Tuesday, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) announced that they were making changes starting in 2019 to the awards categories “outstanding British film” and “outstanding debut by a British writer, director, or producer.” Now in order to be able to get a nomination for the award, there must be an effort made to increase diversity and bring forward those under-represented in the industry (people of color, women, LGBT, people with disabilities, or those from lower socioeconomic groups). There must be a visible effort to increase diversity in each nomination in two out the following areas: On-screen representation, themes and narratives, project leadership and creative collaboration, and industry access and opportunities, as well as diversity in audience development. Along with this big change, they’re also changing the criteria for membership; one includes eliminating a member having to be nominated or recommended by two other people within the existing organization.

This is a great step forward in the right direction, and one the Academy of Motion Picture and Sciences should be following. While BAFTA is working towards helping push the industry to be more inclusive, the Academy (Oscars) has a membership that consists of 23% female, 6% people of color, and a median age of 62. With last year’s boycott and “#Oscarssowhite” trend, it’s disappointing to see the Academy not making similar moves to BAFTA in order to allow more diversity and inclusivity. According to a 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report put out by UCLA, striking imbalances with race and gender in both film and television are shown to be ever present in the industry. This includes not only in front of the camera but as well as behind. The study finds across the board under-represented groups continuing to be undermined in the industry. While women are a little more than half of the United States population, only 6% directed theatrical films in 2013. From leading actors to show creators, men take up over 70% of each category and represent an overwhelming gap. The gap is bigger when you factor race with at least over 80% of white people dominating the major categories in 2013.

This isn’t a surprising poll to anyone who works in the industry, but it should be sending a message to people. While this gap exists, films with some type of diversity have the highest median in box offices globally. People like to see representation but because of how Hollywood exists currently, the barrier is still up. However, TV studios are slowly showing a trend of supporting shows with a more inclusive cast and showing a faster change in the TV industry over film. With shows like Luke Cage, Empire, Fresh off the Boat, and Jane The Virgin, TV is recognizing the need for representation and slowly changing. Reasons film might not be catching up is because of the higher associated risk to films being put out. There are steps in the right direction being made with BAFTA setting a new example, but there’s still a ways to go for representation to grow in the media we all consume. I encourage that anyone who hasn’t seen films like Moonlight and The Handmaiden to see them while still in theaters. Also, this is the Diversity Report for 2016.