Emma Stone’s best actress win at last night’s academy awards have sparked conversations around how women are viewed by the academy. Oppenheimer stole the show with 7 award wins, equalling the tallies of Schindler’s List and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Stone won the prestigious award for her performance as Bella Baxter in critically acclaimed ‘Poor Things’ ahead of Native American actress, Lily Gladstone who received universal appraise for her portrayal of Molly Burkhart in the Scorsese’s adaptation of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’, meaning white women now make up ninety seven percent of Best Actress wins.

Nigel Orrillard, a senior lecturer on the Film course at the University of South Wales, whose graduates have worked on hit films such as Avengers: Infinity War and Disney’s The Lion King, and media production student, Jess Hannagan-Jones, both feel that people of colour are discriminated against for awards consideration.

Mr. Orrillard said: “I think that the politics has been predominantly gendered or racialised positively until recently and the fact that fact that so few women or men of colour have been nominated for categories in which men or women of colour can be nominated, is a clear indication that politics before that was dominated by white middle-aged men.”

Hannagan-Jones said: “Art as a whole has always been at the forefront of any kind of diversity, but when it comes to art that makes money that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

Mr. Orrillard thinks that the Oscars have aligned with recent cultural politics, making it harder to know who is the fronrunner for each award category.

He said: “What’s happened more recently is that awareness has been raised and that politics has been embarrassed publicly, globally at the Oscars and else where which is obviously a good thing and long overdue, but it seems to have led to some confusion as to who should win.”

He also believes that it is his responsibility as a teacher to make sure female students feel comfortable and secure in their future careers within the film industry.

He said: “The vast majority of the dominant culture says ‘no, don’t or you can’t because’, so I think having someone whose in a position of educational influence saying ‘yes, you should, you can and there’s a chance you can do it really well for a very long time’ is an important influence to have on people at that point in their lives.”