Hollywood diversity campaigner and #OscarsSoWhite creator on forcing change in the movie business
- April Reign’s 2015 viral hashtag that became a universal call for more diversity at the Oscars and in Hollywood is more relevant than ever today
- Other notable social media campaigns including #MeToo and #PayUpHollywood show how going viral could be the best way to make change happen in the film industry
April Reign remembers precisely where she was in January 2015 when she launched the #OscarsSoWhite movement with a simple, offhand tweet.
“I’d love to have a sexy story that I was sitting in a board room ideating and strategising,” she says. “But no – I was half-dressed in my family room, to be very frank. I picked up my phone and wrote, ‘#OscarsSoWhite they asked to touch my hair.’ That was it.”
Within hours, the tweet – sent from Washington, as Reign followed the Oscar nominations announcement over breakfast and realised all 20 best actor nominees were white – had gone viral worldwide.
But the hashtag made an unwelcome return to Twitter last month as the 2020 Oscar shortlists were announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Cynthia Erivo was the only non-white actress to earn a nomination, for anti-slavery biopic Harriet. All of the male acting nominees were white.