Variety’s Clayton Davis is already projecting the meltdown that will occur if no woman is nominated for Best Director come Tuesday morning.
Honestly, which female filmmakers deserved a Directing nomination this year? I’m seriously asking. You’re going to be reading a lot of think-pieces come Tuesday morning when/if no female director gets nominated in the Directing category.
The ones that keep being touted by pundits are Chinonye Chukwu (“Till”), Gina Prince-Bythewood (“The Woman King”), Sarah Polley (“Women Talking”) and Charlotte Wells (“Aftersun”). Save for Wells, the others shouldn’t be in the conversation, their films were overpraised and It’d be a total farce if they made it over Ostlund, Cameron, Luhrmann and Chazelle.
People, need I remind you: There are no quotas in the Oscar race, no matter how much pressure certain advocacy groups might put on the academy and voters. You’re supposed to vote for the best, not by sex, by race, by gender etc. but by pure filmmaking quality.
Fact of the matter is that there are many out there who want not just film awards to be swept up by “identity politics. To too many American film critics, it’s more about who made the movie, who stars in it, and its message, rather than quality.
Of course, it is important to progress and have inclusion at the movies, but it should never be done in a forced-upon way. Progression happens in baby steps, not by painstakingly shoving agendas down our throats.
There is a lack of patience for progress, people want the change to happen NOW, but in art, it can never be achieved at the flick of a switch. The latest stats say that 80% of filmmakers in this industry are still male and that means there stands a good chance that the best films and directors every year will be directed by white dudes.
I know, it’s an Inconvenient fact, but that’s where we’re at right now and, despite the incredible changes that have been made these last few years, in terms of gender and racial inclusivity, we are a long way from having full-on gender parity at the movies.