Here's What The Academy Decided to Do About Andrea Riseborough

In case you aren't up to date, last week there was a bit of an uproar in the entertainment industry after actor Andrea Riseborough's surprise Oscar nomination, which was the result of a grassroots (and star-studded) effort to get her film, To Leslie, some notice. That effort was needed since the film did not do well at the box office, with a $27,322 worldwide gross (per Box Office Mojo).

The concern last week was whether that grassroots effort broke any of AMPAS' rules about Oscar campaigning. The AMPAS regulations say that lobbying is against the rules: "Contacting Academy members directly and in a manner outside of the scope of these rules to promote a film or achievement for Academy Award consideration is expressly forbidden."

The Academy issued a warning statement and set a meeting to examine the situation. Now, according to Deadline, no further action will be taken.

AMPAS released the following statement from CEO Bill Kramer today, stating:

“Based on concerns that surfaced last week around the To Leslie awards campaign, the Academy began a review into the film’s campaigning tactics. The Academy has determined the activity in question does not rise to the level that the film’s nomination should be rescinded. However, we did discover social media and outreach campaigning tactics that caused concern. These tactics are being addressed with the responsible parties directly.

“The purpose of the Academy’s campaign regulations is to ensure a fair and ethical awards process—these are core values of the Academy. Given this review, it is apparent that components of the regulations must be clarified to help create a better framework for respectful, inclusive, and unbiased campaigning. These changes will be made after this awards cycle and will be shared with our membership. The Academy strives to create an environment where votes are based solely on the artistic and technical merits of the eligible films and achievements.”

As we speculated, no hard and fast rules were broken, but it seems the Academy will be looking closely at how films and actors are promoted on social media moving forward. Variety pointed out last week that some supportive Instagram posts may have violated AMPAS policies.

Riseborough's To Leslie co-star, Marc Maron, will hopefully be happy about these results. On a recent episode of his podcast, Maron was upset that the investigation was taking place at all. "Apparently, the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences or whatever the fuck it is has decided to investigate Andrea Riseborough’s grassroots campaign to get her the Oscar nomination because I guess it so threatens their system to where they’re completely bought out by corporate interests in the form of studios."

Let us know what you think in the comments.