This year’s Oscar presenters are more diverse than in the past five years, a review by TheWrap has found.
The Academy has announced 42 presenters in advance of this Sunday’s ceremony, with 15 of them people of color. That means that 35.7 percent of the total numbers of presenters are minorities — up from the previous years. (It’s possible those figures could change with any surprise presenters who were not included in pre-show announcements.)
In 2015, there were 14 non-white people presenting an award with the total number of presenters amounting to 44, so the percentage of representation of people of color was 31 percent. The year before, it was 23 percent.
In 2013, only 15 percent of the total number of presenters were non-white. However, in the previous year, people of color accounted for 19 percent of the total numbers of presenters. Out of 31 presenters, 6 were of color.
The numbers in diverse presenters have significantly increased since the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite started trending after the nominations were announced for the Oscars in 2015. April Reign, the creator of the hashtag, noticed that no person of color was nominated in any category, so she started a hashtag that would go viral, and that would resurface when the Academy failed to nominate a single person of color for the second year in a row.
The Academy is hoping to increase the number of women and diverse members of AMPAS by 2020, according to a statement that announced what it referred to as “a sweeping series of substantive changes” to its rules on January 22.
See the increase in diverse Oscar presenters below.
