OscarsSoWhite began trending on social media, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has undertaken the massive project of diversifying its ranks. But this year, they’ve apparently decided to scale back the number of invitations by about half.

“To enable steady future growth and to ensure the necessary infrastructure, staff resources and environment to support all Academy members, the number invited to membership was limited to roughly half that of recent years,” the Academy said in a statement released on Thursday.

Still, the list of 395 potential new Oscar voters is pretty diverse. As has been reported, 46 percent of the invitees are women and 39 percent are from underrepresented ethnic/racial communities. Among them are Janet Jackson, Laverne Cox, Issa Rae, Henry Golding and Kenya Barris. Recent Oscar winners include Minari’s Yuh-Jung Youn, Promising Young Woman director and screenwriter Emerald Fennell, and H.E.R., who took home the award for Best Original Song for “Fight for You” from Judas and the Black Messiah. Recent nominees include Steven Yeun (MinariI), Andra Day (The United States vs. Billie Holiday), Vanessa Kirby (Pieces of a Woman), Shaka King (Judas and the Black Messiah), and Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm), among others.

The push for a less homogenous Academy began in 2015, when then-campaign finance lawyer April Reign took to Twitter to voice her frustrations about that year’s Oscar nominees. “It struck me that there were no people of color nominated, so I picked up my phone. ‘#OscarsSoWhite they asked to touch my hair.’ It happened in seconds,” she told the New York Times last year. The hashtag lit up Black Twitter like a wildfire, and a movement was born.

But even as the AMPAS has expanded its ranks to include more women and people of color, progress has been gradual. In 2020, the nominees for Best Director were still all men, while Cynthia Erivo was the only person of color nominated for in any of the performance categories. This year’s Academy Awards, on the other hand, marked the first time a woman of colorNomadland director Chloé Zhao—has ever won the award for Best Director.