Ever since the USA started calling for diversity and representation, the Academy has been pretty cautious. It is the same Academy that booed an American Indian actress because she was talking about the deliberate vilification of her ethnicity in Hollywood. Not long back in 2016, there was a whole campaign that talked about “Oscars So White”.
Those are gone by days and the Academy has done so many things to whitewash themselves from those allegations. What did they do?
They made rules that literally forced inclusion. So there are more campaigns going on that say “Oscars So Woke”. Another proof of the fact that one can never really make everyone happy.
Regardless, the Oscars have been trying really hard to look diverse and that is the reason you see films like RRR and Parasite winning the awards. It’s not like Indian and Korean cinema rarely made good films, it’s just that before these campaigns, Asian films were downright thrown into the trash.
So, The Academy has invited 11 Indians to be a part of themselves. Who are they?
Legendary Indian actress Shabana Azmi, our very own SS Rajamouli and also surprising is the fact that producer Ritesh Sidhwani of Excel Entertainment is on the list.
Apart from them,
1. Ravi Varman (Cinematographer: PS II)
2. Rama Rajamouli (Costume Designer: RRR)
3. Sheetal Sharma (Costume Designer: Gangubai Kathiyawadi)
4. Rima Das (Director: Village Rockstars)
5. Nisha Pahuja (Documentary: To Kill a Tiger)
6. Hemal Trivedi (Documentary: Saving Face)
7. Gitesh Pandya (PR and Marketing)
8. Prem Rakshith (Production Technology)