The 92nd Academy Awards: female directors just "don’t have the balls".

Article by Sarah McCorie

The 92nd Academy Awards took place on 10th February and proved to be yet another controversial year with several filmmakers protesting the systemic sexism of the film industry. In the history of the Academy Awards, only five women have every been nominated for the category of directing, and only one woman has ever received the award for best director (Katheryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker, 2008).

Controversy began with the announcement of this year’s nominees for the award of best director, including Martin Scorsese ("The Irishman"), Todd Phillips ("Joker"), Sam Mendes ("1917"), Quentin Tarantino ("Once upon a Time... in Hollywood") and Bong Joon Ho ("Parasite"). Actress Issa Rae, presenting the nominee announcement, kicked off the shade with a polite, “Congratulations to those men”.

Pictured Natalie Portman cape. Photo Credit: Getty Images

Natalie Portman has also continued her critique of the Academy Awards. In 2018, presenting with Ron Howard at the Golden Globes, she too highlighted the ‘all-male’ nominees. This year, Portman provided a subtler, enviably stylish form of resistance; the actress walked the red carpet in a black and gold gown, finished with a cape embroidered with the names of the female directors yet again overlooked for the category. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Portman stated, “I wanted to recognise the women who were not recognised for their incredible work this year in my subtle way”.

Portman was not the only actress protesting this year’s choice of nominees; Saoirse Ronan, Little Women star and best actress nominee, has been vocal in the run up to the Oscars regarding the repeated omission of Greta Gerwig, director of both Ladybird (2017) and Little Women (2019), from the nominees.

Speaking to Deadline, the actress explained: “Greta, since she started, has made two perfect films, and I hope when she makes her next perfect movie, she gets recognised for everything, because I think she’s one of the most important film-makers of our time”. Ronan was supported in highlighting the omission of Gerwig’s nomination by Little Women co-start and fellow nominee Florence Pugh, who told Entertainment Weekly: “She’s literally made a film about this. She made a film about women working and their relationship with money and their relationship with working in a man’s world. That’s literally what ‘Little Women’ is about, so (this) only undermines how important it is— because it’s happening”.  

The disproportion of this year’s nominees was also felt at other award shows; presenting the award of Best Director at this year’s BAFTA Film Awards, actress Rebel Wilson listed off the all-male nominees before joking “I don’t think I could do what they do— honestly, I don’t have the balls”.

Pictured: Rebel Wilson. Photo Credit: Oscars

Joaquin Phoenix, winner of the best actor award for Joker (2019), addressed the inequalities within the industry: “I think, whether we’re talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice. We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, one species, has the right to dominate, use and control with impunity.”

Pictured: Joaquin Phoenix. Photo Credit: Oscars.

But one of the most important speeches of the night arguably belonged to Hildur Guðnadóttir, who became only the fourth woman to win an Oscar for a film score, and the first since 1997, for her Joker music: “To the girls, to the women, to the mothers, to the daughters, who hear the music bubbling within, please speak up. We need to hear your voices”, Guðnadóttir stated. With 2019 said to be a banner year for female filmmakers and other minority directors, it seems implausible that the achievements of female filmmakers continue to be snubbed in every award season. As Guðnadóttir highlighted in her speech, we need to hear women’s voices, and see their achievements reflected on the world stage.

Until then? “Congratulations to those men.”

Pictured: Hildur Guðnadóttir, Febraury 2020. Photo Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images