diversity and the oscars: maybe next year

Just wanted to share this CNN article -- I think I'm quoted somewhere in it -- on the glaring lack of diversity in this year's Academy Award nominations, which were announced this week. Considering some of last year's landmark wins, the awards appear to have reverted back to the status quo, with no actors of color or women directors nominated: Where's the diversity at the Oscars?.

More focus has been put on actors of color and women this year because of their stellar performances last year. African-Americans snagged nine nominations last year and, in addition to Mo'Nique and Fletcher, Roger Ross Williams won the award for best documentary (short subject) for "Music by Prudence."

But historically far fewer meaty dramatic roles, which are beloved by the academy, have been written for or awarded to actors of color, and women behind the camera are greatly outnumbered by men.

"The stories that we would really like to tell usually don't get greenlit," said Rocky Seker, a former creative developer for a director with Sony Pictures and now a film curator who runs Invisible Woman ... Black Cinema at Large. "We're just not taken seriously. It's all a moneymaking issue."

The same analysis also applies to Asian Americans in the film industry, but on an even more severe level. I mean, I'm not even disappointed in this year's Oscar nominations because that would mean there was something I was hoping or expecting. But there were no Asians in major roles over the last year that I could bother hanging my hope on. That's the sad reality of it.