WHAT HAPPENED TO DIVERSITY AT OSCARS?

Despite the fact that last year’s Oscars presentations featured several non-white and female nominees, this year’s list of top nominees conspicuously excludes them. While last year’s winner for best film went to The Hurt Locker, which was co-produced by Kathryn Bigelow, who also won a best director Oscar for the film, not one woman was nominated in the director category this year, CNN observed Wednesday. (Two of the best picture nominees, The Kids Are All Right and Winter Bone were directed by women.) Moreover, the channel noted, all of the acting nominees are white. (Last year’s award for best supporting actress went to Mo’Nique for her performance in Precious.) Nor are there any minorities on the list of screenwriters. (Last year’s award for best adapted screenplay went to Geoffrey Fletcher, who is black.) A woman, Pamela Martin, was nominated for editing (The Fighter), but editing is an area of the film business in which women have traditionally shown strength. In an interview with the cable news channel, Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, said, “The film industry does not exist in a vacuum; it is part of a larger culture, and our attitudes about gender and race are extremely deeply held. Those attitudes don’t change overnight or with an Oscar win.”