--- title: Oscar Nominations 2016: Academy Gets It Wrong description: The 2016 Oscar nominees were announced Thursday morning, and diversity is as big a problem as ever. canonical: https://time.com/4180868/oscar-nominations-analysis/ author: Eliza Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-14T17:58:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T14:08:25.772Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The Oscar Nominations Prove the Academy Still Doesn't Get It og:description: The 2016 Oscar nominees were announced Thursday morning, and diversity is as big a problem as ever. og:url: https://time.com/4180868/oscar-nominations-analysis/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f5c69de8f380d0a/69887921ab6d7771ef6a7f87/straight-outta-compton-lead.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: straight-outta-compton-lead og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Oscar Nominations Prove the Academy Still Doesn't Get It twitter:description: The 2016 Oscar nominees were announced Thursday morning, and diversity is as big a problem as ever. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f5c69de8f380d0a/69887921ab6d7771ef6a7f87/straight-outta-compton-lead.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Oscar Nominations Prove the Academy Still Doesn't Get It > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Jan 14, 2016 5:58 PM UTC  Straight Outta Compton. Straight Outta Compton.Universal Pictures  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Jan 14, 2016 5:58 PM UTC The [2016 Oscar nominations](http://time.com/4178963/oscar-nominations-2016/) were announced Thursday morning, with critics and moviegoers alike ready to pick apart the Academy’s voting like a [bear](http://time.com/4157304/the-revenant-movie-review/) hungry for Leonardo DiCaprio’s flesh. With Oscar Sunday six weeks away, on Feb. 28, here is the run-down on what the nominations say about the stories we acknowledge and the ones that go unrecognized. **Women of a certain age were, for the most part, conspicuously absent.** Charlotte Rampling deservedly snagged a Best Actress nomination for her stirring performance in _45 Years_. But when she looks around her come Feb. 28, she will find that she’s only female nominee in her age bracket. The six-week lead-up to the nominations—which consist of [critics awards](http://time.com/4132996/carol-new-york-film-critics-circle-awards/), [top-ten lists](http://time.com/4134913/top-10-best-movies/) and [SAG](http://time.com/4142722/2016-sag-award-nominations/) and [Golden Globe](http://time.com/4144233/2016-golden-globes-nominees/) nominations—heard much discussion of the solid performances delivered by Jane Fonda in _Youth_, Helen Mirren in both _Trumbo_ and _Woman in Gold_, Lily Tomlin in _Grandma_, Maggie Smith in _The Lady in the Van_ and, to a lesser extent but a [favorite](http://time.com/4134970/top-10-best-movie-performances/) of TIME’s film critic Stephanie Zacharek, Blythe Danner in _I’ll See You in My Dreams_. Of course, Oscar nominations are based, theoretically, on merit, and not every actress whose work is deemed worthy ends up with a shot at taking home the little gold man. Perhaps the Oscars are looking to reward the next generation of talented actresses—between Brie Larson, Saoirse Ronan, Jennifer Lawrence, Alicia Vikander and Rooney Mara, it’s a particularly young field—but the absence of Fonda (78), Tomlin (76), Mirren (70), Smith (81) and Danner (72) seems a suspicious coincidence. Perhaps Rampling, at 69, just made the cut-off. **It was a semi-decent year for women’s stories, but that’s not the same as a good year.** Of the eight Best Picture nominees, three are stories about women: _Room_, _Brooklyn_ and [_Mad Max: Fury Road_](http://time.com/3850323/mad-max-fury-road-eve-ensler-feminist/). That’s almost half! And it’s more than last year’s zero, and the previous year’s two. Many will be disappointed by the absence of _Carol_, which rounded up six nominations without eking its way into Director or Best Picture. The same goes for _Joy_, after David O. Russell’s last three films landed nods. (Though there would have been room for both films in a category that allows up to 10 nominees—and this year numbers only eight—films need to reach a minimum threshold of votes to be included.) More female-driven movies than last year is nice; not as many as male-driven movies is disappointing. It doesn’t help that only [9 percent](http://time.com/4175947/women-female-directors-celluloid-ceiling-report/) of directors of the top 250 films in 2015 were women, or that one third of those 250 films did not employ a single woman as director, writer, producer, editor or cinematographer. (It’s worth pointing out that all five nominees for Best Director are men—in 87 years of Academy Awards, one woman, Kathryn Bigelow, has ever won.) All in all, it’s a half-decent year for women, but half-decent isn’t exactly a modifier to aim for. There’s no rule that says the field has to be entirely equitable all down the line. It’ll be nice when we can stop counting. **The field of nominees could literally not be any whiter.** Of 20 acting nominations, 20 went to white actors and actresses. Last year _Selma_ director Ava DuVernay and star David Oyelowo weren’t nominated, despite the movie’s inclusion as a Best Picture contender and favorable critical reception. So if this year’s field feels like déjà vu all over again, that’s because there’s virtually no improvement to speak of. The lack of nods to actors of color—and stories about people of color—comes despite Golden Globe nominations for Idris Elba (_Beasts of No Nation_) and Will Smith (_Concussion_); despite the critical success of _Beasts of No Nation_, _Straight Outta Compton_ and _Creed_, not to mention widespread accolades calling the latter’s director, Ryan Coogler, one of the most promising new talents in the industry. The Academy of Motion Pictures, it’s widely known, is not a diverse body. Based on a [2012 study](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/oscars/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-20120219-story.html) by the Los Angeles _Times_, it was 94 percent white and 77 percent male. This fact tends to be, year after year, the one people point to in trying to explain the repeated lack of diversity among nominees. And there’s no lack of psychology studies that show that people tend to hire, stop at crosswalks for and even buy iPhones on eBay from people who look like them. But the problem runs deeper. It’s not just who people with voting power cast their votes for, but who people with access to social and financial capital alike choose to invest in when it comes to financing movies, hiring directors and choosing which stories to champion. The problem starts long before the voting begins. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4180868/oscar-nominations-analysis/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4180868/oscar-nominations-analysis/"},"headline":"The Oscar Nominations Prove the Academy Still Doesn't Get It","datePublished":"2016-01-14T17:58:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T14:08:25.772Z","description":"Conspicuous absences speak volumes about the industry","url":"https://time.com/4180868/oscar-nominations-analysis/","keywords":["awards","Oscars","Academy Awards"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f5c69de8f380d0a/69887921ab6d7771ef6a7f87/straight-outta-compton-lead.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliza Berman","jobTitle":"Berman is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f5c69de8f380d0a/69887921ab6d7771ef6a7f87/straight-outta-compton-lead.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"straight-outta-compton-lead","caption":"Straight Outta Compton.","creditText":"Universal Pictures","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/awards/","name":"awards"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4180868/oscar-nominations-analysis/","name":"The Oscar Nominations Prove the Academy Still Doesn't Get It"}}]}] ```