Three years after the outcry over an all-white acting nominations lineup overshadowed the Bafta film awards, 2023’s event might have been the one where it was just all about a celebration of cinema.
Yet, despite a complete overhaul of its system after being denounced for a lack of diversity in nominations, viewers and critics have once again been voicing disapproval – albeit while also laying blame on the industry at large.
“I watched clips of the #BAFTAS and didn’t see a single black or brown person win. Not because they’re not white but because they’re good, really good and the best,” the Sky News presenter Saima Mohsin wrote after the event, as the hashtag #BaftasSoWhite resurfaced on Sunday night. “Overlooked and ignored time & again. So depressing Unconscious bias & systemic. #BaftasSoWhite.”
Criticism came swiftly as some shared images online of the awardees, with not a single actor of colour photographed. Others noted the performances of the rapper Little Simz and the actor Ariana DeBose, and the presence of co-host Alison Hammond, saying their stage appearance was not enough.
In his opening remarks, the Bafta chair Krishnendu Majumdar told viewers how the academy had “responded to the lack of diversity in the film awards nominations and set about transforming Bafta from within”.
“It was a necessary and humbling process that brought about over 120 significant changes to our organisation and our awards,” he said, insisting that the action had engendered a significant cultural shift.
But while criticism once again saw #BaftasSoWhite reportedly trending on Twitter, a university professor who was among those consulted and interviewed by Bafta for its review in 2020 said Monday night’s event reflected “a much, much bigger structural issue, which is our inability to decouple racism from diversity and inclusion”.
Clive Nwonka, an associate professor of film, culture and society at UCL, told the Guardian that something more substantial than visibility was needed to measure change.
Nwonka accepts more time needs to pass in order to assess the impact of the raft of changes the academy introduced in 2020, including new members from under-represented backgrounds, a diversity survey, changes to its voting system and an increase in film nominations.
“The reason why I’m not convinced that we will ever see anything beyond the cyclical nature of diversity and inclusion is because these aren’t new problems,” said Nwonka. For there to be an industry free from discrimination, exclusion and racism, he said, it would require the complete dismantling of the industry’s very nature.
“I just wonder whether we were wrong to invest so much of our energies, our hopes, aspirations and faith in the abilities of Bafta, just one organisation in the film industry, to make a radical change,” Nwonka said.
After Bafta’s review in 2020, there were successes for actors and films with non-white identities. In 2021, the multiracial drama Rocks led the nominations count. In 2022, Will Smith and Ariana DeBose won best actor and supporting actress respectively.
However, at this year’s film awards, the diverse nominations – Viola Davis for best actress and Naomi Ackie for rising star, among others shortlisted – did not translate to wins for minority ethnic actors.
Ian Manborde, the equality and diversity officer of Equity, a union representing the majority of the UK’s performing arts workforce, said it welcomed the work the academy had done, but saw it as one part of a global industry.
“The difficulty is that no matter the changes that the Baftas has made, our position as a trade union is that the pool of individuals from which nominees would be selected is still not diverse enough,” said Manborde, bringing up the exclusion of actors with disabilities and those from working-class backgrounds. Equity was one of many industry organisations consulted for Bafta’s review.
The wider issue of exclusion within the industry, Manborde said, begins with the process of determining what stories are created and who gets the opportunity to portray the characters in those stories. “It’s actually a bigger political issue than just the awards industry itself.”
Bafta has declined to comment.
