A Decade After #OscarsSoWhite, Why Do Black Best Actress Nominations Still Feel Like A Breakthrough?

As the 2025 Oscars ceremony on March 2nd draws closer, last month’s nominations have already set the stage for a historic awards season with multiple records broken across the acting categories. Karla Sofía Gascón made history as the first out transgender actor nominated for Best Actress for Emilia Pérez, the crime musical that set a record with 13 Oscar nominations—the most ever earned by a non-English language film. Timothée Chalamet also secured his place in the Hollywood history books with a second nomination for his portrayal of young Bob Dylan’s ascent to ‘60’s stardom in A Complete Unknown, becoming the youngest male performer to earn two Best Actor nominations since James Dean.

Amid a record-breaking set of nominations, Cynthia Erivo’s second nod for Best Actress in the musical box office sensation Wicked landed with significant historic weight. Erivo earned her first in 2020 for Harriet and with this second nomination, she joins Viola Davis as only the second Black woman in Academy history to be nominated more than once in the category. But as Chalamet sings, does this prove that “the times-are-a-changin’” for the Oscars? I’m not so convinced – at least, not fast enough.

Erivo’s milestone nomination makes a case for progress, but peel it back, and the fact that it has taken nearly 100 years for two Black women to earn multiple Best Actress nominations, reveals itself as an incredibly telling reminder of just how incremental the industry’s reckoning with diversity has been in honouring and awarding talent. But it’s no secret that the Academy has had long-standing struggles with diversity, so this delay should not come as a shock.

Notably, Erivo’s recognition coincides with the 10th anniversary of #OscarsSoWhite. The controversy, ignited by the glaring lack of inclusivity in the 2015 nominations—where all 20 acting nominees were white—brought the Academy’s historical exclusion of people of colour into the global firing line and inundated the industry with calls to address its systemic underrepresentation. So, how is it that, 10 years on from global calls for change, it’s only now this milestone is being marked? The backlash from #OscarsSoWhite forced the Academy to take action from within, and while concerted efforts have been made to clean up its reputation over the last decade, progress has been slow and limited.

By 2020, they reported that the number of Academy members from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds had tripled, and the number of female members doubled in comparison to 2015. In the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the Academy announced further structural changes, introducing new diversity and inclusion standards.

They set forth that representation must be extended throughout the production process to be deemed eligible for the top honour of Best Picture, from casting, creative leadership, crew as well as marketing and distribution. The Academy’s diversity standards were enforced for the first time at last year’s ceremony, where Da’Vine Joy Randolph won for Best Supporting Actress in The Holdovers and 35% of acting nominees were from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups (the same as 2023’s total and a notable jump from just 20% in 2022).

The outcomes of last year’s statistics appeared promising in the Academy’s efforts to tackle its historical inclusivity problem, but do they really hold up? A year later, the numbers of this year’s nominations already reveal some cracks. With only 20% of acting nominees from underrepresented racial or ethnic backgrounds, this noticeable step back already calls the lasting impact of these changes into question. Granted, improvements have evidently been made since the consecutive all-white nominations of 2015 and 2016 that forced the Academy to re-evaluate its practices. However, it also casts doubt on whether these efforts prove that they are striving for consistent and overall systemic progress or if it is merely a limited correction before old patterns return?

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that these diversity and inclusion mandates only apply to the Best Picture category. This year’s Best Picture nominations such as Nickel Boys, Emilia Pérez, and Wicked boast diverse casts, but that diversity seems largely confined to this sole category, not yet trickling down to the acting categories. The real test? Whether these changes can effectively translate to the diversification of the acting categories and, in light of Erivo’s historic nomination, extend to greater recognition of leading Black female roles.

Even with the strides made in representation over the years, Halle Berry remains the only Black woman to have won the Best Actress award in 2002 for Monster’s Ball. In her tearful acceptance speech, she famously declared that “the door has been opened” for other Black actresses to finally break through. Now, more than two decades have passed, so how did that turn out? Well, the door remains decidedly ajar. Only six other Black women have been nominated in the category since, and none took home the coveted award.

And it’s certainly not down to a shortage of talent. Take this season: despite the buzz surrounding a potential second nomination for Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s acclaimed performance in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, which earned her a BAFTA nod and accolades from the New York and L.A. Film Critics, she was notably excluded from this year’s nominations. Speaking recently to Interview Magazine, Jean-Baptiste voiced her reaction to the snub, repeatedly saying “It was very disappointing.” Ryan Destiny’s critically praised turn as Claressa Shields in the boxing biopic The Fire Inside also faced similar disappointment, overlooked by The Academy despite being a contender in the leading performance category for several critics’ awards. Their omissions echo an all-too-familiar story — one that points toward the ongoing struggle for Black actresses in leading roles to receive consistent Oscar recognition as remaining far from complete.

Now, as Cynthia Erivo breaks barriers in the lead-up to the ceremony, the question emerges: could she be the one to finally break through the door that Halle Berry opened in 2002? With Demi Moore (The Substance) currently leading the pack as the front-runner after winning both the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe Awards, alongside contenders Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here), Mikey Madison (Anora) and Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez) rounding out the category—Erivo faces stiff competition.

But beyond the possibility of a win, the historic significance behind Erivo’s recognition alone represents a larger truth about the industry’s legacy and current state. And while we can hope for what it signals for the future, in 2025, such nominations for Black actresses in leading roles still feel rare, still feel like a breakthrough. It proves that ongoing gaps remain in an industry that is inching toward equitable inclusivity. An ideal that, despite progress, is far from being fully realised. Especially with the current pace of change.