When the Academy released its list of nominees for this year’s Oscars, social media went into a frenzy. This wasn’t just surrounding the ‘will he, won’t he’ debate of DiCaprio’s fifth nomination, but because all the actors in the running this year are white. It was a surprise when this was the case last year. That this could happen for two consecutive years is, for many, an outrage.

You’ll no doubt have read that Charlotte Rampling recently belly-flopped into the sea of #OscarsSoWhite hashtags by stating on French radio that the current unrest over the Academy’s non-diverse acting nominations is “racist to white people”. Following her stellar Oscar-nominated performance in Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years, it’s disappointing but quite probable that she’ll now be remembered for such asinine comments more than for her undeniable acting prowess.

It’s not just that Donald Trump is making political correctness suddenly seem a much more attractive position; Rampling’s statement is really ludicrous. Racism is structural, not personal. Criticisms targeted at people belonging to a particular group, especially when punching up, not down, are not the same as racism because to be racist you need to be speaking from a position of privilege. That’s why in the USA, where white men and (to a lesser extent) women continue to benefit from structural and institutional advantages, they cannot be victims of racism.

As Justin Simien, director of Dear White People, puts it, “A joke about white people dancing has no impact on the lives of average white people, whereas jokes about black people and reinforcing stereotypes about black people do have an impact on the lives of everyday black people.” We can’t just ‘reverse’ a concept so deeply enmeshed in power relations. Clearly, it matters who’s speaking.

But if the dissenting voices behind the Oscars backlash are not ‘reversely’ racist, are they at least justified? Rampling attempted to clarify her comments in the interview by adding: “One can never really know, but perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list.” This is the most popular claim in defence of what is seen as a ‘whitewash’ of this year’s ceremony. But many disagree.

Idris Elba’s sensitive portrayal of an African warlord in Beasts of No Nation is widely considered to be the biggest snub. Others include Creed, which was one of the American box office’s top hits last year, and has a black lead and director, Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler, but the film’s only nomination went to Sylvester Stallone, its sole white actor. Straight Outta Compton too, a critically acclaimed film about a black hip-hop group with a black director and producer, was only nominated for its screenplay, the writers of which were white.

Fingers are pointing at the 6,000 plus voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, whom an analysis by the Los Angeles Times in 2014 found to be 93 per cent white and 73 per cent male. Throughout the 20th century, 95 per cent of Oscar nominations went to white actors, and the continued predominance of white Academy nominations and electors suggests that little is changing in the 21st Century.

Of course it is entirely possible that the best actors this year all happened to be white. It’s just that this standpoint becomes increasingly hard to defend, year after year, without suggesting that either an Academy voter bias or unequal opportunities in the film industry might also be at play.

Rampling later backtracked on her controversial claim in a statement to CBS News, clarifying: “I simply meant to say that in an ideal world every performance will be given equal opportunities for consideration.” It’s a noble sentiment, but the only problem is that the American showbiz world is far from ideal. Not only are minority groups under-represented in the top roles that count for the Oscars, but the drama schools and casting offices see that this ‘whitewashing’ occurs well before trophy season comes around. A 2013 survey of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) indicates that 70 per cent of its members are white – and these tend to be the lucky ones offered the ‘Oscar bait’ roles in the first place. This all has a trickle-down effect, and the Academy can only vote based on what it’s given.

So perhaps we’re missing the big target with the Oscars. The real issue isn’t really who gets to take home a golden statuette, but whether audiences want their films to reflect the society they live in. Following the pressure mounted by Twitter hashtags and plans by prominent industry figures – including Jada Pinkett Smith, Spike Lee and Michael Moore – to boycott this year’s ceremony in protest, the Academy has pledged to double the number of female and minority members by 2020. But filmgoers can do more still. Some of the most under-represented groups in Hollywood cinema have tremendous power as consumers. Asia is now the world’s second biggest film market and Hispanic Americans buy 25 per cent of the US’s cinema tickets. If audiences voiced their dissatisfaction in the world beyond Twitter, Hollywood would almost certainly be all ears.