BAFTA Film Awards Faces Backlash For All-White Winners

The BAFTA Film Awards are often considered Britain’s version of the Oscars. However, the prestigious award ceremony is facing backlash online. It appears that every award winner at the ceremony happens to be white – despite a diverse number of nominees.

Many social media users are disappointed with this outcome. As you can see below, they’ve expressed their disapproval for the BAFTA Film Awards and the fact that they had all-white winners. Specifically, all 49 winners across every category is white.

Here are some of the social media responses:

Here are the winners of the 2023 BAFTAs. The black woman is a presenter. Not even Oscar/GoldenGlobe winners Michelle Yeoh, Angela Basset, Viola Davis or Ke Huy Quan could break through. All judging systems have biases but this is broken.

I’m not proud to be a BAFTA member today. pic.twitter.com/3A2IGewjHh

— Del @ NaughtyDog (@TheCartelDel) February 19, 2023

Love the diversity with this year’s BAFTA winners. American, Australian, Irish, blonde, brunette… pic.twitter.com/GAWeu6qA0B

— Mike (@michaelcollado) February 19, 2023

That every BAFTA winner is White is NOT shocking. Its intentional to exclude and discriminate. So very…British. #BAFTAsowhite #BAFTA2023 @BAFTA pic.twitter.com/OIUdSDSntA

— Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu (@SholaMos1) February 20, 2023

There’s a sense that representative noms shows the system is working better. That everyone then is on a level playing field. BUT you can’t look at last night’s winners pic and say that the very best work in film the last year has exclusively/only been done by those who are white

— Terri White (@Terri_White) February 20, 2023

I watched clips of the #BAFTAS and didn’t see a single black or brown person win
Not because they’e not white but because they’re good, really good and the best. In so many categories.
Overlooked and ignored time & again
So depressing
Unconscious bias & systemic#BaftasSoWhite

— Saima Mohsin (@SaimaMohsin) February 20, 2023

Disappointed!! I’ve felt this deep pain in the pit of my stomach of late, as I’m seeing the #film industry behind the scenes and the supremacy that it flaunts in my face so much, day by day, so it’s not a surprising result, but in 2023, it is deeply regressive and uncalled for ↓ https://t.co/j9aT8ZHcKW

— A$hanti OMkar ௐ London, She | Her, Film, TV Critic (@AshantiOmkar) February 19, 2023

All of yesterday’s #EEBAFTAs winners are white people, is that correct?

— Nadine White. (@Nadine_Writes) February 20, 2023

As noted via BBC, the director of consultancy at the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, Marcus Ryder, stated that the results were “quite depressing.” This is because – for the past ten years – they’ve been trying to create a more diverse outcome for the awards ceremony. This included a “massive overhaul” which included “120 changes to the Bafta award processes” and “1,000 new members from under-represented groups.”

“Ten years ago, in 2013, Lenny Henry made headlines at the TV Baftas when he labelled it as ‘All white on the night’,” he said.

“And depressingly, despite a massive overhaul, on which I and many other industry people were consulted and which resulted in 120 changes to the Bafta award processes, 1,000 new members from under-represented groups etc, the end result is there is no substantial change.”

Though Ryder adds that this is “just the tip of the iceberg” and that the entire film industry “suffers from systemic racism.”

As of this writing, the BAFTA organization has yet to comment regarding the lack of diversity with this year’s winners. However, as further mentioned by BBC, BAFTA “noted the reforms introduced in 2020. They included adding more voters with a focus on under-represented groups, and making voters see all longlisted films in the categories for which they vote.” As such, one might wonder how the ceremony still failed to include anyone of color as a winner. Dr. Clive Nwonka offered the following explanation:

I take no pleasure in pointing back to this @nytimes article from less than 2 days ago. Anyone expecting an instant, continued and sequential flow of racial difference across the @BAFTA awards needs a much more sophisticated understanding of how the politics of diversity works. https://t.co/6R8rbn2tgs

— Clive Nwonka (@CJNwonka) February 19, 2023

We’ll have to see, then, whether or not more diverse winners will come into the spotlight in the near future. For now, however, it looks like people will have to continue pushing for diversity and some amount of fairness with these ceremonies.

BAFTA Film Awards Faces Backlash For All-White Winners
Source: Breaking Update News