The thing you have to remember about major cinematic awards —the Oscars, the BAFTAs, the Golden Globes, etc.—is that they're not a particularly good measure of artistic accomplishment. They're fun and they're glitzy and they offer an approximation of what's good in any given year, but, well, most films don't really win on the merits. They win because producers and directors and stars lobby and schmooze with voters, by placing big ad campaigns in the trades, by talking up Oscar bloggers and other lesser creatures. Some movies are nominated, and some win, because they flatter a certain sensibility more than because they're particularly good.
For a solid example of this maxim in action, consider the following parameters by which the BAFTAs will consider nominees in certain categories, starting in 2019:
In an incredibly bold move, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced last week that, beginning in 2019, works that do not demonstrate inclusivity in their production practices will no longer be eligible for the Outstanding British Film or Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer awards at the annual BAFTAs, often considered the U.K. equivalent of the Oscars. Eligible projects must showcase this in two of the following ways, as the BBC reported: On-screen characters and themes, senior roles and crew, industry training and career progression, and audience access and appeal to underrepresented audiences.
I'll be honest, the new requirement—or, I suppose, the new opportunity by which one can impress his diversity-minded overlords—that jumped out at me was the one about "appeal to underrepresented audiences." Because holy crap is that condescending! The idea that great films can only appeal to certain demographics is remarkably bigoted. Are black people unable to appreciate the (almost-entirely white) Mad Max: Fury Road? Are white people unable to enjoy (the almost-entirely black) The Fits? Do these films not appeal to those of the wrong race?
The argument, I imagine, goes something like this: "Well, sure, anyone can enjoy anything, but certain audience segments will want to see their own people onscreen." Yeah, maybe. Or maybe people just want something good? By happenstance, I'm reading Robert Sklar's Movie-Made America at the moment. It's an interesting, left-wing history of American cinema, and it contains the following passage, about blaxploitation:
The movement quickly devolved into a phenomenon not of an African-American audience but of a specific subgroup, a segment of a segment: young urban males. Its demise became inevitable when producers discovered that young black women and adults were traveling into white neighborhoods to see popular films unavailable in black theaters, such as The Exorcist.
But ... but ... how could that movie about upper class white people be of any interest to young black women and older black moviegoers? I don't understand! What's the appeal to them?
I guess we'll never know. Maybe the BAFTAs can clue us in?