Every Best Picture Winner Clears Academy DEI Standards
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- The Academy's Representation and Inclusion Standards require films to meet two of four benchmarks — on-screen representation (A), creative team composition (B), distributor-paid apprenticeships (C), and distributor leadership diversity (D) — and every one of the 98 Best Picture winners from 1929's 'Wings' through 2025's 'One Battle After Another' clears at least two, the columnist's audit found.
- Elon Musk spent the week attacking 'The Odyssey' on X, claiming Nolan 'desecrated' the film to qualify for Academy Awards and asking 'who specifically is the asshole who added DEI lies to Academy Awards eligibility instead of it just being about making the best movie.'
- Andy Samberg predicted this exact backlash on the Variety Awards Circuit podcast in November 2020, two months after the standards were announced, saying they were loose enough that 'you can have the whitest cast in the history of cinema and still very easily meet them by just doing a few key roles behind the camera.'
- Standards C and D are scored once per distribution company and applied to every film it releases — Netflix clearing them means 'Roma,' 'Mank,' and 'Don't Look Up' all clear them, the same way Warner Bros. clears them for 'Casablanca' and 'Barbie' alike, the columnist explains.
- Lupita Nyong'o was cast as Helen of Troy in 'The Odyssey,' and the columnist argues the casting — not the eligibility rules — is what's actually driving Musk's attacks, noting Musk amplified troll posts questioning whether Nyong'o is 'the most beautiful woman in the world' and mocked her co-star Elliot Page.
- Even Matt Walsh's 'Am I Racist?' appeared on the Academy's 2024 'Reminder List' of every film that meets the standards, and the columnist notes a Richard Dreyfuss-style 'Black face' Othello would also qualify.
- Films routinely invoked as evidence Hollywood 'lost its mind' — including 'Schindler's List,' 'Titanic,' 'The Departed,' 'Spotlight,' and 'Oppenheimer' — all clear the standards 'with flying colors,' and the columnist notes Wendy Finerman, Thelma Schoonmaker, Deborah Lynn Scott, and Emma Thomas won best-picture credits years before the 2024 rules took effect.
Why it matters: Musk's critique, amplified to his X following, frames the Academy's standards as gatekeeping classic cinema — but a case-by-case audit of all 98 Best Picture winners shows every one would still qualify, suggesting the dispute is really about Nyong'o's casting as Helen of Troy rather than the eligibility paperwork. The columnist notes Musk has until at least July 18 to tweet his actual opinion of the film, since 'The Odyssey' doesn't open until the day before.
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