Who votes for the Academy Awards?
After the glitzy red-carpet arrivals, the feel-good
montages, and the host’s opening roast, the Oscars
ceremony switches to its raison d’être: revealing the
previous year’s highest achievers in cinema. One after
another, the presenters list the nominees, open a lavish
envelope, and reveal the winner in each category. The
champions breathlessly accept their awards and, over and
over, effusively thank their mothers, God, and the
academy... What is this obscure body? The academy—that
is, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—is the
organization that votes for the Oscar winners.
The academy is an exclusive Hollywood institution
that has its own governing body, 17 separate branches, and
a thorough rule book on membership eligibility and voting
processes. Since 2016, when the board announced that it
would diversify its membership, the academy has grown to
about 8,000 members. It doesn’t publicize the names of all
those members, but each spring it releases a list of the
individuals it has invited to join its ranks.
The rest of the academy members are not listed,
but we can guess who a few are by looking at some of the
requirements to join the institution. To qualify, an individual
must work in the film industry. This means that neither
individuals who work exclusively in television nor members
of the press may join. Oscar nominees are often considered
for membership automatically, while other candidates must
be sponsored by two active members of the branch they
wish to join. Each branch also has its own specific
requirements.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Adaptation.