Abstract
When Sidney Poitier won the Best Actor Oscar for Lillies of the Field in 1963, minority actors and filmmakers had much reason to be hopeful about the future. But, in 2016, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences fielded only white nominees for all the acting categories, it shined a spotlight on the limited progress made by Hollywood in addressing racial inequities (popularized by the “OscarsSoWhite” hashtag on social media). Notably, over the entire history of the Oscars, actors of color have received only 6.2% of the nominations and won a measly 7.8% of the awards—far below their share of the population.