Oscars 2023: Academy allows Andrea Riseborough to keep her nomination

“In view of this review, it is clear that the components of the regulations must be clarified to help create a better framework for a respectful, inclusive, and unbiased campaign,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer said in a statement, adding that changes will be implemented after the conclusion of this awards cycle.

While Riseborough’s performance as a struggling alcoholic after winning the lottery in “To Leslie” drew critical acclaim, it didn’t make much of an impact on its own, Less than $28,000 during its limited theatrical run.

The 41-year-old English actress surprised the audience Receive a nomination for Best Actress Last week—along with Ana de Armas, Cate Blanchett, Michelle Williams, and Michelle Yeoh—that turned attention to the unusual push behind it.

Once voting for the Oscar nominations began, dozens of high-profile actors began sharing praise for the low-budget film and its groundbreaking performances on their personal social media accounts. Actress Mary McCormack, wife of “To Leslie” director Michael Morris, reportedly orchestrated much of the effort by personally encouraging people to watch and share their thoughts online.

Several posts contained similar language, including the now-circulating phrase describing “To Leslie” as “a little movie with a giant heart.” Ghouinith baltrow Post a photo on Instagram Of herself standing alongside Demi Moore, Morris and Riseborough, who she said “You have to win every prize out there and every one that hasn’t been invented yet.” Edward Norton Written in a rare publication wrote that Riseborough gave “the most committed, emotionally deep, and physically terrifying performance I’ve seen in a while.” (Although Norton previously mentioned Via an actor who didn’t post about the Oscars).

Blanchett, herself an Academy Award winner, even Riseborough gave a shout In her speech at the Critics’ Choice Awards.

Riseborough has worked steadily over the past two decades, appearing in the Oscar-winning black comedy “Birdman,” the political satirist “Stalin’s deathAnd many horror films. While the cast is often complimented by their peers in public arenas, posts about her performance in “To Leslie” increased significantly in the second week of January — just in time for the Oscar nominations voting period. Actress Frances Fisher has gone so far as to post multiple posts about Riseborough, simultaneously Addressing the representative branch of the academy Direct and write a detailed description of the voting process.

Dave Karger, TCM host and Entertainment Weekly Awards correspondent, said that while he believes the controversy surrounding Riseborough’s nomination was overblown, the Academy is “smart about this and understanding how social media changes the game.” Matthew Belloni, a former Hollywood Reporter managing editor who co-founded media company Puck, called the organization that reckons with Oscar campaigns in the age of social media the “biggest legacy” of the disaster.

“There’s a whole economy around the Oscars, and it all depends on the legitimacy of the awards,” Belloni said. “If this specter of nepotism taints the awards, that will have an effect on their legitimacy. This is something the Academy should be concerned about.”

Of course, he added, “There has been nepotism at the Academy Awards since literally the second year they gave it to me.”

The Academy has become more transparent about its internal workings since #Oscar So White Backlash in 2015, a year after the Board of Governors Declare your goal To double the number of “women and diverse members” of the Electoral College. Last year, the organization elected Janet Yang, who was Described in a press release at the time as “instrumental in launching and advancing many of the Academy’s initiatives on recruitment, governance, equity, diversity and inclusion”.

Much of the criticism of Riseborough’s candidacy has framed it as a pejorative against Viola Davis (“The King’s Woman”) and Daniel Didwiller (“until”), who were each nominated for major Precursor Awards. Many industry experts have argued that while the Academy certainly has a ways to go in terms of its recognition of black talent, this is a separate conversation from the one about Riseborough.

With all these high-profile awards broadcast and televised, even casual movie fans have become conditioned to [idea] “At a certain point, certain artists earn a spot in the Oscar race,” Karger said. These are all different voting bodies, and different people. Just because one person gets three other nominations doesn’t mean they automatically get a fourth.”

The Academy Awards use a ranked-selection voting system in which members of the Academy list the awards contenders in order of preference. This can allow for narrow margins between those who falter in the nomination and those who miss out. If the vast majority of voters classify either Blanchett (“tar”) or his classmate yoh (“Everything everywhere at onceAs their first choice for Best Actress, for example, the threshold for landing one of the three remaining slots was pretty low. With so few votes making the difference, there’s no guarantee that Davis or Deadwyler would finish sixth; Riseborough could have been “knocked out.” Contenders like Olivia Colman (“The Empire of Light”) or Jennifer Lawrence (“bridge“).

In some ways, Riseborough has become a scapegoat for the failures of the Academy itself, as suggested by Melissa Silverstein, founder of Women and Hollywood, an initiative that advocates for gender diversity and inclusion in the entertainment industry. Silverstein described Riseborough as an actress who “has worked for decades below the surface of the appreciation she deserves,” and said it was unfortunate that the situation occurred “in a year with incredibly unusual black women in leading roles.”

In an ideal world, according to Silverstein, there would be room for more actresses to be recognized.

She said, “It’s a multimillion-dollar game, and we’re all a part of it.”