In the wake of Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith announcing they will not be attending this year's Oscars, Cheryl Boone Isaacs says she was "heartbroken and frustrated" by the nominations, which did not include any performers of color. 
 
 Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, on Monday issued a lengthy statement on the lack of diversity in this year's Oscar nominations, which has become the subject of mounting criticism. 
 
 "I’d like to acknowledge the wonderful work of this year’s nominees," she said. "While we celebrate their extraordinary achievements, I am both heartbroken and frustrated about the lack of inclusion. This is a difficult but important conversation, and it’s time for big changes. 
 
 "The Academy is taking dramatic steps to alter the makeup of our membership. In the coming days and weeks we will conduct a review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond," Boone Isaacs said in what amounted to a rare and unusual move on the part of the Academy. 
 
 "As many of you know," she continued, "we have implemented changes to diversify our membership in the last four years. But the change is not coming as fast as we would like. We need to do more, and better and more quickly." 
 
 "This isn’t unprecedented for the Academy," added Boone Isaacs. "In the ‘60s and ‘70s, it was about recruiting younger members to stay vital and relevant. In 2016, the mandate is inclusion in all of its facets: gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. We recognize the very real concerns of our community, and I so appreciate all of you who have reached out to me in our effort to move forward together." 
 
 Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter earlier Monday evening just before she was honored with the Rosa Parks Humanitarian Award at the King Legacy Awards, presented at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Los Angeles, Boone Isaacs said that “there’s been enough conversation” and that it is time for the entertainment industry to take action to improve diversity. 
 
 She said that she was “disappointed” that, for the second year in a row, the Oscar nominations, announced last week, failed to include any performers of color. Academy CEO Dawn Hudson, who was also in attendance, added that she was "devastated" by the nominations. 
 
 The Academy again finds itself the focus of criticism over the lack of opportunities for minorities within the film industry. Earlier on Monday, Spike Lee, who received an honorary Oscar from the Academy at its Board of Governors Awards in November, announced in an Instagram post that he and his wife Tonya Lewis Lee “cannot support it” and would not attend the upcoming Oscars on Feb. 28. 
 
 "Mean No Disrespect To My Friends, Host Chris Rock and Producer Reggie Hudlin, President Isaacs And The Academy," Lee wrote. "But, How Is It Possible For The 2nd Consecutive Year All 20 Contenders Under The Actor Category Are White? And Let's Not Even Get Into The Other Branches. 40 White Actors In 2 Years And No Flava At All. We Can't Act?! WTF!!" 
 
 The Academy president said she had not heard from Lee about his decision, but that she remained a strong supporter of his in general. 
 
 Boone Isaacs, who is African-American, said she herself has experienced racism, but declined to go into detail. 
 
 At the same time, she said even if it is the industry that is to blame for not creating more diverse product, it would be wrong for the Academy to avoid responsibility in a year when there has been at least a handful of movies with actors of color that she found worthy of nomination. 
 
 'There've been four or five wonderful movies,' she said, citing Lee’s own Chi-Raq, Concussion, Creed, Beasts of No Nation and Straight Outta Compton. 
 
 Boone Isaacs noted that the Academy has formed a committee, made up of members of the industry, to explore how to improve diversity. She announced earlier at the Governors Awards that the Academy is developing a five-year plan called A2020 with an eye toward improving diversity within the Academy itself and the industry at large. ||||| The backlash against this year's Academy Award nominations escalated Monday with announcements by director Spike Lee and actress Jada Pinkett Smith that they would boycott the Feb. 28 Oscars ceremony, citing the absence of people of color in all four acting categories for the second year in a row. 
 
 If other prominent entertainment industry figures join the boycott, it has the potential to spoil Hollywood's annual showcase event. And should large numbers of African American viewers tune out, it could dent ratings for the Oscars telecast — the primary source of revenue for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 
 
 "It has such high ratings most years, so the image of Hollywood that the academy presents is at stake," said Ana-Christina Ramón, assistant director and associate researcher at UCLA's Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies. 
 
 Could this be the beginning of a larger boycott? Join the conversation on Facebook >> 
 
 Ramon noted that the academy strives to present an image of diversity, an image that could be jeopardized by a boycott. 
 
 "People will take notice," she said. "Even when they're not nominated, minority actors are trotted out. They try to show diversity among presenters." 
 
 "I am both heartbroken and frustrated about the lack of inclusion," academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs said in a statement released Monday night. "This is a difficult but important conversation, and it's time for big change." 
 
 She added that the academy would be taking "dramatic steps" to alter the makeup of its membership and to accelerate diversity efforts. 
 
 A statement from Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs pic.twitter.com/Nqhgc7sbqG — The Academy (@TheAcademy) January 19, 2016 
 
 Lee's decision to skip the Oscars had an extra sting because the academy recently bestowed the director with an honorary Oscar in November for his career work, which includes such racially charged movies as "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X." 
 
 It's customary for honorary Oscar winners to attend Hollywood's biggest night at the Dolby Theatre and to receive a moment of recognition during the telecast. But in a message posted to on his Instagram account, the outspoken director said that he and his wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, won't be at the ceremony. Lee demanded to know "how is it possible for the [second] consecutive year all 20 contenders in the acting category are white?" 
 
 He added: "For too many years when the Oscars nominations are revealed, my office phone rings off the hook with the media asking me my opinion about the lack of African-Americans and this year was no different." 
 
 His announcement came shortly after a Facebook video from Pinkett Smith in which the actress said she would not attend or watch the Oscars this year. Pinkett Smith, wife of "Concussion" actor Will Smith, said the academy has the right to acknowledge and invite whomever it chooses, but leaving black actors "begging for acknowledgment" diminishes the community. "We are a dignified people," she said. 
 
 We must stand in our power! We must stand in our power. Posted by Jada Pinkett Smith on Monday, January 18, 2016 
 
 Will Smith, who doesn't appear in the video, wasn't nominated for "Concussion." 
 
 Even with Chris Rock lined up as host, the announcement Thursday of the Academy Award nominations saw the return of the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite on Twitter as people expressed their anger. 
 
 The academy announced its nominations last week, and all of the 20 nominees in the acting categories were white for a second year in a row. In addition to Will Smith, other minority actors whose work drew plaudits include Samuel L. Jackson of "The Hateful Eight," Idris Elba of "Beasts of No Nation" and Michael B. Jordan of "Creed." 
 
 The film "Straight Outta Compton," a fan and critical favorite with an African American cast and director, was also bypassed for a best picture nomination. 
 
 Lee's Instagram message said that he "means no disrespect" to Oscars host Rock and producer Reginald Hudlin or to academy President Boone Isaacs. 
 
 He said the root of the problem lies in the industry's failure to give people of color more opportunities to make films. 
 
 "As I see it," the New York-based director wrote, "the Academy Awards is not where the 'real'' battle is. It's in the executive office of the Hollywood studios and TV and cable networks. This is where the gate keepers decide what gets made and what gets jettisoned to 'turnaround' or [the] scrap heap." 
 
 Through a representative, Lee declined to comment beyond his Instagram post. 
 
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 The Bunche Center at UCLA releases an annual report on diversity in Hollywood. Its most recent study, released last year, reported that film studio heads were 94% white and all male and that film studio senior management was 92% white and 83% male. 
 
 The boycotts by Lee and Pinkett Smith are a "good thing because it draws more attention to the issue," the center's director, professor Darnell Hunt, said Monday. "To have prominent figures … to go on the record to lodge their outrage with business as usual keeps it in the conversation." 
 
 Last year, the #oscarssowhite hashtag took off after David Oyelowo was snubbed for his turn as Martin Luther King Jr. in "Selma," and the film's director, Ava DuVernay, also failed to score a nomination. The last time a black actor won an Academy Award was when Lupita Nyong'o took home a supporting actress statuette for "12 Years a Slave," released in 2013. 
 
 In his movies, Lee has frequently addressed the issue of racial unrest in contemporary urban society. 
 
 MORE: Oscars 2016: It's time for Hollywood to stop defining great drama as white men battling adversity 
 
 He received a screenwriting Oscar nomination for "Do the Right Thing," his 1989 movie that explored seething resentments between blacks and Italian Americans in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. 
 
 His second nomination was for the 1997 documentary "4 Little Girls," about the deaths of four young black girls during the bombing of a Baptist church in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. 
 
 Despite these nominations, Lee has never won a competitive Oscar. His latest feature, "Chi-Raq," earned the director his best reviews in years when it opened in December but failed to generate much awards-season buzz. 
 
 No stranger to controversy, Lee has garnered a reputation for sparing few feelings when it comes to race. He has taken aim at other filmmakers, including Clint Eastwood and Quentin Tarantino, for their cinematic depiction of blacks. 
 
 When accepting his honorary Oscar in November, he gave a speech that was critical of the studios and spoke about the lack of black executives in positions of power in Hollywood. 
 
 He later told The Times that "I get tired of [the conversation about diversity], but it's necessary." 
 
 Twitter: @DavidNgLAT 
 
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 #OscarsSoWhite creator on Oscar noms: 'Don't tell me that people of color, women cannot fill seats' ||||| Immediate reaction within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to president Cheryl Boone Isaacs’ statement promising “dramatic steps” to increase diversity ranged from skepticism that AMPAS could make real changes to enthusiasm over the idea of diversity as a true Oscars priority. 
 
 But most members surveyed by TheWrap applauded Isaacs’ comments, in which she described herself as “heartbroken and frustrated” over the nominations that excluded many potential black nominees. 
 
 And Isaacs was not even the first Academy official to issue a call for diversity on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day — she was just the first to do so publicly. 
 
 Also Read: Oscars 'Heartbroken' Over Lack of Diversity, Academy Pledges 'Big Changes' 
 
 Early in the day, according to members who spoke to TheWrap, screenwriter Phil Alden Robinson, a member of the Academy’s Board of Governors and the board’s secretary, sent an email to other members and governors urging that each branch make a major push for increased diversity. 
 
 Robinson called on governors to examine the membership requirements within their branches with an eye to bringing in more minority members, and also encouraged them to identify existing minority members within their branch who would be willing to run for office to make the board more diverse. 
 
 Isaacs is currently the only African-American member of the Board of Governors, and one of only 17 women on the 51-member board. She issued her statement after a public outcry over the failure of Academy voters to nominate any non-white acting nominees for the second consecutive year. 
 
 Also Read: Oscar Nominations Renew #OscarsSoWhite Backlash 
 
 Among the African-American performers who were overlooked in Oscars nominations: Michael B. Jordan for “Creed,” Idris Elba for “Beasts of No Nation,” Will Smith for “Concussion” and the cast of “Straight Outta Compton,” which was nominated for screenplay by the Writers Branch (typically the most adventurous AMPAS branch) but left out of the Best Picture and acting races. 
 
 “They’re not embarrassed today,” one Academy member and former governor said. “They’re disgusted.” 
 
 The steps urged by Robinson could be part and parcel of the campaign described by Isaacs, which focuses on the invitations to membership that will be sent out in the spring of this year. 
 
 “The Academy is taking dramatic steps to alter the makeup of our membership,” she wrote. “In the coming days and weeks we will conduct a review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond.” 
 
 Also Read: Nina Simone Sings a Song for MLK in Trailer for Netflix Doc (Exclusive Video) 
 
 That emphasis dovetailed with the opinion of one member who supported Isaacs’ statements and told TheWrap: “The problem is not the nominations. It’s the makeup of the Academy, and more than that the makeup of Hollywood.” 
 
 But other members were skeptical of the organization’s ability to truly change the makeup or biases of the Academy, which includes almost 6,300 voting members. “Any way you slice it, it’s a knee-jerk reaction,” one member said, who believed the way to increase the diversity of nominations would be to expand the Best Picture field to 10 (which would presumably have included “Straight Outta Compton”) or turn the nomination voting over to select committees instead of the general membership, the way the Television Academy handles Emmy nominations. 
 
 With Isaacs’ statement focusing entirely on the admission of members later this year, it raises the question of whether an organization the size of the Academy can be changed significantly just through an influx of new members. Many AMPAS-watchers have suggested that any real Academy makeover would have to also include purging the voting rolls of older members who have not worked in the movie industry in years or even decades. 
 
 Also Read: Black Hollywood Calls Out Oscars for Lack of Diversity: It's 'Embarrassing' 
 
 That, however, would be a huge step that would likely anger an enormous number of members, and one that Isaacs’ statement does not address. 
 
 “There’s an argument to be made that you should have to be an active participant in the industry in order to be eligible to vote,” one member said. “But eliminating voting members would require a massive bylaws change.” 
 
 Added the member, “The irony is, if Hollywood is not open to diversity, then we’re in real trouble as a country, because Hollywood is supposed to be liberal and open.” 
 
 14 Award-Worthy Performances by Non-White Actors the Academy Overlooked (Photos) 
 
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 The Weinstein Company Open Road Previous Slide Next Slide From Idris Elba in “Beasts of No Nation” to Mya Taylor in “Tangerine,” these roles prove the Oscars needn’t be so white 1 of 15 ||||| "Straight Outta Compton" director F. Gary Gray (left) and actor O'Shea Jackson Jr. (right) pose with actor Anthony Anderson (center) after "Compton" won Outstanding Motion Picture at the 47th NAACP Image Awards in Pasadena, Calif., earlier this month. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) 
 
 When film director Rod Lurie ran into some fellow Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members last month at a deli in Studio City — Hollywood veterans who, like him, would help decide the Oscar nominees for “Best Picture” — talk turned to “Straight Outta Compton,” the highest-grossing movie from a black director in history. 
 
 Lurie thought it was one of the year’s best movies. But the other members — all white men, aged 70 and up — hadn’t voted for it; in fact, they hadn’t even seen it. Only one man had tried watching it, but stopped partway through, waving off the critically acclaimed rap biopic as “too loud.” 
 
 Those men selected American film’s highest honor alongside a group that looks almost exactly like themselves — the academy’s directors branch. Composed of Lurie and many of the nation’s most celebrated filmmakers, the group is 89 percent male and 84 percent white, and roughly half are 60 or older, a Washington Post analysis found. 
 
 “The truth is, those academy members will watch movies that deal with the heroism of the African-American community or the history of blacks, like ‘12 Years a Slave,’ because that interests them,” said Lurie, an Israeli-American director whose work includes “The Contender” and AMC’s “Hell on Wheels.” “What doesn’t interest them is the current black experience or black culture. A movie like ‘Straight Outta Compton’ doesn’t stand a chance.” 
 
 The anger that has again enveloped the Oscars, known through the social-media movement #OscarsSoWhite, has largely focused on the award show’s startling on-screen sameness of age, gender and race: All 20 Oscar acting nominations, for instance, have gone to white actors for two years in a row. 
 
 Three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep said her "We're all Africans" comment that she made at the Berlin Film Festival was misconstrued. Backlash over her comments came amid an uproar in Hollywood over this year's all-white Oscar acting nominees for a second consecutive year. (Reuters) 
 
 But academy members say the movie industry’s toughest, most important challenge starts not with the academy, but with Hollywood itself, in the director’s chairs and corner offices of a risk-averse business that rewards old relationships, thrives on replication — and often blocks diverse talent out. 
 
 [Diverse movies are a huge business. Why doesn’t Hollywood make more?] 
 
 The full roster of the roughly 6,200 members in the academy’s 17 branches — for writers, casting directors, visual-effects artists and other specialties — is a guarded secret, and the academy has shared no data on the diversity of its membership, even as it calls for sweeping reforms. 
 
 But by crunching data on academy notices, crowd-sourced databases, private archives and other sources, The Post analyzed the two branches that wield the strongest influence on the nation’s cinema: the directors, whose members preside over America’s most prominent film stories, casts and crews; and the executives, whose studio chiefs, executive producers, investors and movie moguls make the financial decisions that keep Hollywood alive. 
 
 The data reveals a staggering lack of diversity among Hollywood’s top ranks: About 96 percent of the more than 450 members in the executives branch are white and 87 percent are men, The Post found. The average member is retirement age, just over 65. 
 
 While people of color compose 37 percent of the United States and bought 46 percent of the movie tickets sold here in 2014, they are a small fraction of America’s most rewarded directors: Of the branch’s roughly 400 members, 6 percent are Hispanic, 5 percent are black and 4 percent are Asian, The Post found. 
 
 Few if any of these white, male academy members will walk onstage at the glitzy Feb. 28 awards show in Los Angeles. But they wield unmistakable power behind the scenes, by deciding which projects get funded, which actors get cast — and which stories get ignored. 
 
 [In Hollywood, must ‘white’ always equal ‘universal’?] 
 
 If the American film industry truly hopes to be more inclusive, members said, this is where it’d need to start: By encouraging movie and business leaders to film or fund a more diverse range of stars, storytellers and ideas. But the branches’ overwhelming homogeneity shows how slow the industry has been to evolve — and how much work still needs to be done. 
 
 “The heart of the problem isn’t who gets nominated. The heart of the problem is how the industry works,” said academy member Jennifer Warren, a director, actress and founding member of the Alliance of Women Directors. “The academy is a microcosm of the industry, and it (shows) benign neglect more than outright prejudice. It’s not that the industry is prejudiced. It’s that they’re disinterested in anything but themselves.” 
 
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 The Post shared its findings with the academy, but a spokesperson would not address them, saying only that “the Academy is privileged to lead the conversation on diversity, and help move it forward within our organization and the industry.” The spokesperson, Teni Melidonian, added in a statement, “During the last five years we’ve added a record number of women and minorities to our membership, and are confident that the historic changes outlined by the Academy’s Board will only continue to add momentum to this very important effort.” 
 
 The directors branch, which decides the Oscar for best director, has been championed in recent years as a win for racial progress: Its last three awards have gone to Asian or Hispanic filmmakers, including Ang Lee, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu, who is also nominated this year for “The Revenant.” 
 
 Those three wins are a clear exception from the 88 years of Oscar history. Since 1927, 423 of the 435 nominations — about 97 percent — have gone to white directors. Only four — less than 1 percent — have gone to women, including Kathryn Bigelow, the only woman to ever win. 
 
 Michael Mann, the four-time Oscar-nominated director of “Heat,” “The Insider,” “Ali” and “Collateral,” a board member of the Directors Guild of America and one of three governors of the academy’s directors branch, said The Post’s analysis appeared correct but added that the branch’s recent nominations should show it is not “ossified, conventional, some old boys’ club.” 
 
 “To me, diversity isn’t cosmetic. It’s an imperative. It’s also extremely American,” said Mann, who added he was not speaking officially on the academy’s behalf. “It is less an academy problem than it is an employer problem. The employers have to have diverse hiring, to hire writers and directors and craftspeople who can begin working in the industry … achieve excellence and become something that an academy member can nominate.” 
 
 He blamed that lack of diversity on a “self-perpetuating … persistence of institutional racism” in the industry, adding that “it feels like people are preserving privileges, or it’s habit or laziness or indifference.” But he also worried about “socially engineering” the academy on the belief that new members would solely vote alongside gender or racial lines. 
 
 “There’s an unconscious implied racism in … thinking that if there are more women or Hispanics or Asians or blacks, that they will vote female, Hispanic, Asian or black. That’s an insult,” he said. “(‘12 Years a Slave’ director) Steve McQueen isn’t going to vote for a film because the director is black. He’s going to vote for an excellent film.” 
 
 [Academy announces major changes to membership amid #OscarsSoWhite backlash] 
 
 But the academy is only the “end of the train,” as members said -- it can only reward projects that are already onscreen. About 87 percent of lead actors, 87 percent of directors and 92 percent of writers for the top 163 films of 2014 were white, according to an analysis by UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies to be released later this month. Credits for people of color in those jobs actually slid 4 percent between 2013 and 2014. 
 
 Women directed only 3 percent of the major films in 2014, compared to 17 percent of the shows on broadcast TV, University of Southern California researchers said in a study released this week on what they called the entertainment world's "inclusion crisis." 
 
 All too often, those films are greenlit by executives who share producers’ skin color. White men lead all of Hollywood’s six biggest studios except Warner Bros. (where Kevin Tsujihara, an Asian American man, is chief executive), and those studios’ senior offices are run by 39 white men, 15 white women and six people of color. Those chiefs, members said, make decisions based less on color lines than fear of taking a chance on someone new 
 
 “If you’re a studio head, you’re essentially a freelancer, because if you make two or three bad movies you’re a memory,” said Russell Williams II, one of two black men to win an Oscar for sound mixing, for “Glory” and “Dances with Wolves,” and who is now a distinguished artist-in-residence at American University. “So they say, ‘We’re going to go with people we know. We’re not going to cast the net for total strangers.’ Nothing is more frightening than the unknown quantity.” 
 
 Invites to the executives branch have gone to a number of industry veterans famous for diverse film- and dealmaking, including Dreamworks Animation chair Mellody Hobson, Tsujihara and Universal Pictures chair Donna Langley, who ran the company last year when it set the record for highest-grossing studio in history. 
 
 But those members remain the exception: In the executives branch, The Post found more white male billionaires over the age of 60 than black or Hispanic members of either gender. 
 
 [Hollywood’s race problem: An insular industry struggles to change] 
 
 That preference for the same faces can leave deep scars in which stories get told or ignored, said Stephanie Allain, an academy member, film producer and former executive at Columbia Pictures. A champion of black filmmakers in the '90s, Allain advocated at the studio level for “Boyz n the Hood,” the 1991 drama that helped make stars of Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett, and made director John Singleton the first black filmmaker to be nominated for best director, and the youngest, at age 24. 
 
 High-quality films with diverse ideas and characters are out there, Allain said. But in today’s monochromatic Hollywood, executives tend to overlook such movies — or undercut them altogether. Of films like “Compton,” she said, “If it’s a hit, it’s an anomaly. It’s not a trend, it’s a one-off.” 
 
 That attitude is all the harder to change, Allain said, because of how subtle it can be, particularly on film sets and in studio offices where most everyone looks the same. 
 
 “It’s not overt. It’s not like you’re in Alabama and they’re shutting down the DMV. It’s people you love, people you work with or grew up with, who aren’t aware of the way they’re biased about the material, about other cultures,” Allain said. “And yet we set the tone for what the whole world sees.” 
 
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 The academy last month launched what it called an “ambitious, global campaign” to broaden its member base, saying it wants to double its count of “women and diverse members” by 2020. The board has also discussed other inclusion measures, such as allowing more academy hopefuls to apply for membership and expanding the number of Best Picture and acting nominees. 
 
 “The academy is going to lead and not wait for the industry to catch up,” said Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the academy president and a black woman, in a statement. Isaacs was not made available for comment for this story, but at an Oscar nominees luncheon this month, she said, “This year, there’s an elephant in the room. I have asked the elephant to leave.” 
 
 The academy’s diversity problem starts right at the top: Boone Isaacs and cinematographer Daryn Okada are the only non-white members of the academy’s 51-person ruling body, the Board of Governors. 
 
 Those nominated for an Oscar are automatically asked to join the academy. Other film professionals need to be invited and the only way to receive an invitation is by having extensive Hollywood connections and proven experience. Members can join the executives branch if they’ve spent at least five years as “a driving force” in moviemaking as a chief operating officer, creative head or other senior rank. 
 
 [What ‘Selma’ star David Oyelowo says is ‘unforgivable’ about the Oscars] 
 
 To meet its goal, the academy will have to do far more than slowly add new faces into the fold. In the directors branch, the academy would have to add about 16 non-white members annually for the next four years; a tall order, given that the branch added an estimated 17 total members between 2013 and 2015. To meet its gender goal by 2020, about 10 of those invites would need to go to women. 
 
 Along the way, the academy will likely meet stiff resistance from members, who have fought back against what they call the damaging overreactions of academy reforms. Stephen Verona, a member of the academy’s directors branch since 1972, wrote last month in the Hollywood Reporter, “Try telling the NBA to hire more white, Latino, Chinese or Eskimo basketball players and see the backlash.” He added, “If people make better movies, they will be rewarded. That’s as simple as it can be.” 
 
 The calls for Oscar boycotts from stars such as Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee have become damaging distractions for the academy in the weeks before the awards. Some called on host Chris Rock to drop out. 
 
 The #OscarsSoWhite anger also threatens to undermine the academy’s core moneymaker: The more than $100 million it reaps every year from commercial airtime and other revenue tied to its signature event. The show’s viewership last year plunged 14 percent from 2014 to 37 million viewers, its thinnest audience since 2009. Black viewership fell 20 percent, Nielsen data show, to 9 percent of the total audience, down from 13 percent when Rock lasted hosted the awards in 2005. 
 
 “Straight Outta Compton” ultimately wasn’t nominated for “Best Picture”: Its only Academy Award nod went to the film’s all-white screenplay team. But it earned $200 million at the box office and won praise from film critics — Richard Roeper called it "one of the better musical biopics of the last 20 years" — both of which members said would likely convince executives to give more movies like it a chance. 
 
 “Racism is a big problem in this country, but a lot of this can not be attributed to simply race: That’s a very lazy analysis,” said Gil Robertson, co-founder of the African American Film Critics Association. “This is a town of serial copycats. It’s a business: This town is open to do business. And now that they’ve seen these films can make money, can make a good return on investment, they’re going to jump on that boat.”
– Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Cheryl Boone Isaacs isn't in a position to boycott the Oscars—but she wants Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee to know that she is "heartbroken and frustrated" by this year's lack of diversity and there are big changes ahead. "This is a difficult but important conversation, and it's time for big changes," she said in a statement Monday night, per the Hollywood Reporter. "The Academy is taking dramatic steps to alter the makeup of our membership," she added, promising a "review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond." Smith and Lee announced their boycott after the Academy released an all-white acting nominee list for the second year in a row. Boone Isaacs noted that the Academy worked hard to stay relevant by recruiting younger members in the '60s and '70s, and the goal now is "inclusion in all of its facets: gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation." Insiders tell the Wrap that Academy governors and board members received an email Monday asking them to make a push for more diversity in each branch of the organization. In its most recent report on the issue, UCLA's Ralph J. Bunche Center for African-American Studies found that senior management at movie studios is 92% white and 83% male, reports the Los Angeles Times. If black stars stay away from the Oscars, "the image of Hollywood that the academy presents is at stake," researcher Ana-Christina Ramon tells the paper. (The Oscars were recently defended by one perhaps surprising person.)