After facing criticism regarding diversity within their Oscar nominations, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has again come under fire for a lack of older actor nods.

A report surfaced last week from USC Annenberg detailing the statistics of ages within the nominations for the past few Academy Awards. Within the study, Dr. Stacy L. Smith, Marc Choueiti and Dr. Katherine Pieper looked at the Best Picture nominated films from the past three Academy Awards and discovered that “only 148 (11.8 percent) of the 1,256 speaking characters in 25 Best Picture-nominated movies were 60 years of age or older.”

The study also reported that only 33 of the 148 seniors were women, which connects to a previous controversy regarding the lack of female nominations outside of acting categories for this year’s ceremony. According to an article by The LA Times, categories such as Best Director are void of any female nominees.

Another finding reported by the study showed that of the leads and co-leads inside the films, there were only two senior characters that actively participated in the plot. Both of these characters are portrayed by the same man, Michael Keaton, in 2014’s “Birdman” and 2015’s “Spotlight.”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has also been under scrutiny the past few years for a lack of racially diverse nominees, spawning the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. This seems to be true within the diversity of the senior actors, as the study shows that “a full 89.9 percent of the senior characters were white, 6.1 percent Black, two percent Asian, and two percent were from “other” or mixed racial/ethnic backgrounds.”

The 2017 Academy Awards will be held on Feb. 26.

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