Oscars not quite as white; historic year for AAPI filmmakers

For the first time, two directors of Asian descent will compete in the Best Actor category:
Lee Isaac Chung for "Minari" and Chloe Zhao for "Nomadland."

So this is what happens when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts invites more people of color to join: The movie industry's premiere awards, the Oscars, starts to reflect the real America.

This is especially true for AAPI artists and projects. Whether or not they win in their respective categories or not, the sheer number and firsts make this year's Academy Awards one for the history books. For the first time, two Asians have been nominated in the Best Director category and two actors of Asian descent name been nominated as Best Actors.

Isaac Lee Chung and Chloe Zhao were nominated as Best Directors, as were their movies, Minari and Nomadland, respectively, named in the Best Picture catetgory. It's the first time two directors of Asian descent were named. 

Zhao, fresh off her Best Picture win in the Golden Globes, also made history as the first Asian woman nominated in the director category. She has to be the early favorite to repeat her win for the Academy Awards.

"I’m grateful to have gone on this journey with our talented team of filmmakers and to have met so many wonderful people who generously shared their stories with us," Zhao told Variety. "Thank you so much to my Academy peers for recognizing this film that is very close to my heart.” 

For the first time, there will be two Asians in the Best Actor Category: Korean American Steven Yeun for his role of quiet but determined ambition as the Korean American immigrant father in Minari; and Riz Ahmed, a Pakistani Brit, for his emotional portrayal of the drummer losing his hearing in Sound of Metal.

Riz Ahmed and Steven Yeun were nominated for Best Actor Oscars.

Minari scored another win as Yuh-Jung Youn, who plays the feisty grandmother, was nominated as Best Supporting Actress.

“Never in my dreams did I ever think a Korean actress would be nominated for an Oscar, and I can’t believe it’s me!," Youn told Variety. 

Minari's director and writer Isaac Lee Chung, who partially based the film on his own story, was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. The motion picture was also nominated for Best Original Score, by Emile Mosseri.

Zhao's writing was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for Nomadland, which was adapted from the Jessica Bruder novel, "Nomadland: Surviving American in the Twenty-FIrst Century."

The Adapted Screenplay will also feature White Tiger, a rags-to-riches story shot in India and produced by Priyanka Chopra and her husband Nick Jonas.

The Filipino American R&B singer and songwriter H.E.R. had her song, "Fight For You" from the film Judas and the Black Messiah nominated for Best Song.

In the animated feature category, Over the Moon, based on a Chinese myth and featuring an all-Asian voice cast, earned a nomination.

Mulan, the live-action Disney film featuring an all-Asian and Asian American case and  based on the Chinese legend of the woman warrior, was nominated in a couple of categories, Best Costume Design and Best Visual Effects.

The nominations for Asian and Asian American projects along with the plethora of Black actors and projects nominated for an Oscar is a marked change in the past. Only a few years ago, the Oscars was derided for nominating only white actors resulting in the infamous #OscarsSoWhite hashtag.

Efforts by the Academy to diversify its selection process by inviting more movie-making individuals in front of and behind the camera to become members may be showing up in the nominations this year.

Whether or not the increased inclusion of people and perspectives other than the still-powerful white view is simply a temporary fad or a permanent trend will depend on next year, and the next and the next.

Hollywood is starting to realize that there is a wealth of material and talent outside of the traditional white bubble of the past. The fact that a majority of the movie-going audience are primarily made up of people of color helps the bottom-line, too is not lost on the profit-motivated industry.