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" If you kept track of the 2016 Oscar nominee list when it was released late last week, you&amp;#039;ll have noticed a distinct lack of diversity among the nominations. By that, we mean the nominations were overwhelmingly (basically 100%) caucasian.\u00A0 And given that we&amp;#039;re in the year 2016, with a wealth of talent across a range of ethnicities, you can imagine how surprising that seems. Which is why, in the wake of the nomination list, a number of celebrities have spoken out about how damaging this lack of equality can be. Idris Elba spoke openly to MPs\u00A0this week, urging them to do something to encourage the diversity we should definitely be seeing in the performing arts sector. Pointing out that there aren&amp;#039;t enough roles for anyone who&amp;#039;s not white\u00A0in the world of film and TV, he spoke of his own experience trying to make it: &amp;quot;I knew I wasn&amp;#039;t going to land a lead role. I knew there wasn&amp;#039;t enough imagination in the industry for me to be seen as a lead. In other words, if I wanted to star in a British drama like Luther,\u00A0then I&amp;#039;d have to go to a country like America. &amp;quot;And the other thing was, because I never saw myself on TV, I stopped watching TV. Instead I decided to just go out and become TV.&amp;quot; He added, on a slightly more optimistic note, that &amp;quot;change is coming, but it&amp;#039;s taking its sweet time.&amp;quot; And shuns like the 2016 Academy Award\u00A0nominations certainly don&amp;#039;t help to hurry that change on.        Jada Pinkett-Smith also had something to say on the issue, and she uploaded a video to her Facebook page about it yesterday, on Martin Luther King day. Clarifying that she believes &amp;quot;The Academy has the right to acknowledge whoever they choose, to invite whoever they choose&amp;quot; to the Oscars, she had something of a surprising suggestion to solve the problem: boycotting the ceremony altogether.      &amp;quot;I think that it&amp;#039;s our responsibility now to make the change. Maybe it&amp;#039;s time that we pull back our resources and we put them back into our communities, into our programmes and we make programmes for ourselves that acknowledge us in ways that we see fit. That are just as good as the so-called mainstream ones,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Begging for acknowledgement, or even asking, diminishes dignity and diminishes power. And we are a dignified people, and we are powerful, and let&amp;#039;s not forget it.&amp;quot; We can understand Jada&amp;#039;s point here; rather than scrabbling around trying to seek recognition from an\u00A0existing institution\u00A0that has historically neglected to commend performances from all areas of society, perhaps these communities\u00A0should take the power back and\u00A0start celebrating\u00A0themselves. However,\u00A0let&amp;#039;s not forget the point here is to force change within the industry\u00A0and\u00A0we can&amp;#039;t help but worry that dividing the industry in this way might\u00A0further\u00A0fuel the issue. What do you think? Have your say with a tweet to @CosmopolitanUK. Follow Cat on Twitter.\u00A0    "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/entertainment/news/a40715/hollywood-celebrities-oscars-equality/>