KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Once again, one of the big conversations about this year's Oscar nominations is the near total lack of racial diversity. Just one example - every one of the nominees for acting awards is white. Darnell Hunt is the director of UCLA's Ralph Bunche Center for African-American Studies, which produces an annual report on diversity in Hollywood, and he's here with me in the studio.
Thanks for coming by.
DARNELL HUNT: Thanks for having me.
MCEVERS: So when you looked at the list of the Oscar nominations this year, were you surprised?
HUNT: I was surprised but then I wasn't. Of course, it's the second year in a row. We're talking about an Academy that's overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male - 93 percent white, 76 percent male, average age, 63. People are voting for things that resonate with their experiences and, unfortunately, it's too narrow a slice.
MCEVERS: What were some of the surprises of people who weren't on the list?
HUNT: Well, you would've thought that a film like "Creed" might've been nominated or, of course, "Straight Outta Compton..."
MCEVERS: Right.
HUNT: ...Or even "Concussion." So Will Smith being absent, Michael B. Jordan...
MCEVERS: ...from "Creed."
HUNT: Sylvester Stallone, ironically, was nominated supporting actor for "Creed," but the lead actor wasn't.
MCEVERS: I mean, just last year, the conversation online was all about hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. This year, it's hashtag #OscarsStillSoWhite. Why do you think public pressure from last year didn't really make a difference this year?
HUNT: You know, the people who make up the Academy - as I mentioned a minute ago - they have a particular view as to what constitutes artistic merit. The problem is that standards, merit, all these things are, you know, culture bound. I guarantee you if the membership of the Academy were more diverse, we'd see more diverse nominations and more diverse winners.
MCEVERS: So, I mean, do you think it's a bigger problem, though, not just about the Academy itself and who sits on the Academy but the entire studio system?
HUNT: Well, absolutely. We have executive suites in the studios - and, again, are 93 percent white, 100 percent male. And so you have a particular group of people who are green-lighting projects that seem to be viable from their point of view. They're not surrounding themselves with other artists who may say, hey, did you try this? What'd you think about this particular story? Because after all, American society right now is about 39 percent minority, and audiences - our study shows - want to see diverse stories and they're not getting enough of that. So at some point, the memo will have to be gotten. I mean, the industry is not going to be able to continue to do this forever. I mean, we're approaching majority-minority status, and lots of money is being left on the table.
MCEVERS: Right. I mean, one of the findings of your Hollywood diversity reports at UCLA is that movies with more diverse casts tend to make more money. Why has this not yet been a bigger motivation for studios?
HUNT: A number of things. We haven't tried to make enough films with diverse casts so that it becomes, you know, patently clear that this is what's going on. You know, they'll look at the film with the white lead that made a bunch of money, and they'll say, see? This is what sells. This is what sells overseas. We'll keep making that. And they'll ignore the other films or they'll ignore the stars like Will Smith or somebody else, and they say, well, they're exceptions. You know, they sell overseas but most leads of color would never fly overseas so we don't make those films.
MCEVERS: Are you talking about something like, "Jurassic World?"
HUNT: Well, exactly. But that's wrong. I mean, look at "Star Wars." I mean, you know, this film is making a ton of money. The "Fast And Furious" franchise, for years, has made a ton of money overseas. We have an Asian-American director, and pretty much every lead is a person of color. And these films are making lots of money. I mean, the world as a market is very diverse so why wouldn't these things sell overseas?
MCEVERS: Aside from the Academy and who gets nominated for the awards, what is your sense of the direction of diversity in Hollywood more broadly?
HUNT: For years, the notion of diversity - well, it's the right thing to do, it's the civic thing to do, but it's a luxury. And in fact there's a trade-off between diversity and excellence. If you move for diversity, somehow or another, the quality is not going to be there. And that's been kind of the conventional wisdom. Part of what we show with our study is that's absolutely false. I mean, if the industry is indeed about making money, we're showing that diversity actually sells. The one thing I will say is that in every way, film is behind television. We're not making as many films as we did before the Great Recession. So there's a lot more competition for the films that are being made, and you have great actors and actresses leaving film and going to television. We're making a lot more television now. Film, the numbers are down. And the history of our country shows us, in the industry where you have diminished production, there's more competition. It tends to increase exclusion, and women and minorities bear the brunt of that.
MCEVERS: That's Darnell Hunt. He's the director of the Ralph Bunche Center at UCLA.
Thanks so much for coming in today.
HUNT: Thank you for having me.