Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences president David Rubin announced Thursday that next year’s Oscar Award Ceremony would mark the first during which the Academy recognizes and presents awards two new categories: Adult Cuckolding and Adult Interracial.
While neither the films nor their categories are new, the awards are. The Academy, well-known for recognizing mainstream fetish films for decades, had until now failed to acknowledge films in what is generally considered the Adult category — films which were released unrated but containing a self-assigned X or XXX rating.
Speaking on the Today show, Rubin explained the inclusion of the new categories. “There’s a lot of film that we’ve bore the shame of not representing over the years. For example, when direct-to-video came in, we seemed embarrassingly unaware of it for years. Now, here we are again, with another new medium and there’s loads and loads of this type of content gushing forth, just streaming all over the place online. Yet, just like when direct-to-video came in, we’ve had trouble accepting this new format as part of our community. These types of videos, many of which are of feature length, have been part of the film community for decades, and favorites of many of our esteemed colleagues. While they have been recognized elsewhere, it’s been a blight on the Academy that we have not been representing them here. It’s time that society — and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences in particular — comes out of the closet on this.”
Rubin offered that while there was “no particular significance in these choices”, many members of the Academy agreed that these two categories were the most “current, relevant and provided the biggest opportunity for cultural significance.”
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