Lupita Nyong'o Criticizes Academy Award Voters

Lupita Nyong'o becomes the latest star to address the complete lack of diversity among this year's acting nominees for the Academy Award.

Lupita, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2014 for her performance in 12 Years a Slave, wrote this on Instagram; “I am disappointed by the lack on inclusion in this year's Academy Award nominations. It has me thinking about unconscious prejudice and what merits prestige in our culture”.  The year she won the Oscar was the last time that the acting nominees were not all white actors, with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Barkhad Abdi also receiving nods from the Academy. 

Steve McQueen the director for 12 Years a Slave who is black and also picked up Best Director and the film won Best Picture the same year Lupita won also weighed in on the row saying “It can’t be about box office, because I think black actors and stories along those lines have done very, very well, obviously. So it’s about executives in cinema and film studios, television, cable networks, giving those storylines and those actors a fair bite. I think racism has a lot to do with it, but also the whole idea of people not being adventurous enough in thinking outside of the box as such”.

Below is the full message Lupita posted on her Instagram