Spike Lee: Diversity issue 'goes further than the Academy Awards'

Legendary director Spike Lee says that when he declared he wasn't going to attend the 2016 Oscars, he wasn't trying to start a "boycott."

"Here’s the thing. I have never used the word boycott," Lee said on Wednesday's episode of Good Morning America. "All I said was my beautiful wife Tonya, we’re not coming. That’s it, and I gave the reasons. I never used the word boycott."

"It’s like do you," he added. "I’m not going. My wife’s not going. Everyone else can do what they want to do."

"I'm going to a Knicks game."

Spike Lee, Jada Pinkett Smith to boycott this year's Oscars

The reasons Lee is referring to have to do with the nominations for Hollywood's biggest award show, which, for the second year in a row, contained no people of color in any of the acting categories, and only a smattering represented in the rest of the categories. Fans, some people in the media and even members of the Academy have spoken out on the subject, which has spawned cries of "#OscarsSoWhite."

But Lee stressed in his GMA interview that focusing solely on the awards show is not enough to solve the greater problem of diversity and representation in pop culture. Just talking the Oscars alone is a "mis-direction play," he said.

"We’re chasing a guy down the field when he doesn’t even have the ball," Lee said. "The other guy is high stepping the end zone."

"It goes further than the Academy Awards. It has to go back to the gatekeepers. The people who have the green light vote," he continued, referring to those studio executives who decide which films get made. "We’re not in the room (with) the executives when they have these green light meetings quarterly where they look at the scripts, they look who’s in it and they decide what we’re making and what we’re not making."

The director suggested that film studios implement a policy similar to what the NFL did a few years ago, in which teams are required to interview minority candidates for positions.

Oscars: Acting races are an all-white field

"That has increased the number of minority coaches and executives in the NFL and that should be used because can’t go to that old tired realm, ‘Well we can’t find any qualified candidates,'" Lee said. "That is BS."

The issue of diversity is one Hollywood has "from top to bottom," Lee said, noting that his film, Do the Right Thing, was nominated for best picture in 1989, yet it lost the award to Driving Miss Daisy.

"That’s what’s being taught in colleges, schools," Lee said of his film. "No one is watching Driving Miss Daisy now. So it also shows you that the work is what’s important because that’s what’s going to stand for years, not an award."

Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, an African American woman, responded to the controversy over the nominations on Monday night, after the news broke that Lee was skipping the Oscars and that Jada Pinkett-Smith -- whose husband, Will Smith, was snubbed for a nomination for his performance in Concussion -- was as well.

'Frustrated' Oscars chief promises 'dramatic steps'

"I am both heartbroken and frustrated about the lack of inclusion (in the nominations)," she said. "This is a difficult but important conversation, and it’s time for big changes. The Academy is taking dramatic steps to alter the makeup of our membership. In the coming days and weeks we will conduct a review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond."

Lee noted that Isaacs raised that issue in November when he received an honorary Oscar for his lifetime body of work, but that you can't change something like the Academy overnight.

"When I received my honorary Oscar at the Governor’s Ball in November, she began that night saying this was her plan," Lee said. "So we can’t say ‘hocus, pocus, presto chango’ and the membership’s going to change overnight."

GMA also asked Lee about Chris Rock, who will be hosting the ceremony. The comedian has not directly referenced the controversy, but he did tweet a promo for his hosting gig after the nominations were announced and called the Oscars the "White BET Awards."

"Chris Rock is a grown-(expletive) man," Lee said. "He’s just going to do what he wants to do and I support either way."

The Academy Awards will take place on Feb. 28, airing live on ABC.