Once again that time of year has come around in which film lovers wait with bated breath to see how the cinematic masterpieces of the past year have fared in the Oscar nominations, and once again we are left with a bitter taste in our mouths. It is sadly no surprise to see that another year has come around without a single female filmmaker nominated for Best Director, and not only that, but the Best Picture category is also dominated by films directed entirely by men. It is almost laughable to think that the number of women to have received nominations for Best Director in the Academy Awards can be counted on one hand: only five women in the past ninety years have ever been recognised, and only one woman has ever won the award (Kathryn Bigelow back in 2010 for 'The Hurt Locker').
The conversation is truly becoming dry now. How many times do we need to flog this dead horse before women get the recognition and representation they deserve alongside their male peers? We have to stop excusing this continuous oversight of women filmmakers as being due to a lack of talent on the part of these women, because it simply is not true. There were countless highly acclaimed films made by women in the past year, but while critics and the public alike have venerated these masterpieces of film, they were simply ignored by the Academy. One such film, 'Can You Ever Forgive Me?', even received three different Oscar nominations, but the director, Marielle Heller, was overlooked. In addition to this, there were several female directors and films which were completely ignored in the Oscar nominations, despite being highly critically acclaimed worldwide; 'Leave No Trace' (Debra Granik) was one of the most highly accredited films of the year with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 100%, while 'Private Life' (Tamara Jenkins), 'Destroyer' (Karyn Kusama), and 'The Rider' (Chloe Zhao) all received similar adoration at the part of film critics.
"But what of the pictures which actually received recognition from the Academy?", you ask. The directors who were nominated must have similarly highly acclaimed works of film, no? Well, not necessarily. Adam McKay was nominated for his direction of 'Vice', a film which achieved a disappointingly mediocre critics' score of 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience score which is even more embarrassingly low. Furthermore, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (directed by Bryan Singer) was nominated for Best Picture while that, too, received similarly poor ratings from critics. Of course, that is not to say that they did not deserve their nominations for numerous other reasons, but when there were so many deserving women, why were the slots automatically given to men when their films are not necessarily any superior? Why are so many women in the industry not being taken seriously?
^Thomasin McKenzie and Debra Granik on set for 'Leave No Trace'.
Of course, women behind the screen were not entirely forgotten; two female-directed films were nominated for Best Documentary: 'RBG' (Betsy West and Julie Cohen) and 'Free Solo' (Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin). However, taking into account the fact that over half of the films running in this category were directed by women and of those only two have been selected, the Academy cannot really be expecting any gold stars for this pathetic excuse for diverse nominations.
Do we just sit around and wait?
It is no secret that Hollywood is (and always has been) a muddy, murky mess of misogyny and fact is only becoming clearer with passing months. While we are incessantly fed this idea that things are changing for the better, the truth is sadly far from this. The problem does not lie only with the lack of recognition of female directors, but also in the shocking lack of women actually in these directive roles in the first place. A recent study, 'Celluloid Ceiling', showed that the number of women hired as directors in the top grossing films of 2018 dropped by 3% from the previous year, to an appalling 8%. The statistics speak for themselves: women simply are not being hired by big studios for influential roles behind the camera. The president of the Directors Guild of America, Thomas Schlamme, addressed the lack of diversity in Hollywood, admitting that "from financing and hiring, to distribution and agent representation: every aspect of the entire system disadvantages women and people of colour".
The Oscars are no strangers to controversy for their embarrassing lack of diversity. It was only in 2016 that the Academy notoriously made headlines for their white-washed list of nominations. To give credit where it is due, changes were consequently made to try to diversify the voting body for the awards, adding 928 members with 49% being women and 41% being people of colour. However, it is evident that this has not done enough to change the attitudes of people in the industry in general. With a Hollywood-culture which assumes male superiority and belittles the efforts of women, it is attitudes which need to change before anything else. Hiring women in the industry should not be seen as "box-ticking", rather as simply building a well-rounded and representative working body. Female directors should not be pushed out of the limelight simply because the men shout louder. And films made by women should not have to fight for recognition when they often out-rank, out-sell, and out-do the films of their male peers.
