2023 marks the first time ever that Oscar nominations have recognised two Asian American actors in a major category – Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
Stephanie Hsu was nominated for playing Jobu Topaki in Everything, Everywhere All At Once which, incidentally, was recognised in every major category in this year’s Academy Awards. And Hong Chau was nominated for her supporting role in The Whale, for which Brendan Fraser also collected a nod in the Best Actor category.
The Academy Awards – and Awards season in general – has long been criticised for a lack of diversity among its nominees. But in recent years we’ve seen an increase in film professionals from non-white – and specifically Asian - backgrounds. Remember when actress Yuh-Jung Youn took home the award in the category in 2021, the only Asian-American actress to do so since 1957? Or when Bong Joon-ho and Kwak Sin-ae’s Parasite made history in 2020 for totally sweeping the board?
This year has been a major year for Asian cinema, with not only two nominations in the Best Supporting Actress category but also the first ever for Best Actress in the form of Malaysian actor Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Quan Wang in Everything, Everywhere All At Once (for which she took home the Golden Globe for the same category, spawning THAT viral Jamie-Lee Curtis moment). In fact, this year’s Best Supporting Actress nominations are some of the most diverse we’ve seen, with Angela Basset tipped to take home the award for her role as Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
But what this year’s Oscars makes up for in some categories, it lacks in others. Just like the Golden Globes earlier this month, the Academy Awards failed to nominate a single woman in its Best Director category and only one non-white director among the six to receive a nod (Daniel Kwan was co-nominated alongside Daniel Scheinert for Everything, Everywhere).
Elsewhere, Women Talking, Sarah Polley’s dramatisation of Miriam Toews' 2018 novel about brutal rapes in an isolated religious community acted as, almost literally, the token female voice among the many, varied stories about and told by men. In 2023 we know that women writers and directors can tell stories beyond the experience of female trauma, but the lack of female representation elsewhere in the Academy’s nominations suggest we may have gone backwards.
While the path to a truly diverse and representative Hollywood is undoubtedly beginning to be forged, it’s evident from the awards landscape of the past few years that, at least for now, it’s not going to be a linear one. As governing bodies and nominators continue to cherry-pick who deserves recognition and who does not, they should beware the trap of tokenism and strive instead for genuine inclusivity.