The 87th Academy Awards: a night full of thanking Wes Anderson, stodgy speeches from Polish filmmakers and a lot of awkward face touching from John Travolta.

It was also a night full of controversy, as many have been extremely critical of the nominations for this year’s Oscars. Viewers were most upset by the lack of nominations for the movie Selma, which dramatized the struggle for the Voting Rights Act. Despite a remarkable performance, the lead actor, David Oyelowo, who played Martin Luther King, Jr., was not nominated for “Best Actor” and Ava DuVernay, the talented new director, was not nominated for “Best Director” either.

This year’s Oscars nominations are the “whitest” and most androcentric since 1998. A study from The Los Angeles Times revealed that the Academy’s membership in 2012 was 94% white and 76% male with a median age of 62. Looking at the Best Picture nominations, most films revolve around a white male protagonist, revealing the lack of diverse perspectives that viewers have access to. In all of the 87 years of the Oscars, almost 3,000 awards have been given out and only 32 of these have been awarded to African Americans, according to The Huffington Post.

However, while this year’s awards reveal the lack of diversity in the Academy’s voting body, they better represent the lack of appreciation for films featuring minorities in the movie business itself. Considering the whole industry is focused on white male filmmakers and leads, it is unsurprising that a celebration for this industry is biased towards those same demographics. There is an obvious problem, regarding both race and gender, and this year has proven that Hollywood needs to change.