Unless you are a movie snob, you probably don’t care about the Oscars. Just another dumb awards show that focuses more on designers and jokes than the actual movies themselves. But in reality, the Oscars are much bigger. Winning this award is significant in an acting career. We all know about Leonardo DiCaprio who has been snubbed at the Oscars every time he is nominated, the Oscar being his ultimate goal in acting success. This year, he is nominated again and who knows what will happen: maybe Leo will get skipped again, along with several other deserving actors who didn’t make the list.

Many Oscar watchers are blaming the Academy, calling out their non-diverse group for lack of inclusion of minorities.  Afterall, there is one statistic floating around the internet that might confirm this: 94% of the Academy members are white. But does that automatically mean they are racist?

Who knows. Without speaking to each and every one of them directly, it is impossible to decide. But, that is no excuse for the lack of diversity in this year’s – and last year’s – nominations that not only exclude African-Americans, but members of the LGBT community, people of disabilities, women, Asian-Americans, and other minorities.

Many others say that this is just a phase, that the trends of people nominated vacillate. Women are also misrepresented in this year’s Oscars, just as they have been countless times previously. In actuality, this year’s ceremony will have the most male nominations since 1999, making it just a poor year for diversity, despite the present talent in all of the actors nominated (with the exception of Sylvester Stallone).

Much rage is directed towards the Best Director category because only one woman has won the Best Director award, out of only four that have been nominated in that category. Many feel that Ava Duvernay was neglected last year, for she should have been nominated for Best Director for Selma: not on the grounds of her gender or her race, but on the high quality of that movie and the cinematography that made it such a deserving movie.

The whole purpose of having an awards ceremony is to congratulate the people that deserve recognition. Snubbing people that are talented and deserving of that recognition isn’t okay, regardless of  their race, orientation, gender, anything. Talent comes in all forms and talent deserves to be rewarded. I don’t think that this year’s ceremony should be treated any differently: those nominated still deserve the attention, for they worked hard to get where there are today- not meaning that those not nominated aren’t deserving or didn’t work as hard.

We have to be realistic: there are so many good actors from movies this year that deserved nomination, based strictly on talent, but there are only five spots on the ballot. Only five of those were picked, only one of them will win.

Who knows, and quite honestly, who cares. We wouldn’t have the opportunity to attend the event anyways. The show must go on, regardless of who attends and who doesn’t. It will still be a hilarious event, hosted by the great comedian Chris Rock, with tons of funny red-carpet commentary from the other countless celebrities who want to recognize and support their fellow actors. By boycotting this event, the actors and actresses are telling those nominated that they didn’t deserve it, which they all did.

Contrasting to previous years, such as with The Help winning an Oscar for the lovely Octavia Spencer’s performance as Best Supporting Actress and in 2013, three different awards won for 12 Years a Slave. Both of these were excellent movies which got the recognition they deserved; so what happened to this year?

What I’m saying is this: I understand the whole fuss over the Oscars but did anyone really expect this year to be any different? This happens all of the time, countless award shows succumb to this pattern as well. And yes, this is a trend that needs to stop because talent deserves recognition, regardless of anything that the public might find to criticize about a person.

But this year is no different. No amount of hashtags or threatening interviews will change the nominees. And it will still be entertaining. It’s impossible to find representation for every single race and every single kind of person because then the categories would have over one hundred nominees.

But shame on you, dear Academy, because Idris Elba in “Beasts of No Nation” was prime.

So let’s just hope for a more diverse show next year, but for now, just sit back and watch.