Oscars 2023: Everything Everywhere All at Once star Michelle Yeoh wins best actress, sparking hopeful discussions about diversity at the Oscars.

Oscars 2023

The 95th Oscars Ceremony marks move towards better inclusion following #OscarsSoWhite. Photo: Sky News

This year’s awards ceremony has marked a groundbreaking change for the long stigmatized event in terms of diversity and inclusion. Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh won leading role, becoming the first ever Asian woman to win in this category of the Oscars. Ke Huy Quan also received the supporting role actor award. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert won awards as Directors of the movie. Their acceptance speeches were heart-warming and brought some people to tears. Their show received seven awards overall.

Despite the increase of Asian appearances onscreen, data shows representation is still dwindling, with only 4.6% of Asian people in total onscreen in 2021, which has increased from the previous year by only one percent. Alongside this disproportionately small percentage, the characters on screen tend to portray the same values.

Cintia spoke to residents in Falmouth to see what they thought of this year’s Oscars regarding representation:

Cintia:  What word would you use to sum up this year’s Oscars?

Patricia: “Historic!”

Cintia: What do you think of the winners?

Patricia: “With Michelle Yeoh winning… It was needed… She’s finally getting her recognition after years of working in this industry which is amazing. With Jamie Lee Curtis’ Oscar, she deserved it because of the many other roles she played but not for the role she won it for.”

Amy: “I think it’s good that the Oscars seems to be making moves to be more equal and inclusive.”

Lizzie: “I love Jamie Lee Curtis but she should not have got best supporting actor.”

The Academy President, Janet Yang, says that new diversity rules next year (2024) would not eliminate any films from winning. Following the #OscarsSoWhite dispute, there has been a massive amount of pressure on the Academy to improve diversity and inclusion. The new rules will require film studios to satisfy certain criteria like ensuring a third of the cast is from “an underrepresented group” or that 30% of crew are from diverse racial or ethnic groups.

There has been controversy over this year’s winners, with people sharing their views under the posts of @TheAcademy.

On a lighter note, you can also listen to this audio piece asking women of all ages who their celebrity idols are as it’s Women’s History Month;