As the #OscarsSoWhite debate, quite rightly, rages on, it’s all too easy to ignore the Academy’s other glaring snub. In fact, it took this week’s announcement of the Independent Spirit award nominations to shine a light on the underwhelming representation of genuine indies in this year’s Oscar race.

For the past few years, the results of the Independent Spirit awards have closely resembled those of the Oscars. Last year saw Birdman, Julianne Moore, Patricia Arquette and JK Simmons win at both ceremonies. The year before had 12 Years a Slave, Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Lupita Nyong’o and Jared Leto match up. You’d have to go back to 2008 to find a set of winners that failed to correlate in some way, but this year there’s a remarkable difference in the films and performances each body has chosen to reward.

In the best picture category, there’s just one film picked by both sets of voters: Spotlight. Out of the four acting categories, three have no crossover whatsoever. While the best actress category does recognise Oscar nominees Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara and Brie Larson, the Spirits have also chosen to celebrate the work of lesser-known performers, such as Robin Bartlett in the sci-fi thriller H, Kevin Corrigan in romantic comedy Results, Marin Ireland in crime drama Glass Chin and Koudous Seihon in Italian drama Mediterranea. Oscar frontrunners such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Sylvester Stallone and The Big Short are nowhere to be seen, due to their big-studio backing.

Diversity is a feature of the Independent Spirit nominations, which include not only actors of colour but also transexual actors. While the Academy might have snubbed Cary Fukunaga’s powerful war drama Beasts of No Nation, the Spirits handed it five nominations, including for actors Abraham Attah and Idris Elba. Lo-fi drama Tangerine also scored nods for trans stars Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, while the Academy chose to celebrate cis actors Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl, a studio-funded trans history film that’s been largely rubbished by the LGBT community. Lesbian romance Carol also picked up nominations for best picture and director – two categories it is absent from in the Academy’s list.

While, yes, it’s no surprise that the Spirits have reflected more diversity than the Oscars (2015 saw the Selma star David Oyelowo, missing from the Academy Awards, up for best actor), this year they have arrived at an unfortunate time for the Academy, highlighting a gap that seems wider than ever before.

In 2009, the Academy made the choice to expand the best picture category from five to potentially 10, depending on votes, in a move that many believed was based on allowing blockbusters to join the race. In turn, this was seen as a way of re-engaging younger viewers who had decided to do literally anything other than watch a 10-hour ceremony of Hollywood back-slapping. It resulted in films such as District 9, Toy Story 3 and Inception sneaking in, and this year has seen both The Martian and Mad Max: Fury Road grab best picture nominations.

In fact The Martian’s success, along with The Revenant’s 12 nominations, means that Fox has the most Oscar nominations this year, whereas 2015 saw their independent offshoot Fox Searchlight in the lead, followed by Sony Pictures Classics.

While The Martian’s inclusion as a best picture nominee might be a bit a stretch (it’s a solid science lesson but not much more), it’s hard to begrudge George Miller’s masterful action adventure its 10 nominations, and it’s refreshing to see the Academy recognise a film that conveys its artistry not through dialogue but action. It’s also interesting that, in a year where diversity has been problematic, these two blockbusters have the best roles for both women and actors of colour in all of the best picture nominees.

But the choice of the Academy to focus on starry and mostly safe acting nominees while excluding some worthy independent performances is a disappointment. The announcement of the Spirit nominations are refreshing because they do what they are supposed to do: reflect the best that independent cinema has to offer and this year’s choice to focus on smaller films ensures that this aim is easily achieved. They also shed some much-needed light on performances that really did deserve Oscar attention (Bel Powley in Diary of a Teenage Girl, Jason Segel in The End of the Tour, Abraham Attah in Beasts of No Nation) and along with the Oscars’ dwindling ratings and ageing voter base, prove that the Academy is still in need of a wake-up call.

The good news is that Academy head Cheryl Boone Isaacs knows this and is aware that simply bringing out The Lonely Island and Questlove to perform won’t be enough to make the Oscars feel relevant. A new set of rules to bring in a more diverse voter base should also help address this.

But the Oscars should never simply reflect just the best indies or just the best blockbusters: they are there to reflect the best films, regardless of scale, star power and the amount of money spent on the campaign trail. This might not be the case in 2016 but there’s hope for the future. Meanwhile, we look forward to this year’s ceremony and the inevitable attempts at hipness that will surely take place throughout. How about a duet between a Minion and Tyler, the Creator over Skype? Or maybe a Vine of Juno Temple presenting a new award for fiercest hashtag … to a hologram of River Phoenix? Get ready to live-tweet your thoughts on 28 February.