No Women Make the Cut for Best Director at Oscars
For the second consecutive year, no females are among the Oscar nominees for Best Director. The Academy once again excludes women from the running despite a standout year for female-directed films.
Many fans expected to see Greta Gerwig nominated for Little Women and Lulu Wang for The Farewell, along with other possible nominees: Marielle Heller for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Melina Matsoukas for Queen & Slim and Lorene Scafaria for Hustlers.
The Oscar nominations were revealed on Jan. 13 by Issa Rae and costar John Cho of the television series Insecure. Rae highlighted the lack of diversity and showed her disapproval as she added, “Congratulations to those men,” after presenting the nominations for Best Director.
The contenders for the category are Bong Joon-ho for Parasite, Sam Mendes for 1917, Todd Phillips for Joker, Martin Scorsese for The Irishman and Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood.
In 2018, Natalie Portman took a similar jab at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for their exclusion of female directors. She announced, “Here are the all-male nominees” for director. At the Golden Globes the same year, female directors continued to go unrecognized. Following Portman’s remark, the Academy nominated Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird.
In the last 10 years, there has only been one female Oscar nominee for Best Director and it was Gerwig for Lady Bird in 2018. In the Academy’s 92-year run, Gerwig and only four other women have ever been nominated for Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker, Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties, Jane Campion for The Piano and Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation. Bigelow was the first and only female to win the Oscar in 2010.
This year Little Women received six nominations, including Best Picture, Design, Score, Actress in a Leading Role and Actress in a Supporting Role. However, Greta Gerwig was not recognized for her role as director. If she had been nominated for Best Director, Gerwig would have become the first woman nominated twice for the category.
In recent years, both the Academy Awards and Hollywood have been attacked for their lack of diversity. In 2016, no actors of color were nominated for Best Leading or Supporting Actor at the Oscars. Many actors boycotted the awards show and the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite went viral. The Academy has been under criticism for having disproportionate white male nominees and winners. Boon Joon is the only nonwhite director nominated. If Wang had been nominated for The Farewell, she would have been the first female of Asian descent to be nominated for Best Director.
Critics also believe Jennifer Lopez was snubbed from receiving an Oscar nomination for her work in Hustlers. Lopez going unrecognized is discouraging for the Latinx community and demonstrates there is still a lack of diversity for acclaimed Hollywood movies. Lopez was the only Latinx with a strong chance of an Oscar nomination this year. The last American Latinx actress to be nominated for an award by the Academy was Rosie Perez in 1994, for Best Supporting Actress in Fearless.
The Academy has tried to diversify its team of voters after much criticism, such as the #OscarsSoWhite campaign. According to Time Magazine, since 2017 the Academy has invited more than 2,000 new members. With the new additions, 32 percent of the Academy’s members are now women, an increase from 25 percent in 2015 and now 16 percent of members are people of color, up from eight percent in 2015.
Critics and movie fans are still not seeing women and people of color being recognized for their work. The lack of roles and opportunities is a problem that continues to be discussed. However, the Academy shys away from celebrating those who have broken through the white male barrier in Hollywood.
Source: Alan Light via Creative Commons