| February 12, 2020 | Dang Le | managing editor |
|---|
Ninety-two years since the first Academy Awards, five females have been nominated for Best Director, one has won, which was more than a decade ago.
It’s not that female directors don’t direct quality movies. Apparently, viewers love them, critics give them rave reviews, but they continuously get sidelined when it comes to being nominated in the Hollywood industry.
Throughout the last decade, many female directors have broken boundaries. “The Kids Are All Right,” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” “I, Tonya,” and “Lady Bird” are among those that create buzz for the movies’ fans.
However, except for Greta Gerwig, who received some recognition for “Lady Bird,” and Katheryn Bigelow, who won big for “The Hurt Locker,” most other female directors were ignored during the award seasons.
In 2019, female directors made a record number of movies. None of them were nominated for Best Director.
“Then, they should have made better movies?” Well, Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell,” Olivia Wilde’s “Booksmart” and Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” all receive better reviews than Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time” or Todd Phillips’ “Joker.”
Yet the Academy nominates the latter three for Best Director over the former three.
It’s not even a taboo, as director Melina Matsoukas recently called out the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. skipped all the Golden Globes screenings for her movie, “Queen & Slim.”
While award shows are just a standard made up by a group of people, most of the public use the Academy Awards as a way of knowing more movies. Thus, this bias against women may have caused them the exposure.
But the story here is they will always lose to male directors.
The movie industry has seen multiple women receiving awards, most of them either for Best Actress or Supporting Actress. Maybe, Hollywood is not afraid of women winning, but who the women are winning against.
