May 22--Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Cheryl Boone Isaacs addressed this year's graduates of Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts as the keynote commencement speaker on Saturday, assuring them that there has never been a better time to enter the film business than today.
Boone Isaacs, who has weathered controversy this year as she leads the organization through sweeping changes aimed at diversifying its ranks, steered clear of the diversity issue in her speech, sticking instead to a broadly optimistic message.
"There have never been better career options in Hollywood," Boone Isaacs told the roughly 400 graduates. "Many of the creative and business models in the entertainment business are breaking or broken. What a great opportunity for you! You're not invested in the old ways. Someone is going to shape the new ways. Why not you?"
Earlier this year, facing a growing firestorm for the second year in a row over the lack of Oscar nominations for any actors of color, the academy's leadership took dramatic steps aimed at doubling the number of women and minorities in its ranks by 2020. Those reforms were themselves met with controversy, drawing praise from many while sparking a backlash among a wide swath of older rank-and-file members.
In late June, the academy is expected to announce its latest round of invitees, a group that will be closely scrutinized to see how it fits with the organization's stated goal of shifting its overwhelmingly white and male demographics. Meanwhile, hundreds of current members have thrown their hats in the ring for July's Board of Governors elections in what many view as a referendum on the academy's handling of the diversity issue.
But despite -- or perhaps because of -- that backdrop of debate, Boone Isaacs' speech to the young graduates was decidedly apolitical.
"The two best times I can think of to break into the movie business are today and back in 1914 when Cecil B. DeMille made his first film in a sleepy, out-of-the-way, orange grove-filled place called Hollywood," Boone Isaacs said. "Cecil did good by thinking outside the box, by leaving back East to come make movies in a place no one had really ever heard of. So follow his example and think differently from those who came before you."
josh.rottenberg@latimes.com
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