It’s that time of the year again. With the Oscars right around the corner, the nominations have been announced and the outrage brigades have combed through it to find out what identity group is getting shafted and who is being “over-represented.”
As you may have guessed, the people getting shafted are everyone who isn’t white or male. Specifically, women who apparently have no nominations in the “Best Director” category.
The Hollywood Reporter has already lamented the lack of representation in various categories:
On the director front, where Hollywood has made efforts to hire more female helmers, there were no women present in the best director category, with Little Women‘s Greta Gerwig being the most glaring omission (she did earn a best adapted screenplay nomination, and Little Women was nominated for best picture).
“It’s disturbing but not surprising that women directors still don’t get the respect and awards that male directors do,” said Melissa Silverstein, founder of the advocacy website Women and Hollywood and director of the Athena Film Festival. “The system and the culture are the problems. To not see the brilliant work of Greta Gerwig and [The Farewell‘s] Lulu Wang and [It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood‘s] Marielle Heller and [Hustlers‘] Lorene Scafaria and many others not being viewed in the same way as the men in their field is heartbreaking. We all know they hit it out of the park this year and the fact that they are constantly overlooked is why we all keep doing the work to change the system and the culture.”
Last year’s Academy Awards offered a more diverse portrait of Hollywood, with three of the top four acting categories won by people of color (Bohemian Rhapsody‘s Rami Malek, If Beale Street Could Talk‘s Regina King and Green Book‘s Mahershala Ali). Like Carter, Hannah Beachler made history last year as the first black production designer to be nominated for — and win — an Oscar for Black Panther.
Actress and producer, Issa Rae, also subtly threw shade toward the nominations for Best Director after announcing them by saying “congratulations to those men.”
This was echoed by Variety, who tweeted out a GIF of Rae’s comment.
#Oscars: No women were nominated for best director https://t.co/eEYxKfTI8i pic.twitter.com/qsdTkZOJ3h
— Variety (@Variety) January 13, 2020
Twitter has also deemed that it be necessary to make it the top trending thing in the United States.
Truthfully, there haven’t been any breakout films from female directors this year. The most popular one was a remake of “Little Women” which many people didn’t even know was being released, especially against the standout films like 1917.
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