'Black Panther' and 'The Walking Dead' Star Danai Gurira Joins the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Black Panther and The Walking Dead star Danai Gurira has been invited to join the Academy of [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Black Panther and The Walking Dead star Danai Gurira has been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Academy, best known as the group that organizes and votes on the Academy Awards ("The Oscars"), sent out more invitations this year than ever before in an attempt to answer concerns that it had stagnated, occupied primarily by older, white, male members.

This year's push toward a more inclusive Academy included a majority of female invitees for the first time, including Gurira, Mindy Kaling, and many more. It also skewed younger and more minority-friendly than in past years, with candidates like Kendrick Lamar invited to participate.

After this year's class, 31% of the Academy will be made up of women, and 16% will be people of color. That last statistic is particularly notable in that it has doubled in the past three years, according to Variety.

In 2016, Ryan Coogler's Creed won or was nominated for almost every major award, but was shut out of the Academy Awards almost entirely. That fed into a conversation about the myopic point of view of the Academy that has been getting louder and louder for years. This year, as the Academy moves to diversify, Coogler's Black Panther remains in the conversation for numerous Academy Awards -- an accomplishment which would distinguish it from Marvel's other big critical and commercial hits, were it to happen.

Diversity is not limited to race or gender, either; some below-the-line talent who had historically not been well-represented are getting more invites as a result of these conscious efforts to make the Academy more representative of the film industry at large. That same Variety article quoted a location director as being thrilled at the prospect of more people with her job description being invited to sit on American film's most prestigious board.

The Academy itself -- with over 900 invitations sent out this year -- is likely to continue this trend of diversity through expansion rather than attrition, resulting in a group that is not only more inclusive but overall larger, with Variety speculating that it will soon be roughly double its size from just a decade ago.

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