Over the past several years, there has been added scrutiny placed on awards organizations in hopes that there will be better diversity and inclusion in the nominees. This year, we saw the Academy come under fire, once again, for its lack of diversity in the Best Actress category, as well as Best Director. And just today, we saw the BAFTA TV awards get a bit of blowback after the Best Actress category features all white women. However, the BAFTA CEO had a response to that which is only adding fuel to the fire.
When asked about the lack of diversity in the Best Actress category of the BAFTA TV awards, CEO Jane Millichip responded with a defense that feels, at best, tone deaf, and at worst, pretty offensive.
“There is representation in that category in the fact that if you look at the age of the actresses and the roles written for them, it is extraordinary,” she said (via Deadline). “This is something that we’ve discussed for a long time in the television and film world: Are the roles written for women over the age of 40? That is a really impressive result.”
The BAFTA organization would later add that Millichip simply referred to representation and not diversity, which is understood to be about people of different ethnicities. Even still, it does go down as one of the worst responses to a diversity question in recent memory. That said, the CEO isn’t necessarily wrong about the representation of women over 40. The nominees in the category range in age from 67 to 39, with all but two over the age of 40.
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Even though the Best Actress is a stacked category with folks like Kate Winslet, Imelda Staunton, and Billie Piper all nominated, the biggest snub seems to be Ambika Mod, who stars in “This is Going to Hurt.” Not only does her nomination make sense considering the series earned the most nominations of any show (with 6), but it would have actually helped the diversity argument by allowing for a non-white actress to be included. Alas, that wasn’t the case.
In fact, diversity fell across the board at the BAFTA TV awards this year. In the past two years, more than 40% of the nominees came from ethnic backgrounds. However, that number dropped to only 24% this year.
The BAFTA TV Awards are handed out on May 14.