BAFTA lacks diversity (in all sorts of ways) and goes all in on "Joker"
Tuesday, January 7, 2020 at 11:24AM by Nathaniel R
I've made it no secret over the years that I think BAFTA is the worst of the major awards organizations. They always appear to have watched an extremely limited pool of films (even less than Oscar's tunnel vision screener stack) and they regularly ignore British fare unless it's tipped to be hot at the Oscars (like 1917). This year is no different. They threw all their weight behind Joker (an astounding 11 nominations) and three of the films which feel like possibilities to win the Oscar for Best Picture: The Irishman, Once Upon a Time..., and 1917 (their one UK-produced love). Those four movies handily dominated the nomination count.
We also have to call bulls*** on BAFTA executives blaming the film industry for their lack of diverse nominations this year. Their acting nominees are all white this year and their directing nominees all male. They've responded saying:
"We'd have liked to have seen more diversity in the nominations, it does continue to be an industry-wide issue. I think more films need to be made, and entered, giving people a chance to see them. We'd absolutely like to see more diversity, but I also don't want to take away from those celebrating today."
As you all know, since I've been chastised for it before, I'm not always happy about where the complaints about diversity are focused. In some years the Oscar voters have been (I feel) wrongly targeted when there just weren't a lot of options for them. This year however there is no excuse as there are multiple lauded actors of color from films like Us, Dolemite is My Name, Waves, The Farewell, Luce, Harriet, Hustlers, and Parasite. And it's also been a great year for female directors given Little Women, Hustlers, Atlantics,A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and The Farewell.
The full list of nominations with commentary are after the jump...
BAFTA, Joker, precursor awards 
