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Bill Maher thinks it might be time for the #OscarsSoWhite crowd to spike the football.
During Friday night’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the HBO host used his closing “New Rule” segment to argue that the diversity watchdog movement that once called out the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for overwhelmingly white nominees has already achieved its goal.
In other words? Take the victory lap.
“Take the win. The Oscars are no longer a long, boring show full of white people,” Maher said. “It’s a long, boring show full of all people.”
The comedian pointed to a string of recent best picture winners — including Everything Everywhere All at Once, Green Book, Parasite, CODA, The Shape of Water and Moonlight — as evidence that the awards show has already shifted in a more inclusive direction. He also name-checked Nomadland, joking that it “might be about Somalia, but no one has seen it.”
Maher also rattled off several recent acting winners of color, including Will Smith, Zoe Saldaña, Michelle Yeoh, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Ke Huy Quan.
“Eight of the last 10 best director prizes have been won by underrepresented groups, not to mention 60% of the honorary awards,” Maher noted. “You can’t argue with a straight face — or even a gay face — that the Academy in 2026 still overlooks minority achievement or that Hollywood is biased in favor of all white people — just Australians.”
According to Maher, the industry isn’t secretly stacked with racist voters — quite the opposite.
“Hollywood isn’t a secret cabal of racists. It’s a secret cabal of people terrified of looking like racists,” he quipped.
The host also took aim at the Academy’s newer eligibility guidelines, which require films to meet certain diversity benchmarks to qualify for best picture consideration.
“And I’m just tired of no matter how much progress is made, social justice warriors feeling the need to gaslight us as if none of it had happened,” he said. “Couple of years ago, the Academy established a very complex rulebook that said you couldn’t even be considered for best picture unless you met certain criteria like, 30% of the crew or two department heads had to be from underrepresented groups and a main story line had to be as well.”
Maher argued that under those standards, older blockbusters like Titanic, Braveheart, Amadeus or Apollo 13 might never have been made — at least not with awards ambitions.
“The whole thing is so Hollywood,” Maher bemoaned. “A room full of no nothings who call themselves the Academy, making everyone tremble before their judgment, even though their judgment is often terrible and fails the test of time. Maybe the hashtag should be #OscarsSoWrong.”
New episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher air Fridays at 10 p.m. ET on HBO.
English (US)