Actor Viola Davis accepts best supporting actress for 'Fences' onstage at the 89th Annual Academy Awards. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

The post-Oscars attention may be on the epic flub that closed Sunday night's 89th Academy Awards, when an envelope error meant "La La Land" was briefly, and incorrectly, named best picture, when the award belonged to "Moonlight."

But the academy's improved record on nominating and awarding diverse actors, filmmakers and movies should also get part of the spotlight. The question is whether it can stay in it.

After the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag caught on last year -- the second year in a row when no actors of color were nominated -- this year's awards showed a marked increase in diverse films and diverse nominees. Mahershala Ali was the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar. Both supporting actor and supporting actress winners were black. The foreign film award went to an Iranian director.

The Post's Monica Hesse and Karen Heller took stock: "Sunday’s ceremony included the most diverse nominee list in history. Performers of color were represented in all of the acting categories. Three of the nine best-picture nominees told stories of African American experiences in the United States, as did three of the five films nominated for best documentary. The winner for best animated feature, 'Zootopia,' was an allegory of racial profiling told via foxes and rabbits."

Whether the shift results simply from a crop of films over the past year featuring richly complex and diverse characters, a successful social media campaign or any effort on the academy's part to improve its membership is hard to know. But for Hollywood to keep making progress, changes in the group that decides who gets a chance to win a golden statuette are only part of the answer. It also takes leadership from the people who fund big films and who select the people to make them. Read more about why Hollywood still needs to fix its diversity problem here.

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