Female directors snubbed by the Academy yet again

I’ll say it: the Academy Awards hold less and less weight every year and the same goes for other awards shows. Acclaimed Korean director Bong Joon-ho, nominated for six Oscars this year for his film “Parasite” said it best in an interview with Vulture: “The Oscars are not an international film festival. They’re very local.” And he’s right.

The Academy has been on blast for the past few years: in 2015, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite was all over the news, because all 20 actors nominated in the supporting and lead acting categories were white for the second year in a row.

Last year, Kevin Hart stepped down from hosting when his homophobic tweets were unearthed, and everyone still remembers the “La La Land”—“Moonlight” mixup for best picture in 2017.

All of this reinforces what Joon-ho has been saying this awards season—not only are the Oscars very local, they’re ignoring people of color and women, and becoming a joke along the way. The prestigious reputation the Academy has established over the years is crumbling away.

This year they’ve taken action to tarnish their reputation once again by not nominating a single female filmmaker for the “Best Director” category, despite several films that should’ve been considered.

Among the snubbed are Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women,” a rework of the American classic by Louisa May Alcott; Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell,” about saying goodbye to a family matriarch; Marielle Heller’s “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” the tear-jerking story about a reporter and his experience interviewing Mr. Rogers; Kasi Lemmons’ “Harriet,” the biopic about Harriet Tubman; and Olivia Wilde’s “Booksmart,” which tells the story of two hard-working high school seniors who decide to go all out on their last night of school.

In all 92 years of the Academy Awards, only five women have ever been nominated for best director, and only one woman has taken the award home; Kathryn Bigelow won in 2010, for her film “The Hurt Locker.” The other 70 winners of the award have been men. Also, only six black filmmakers have been nominated for best director and none of them have won.

The most interesting part of this phenomenon is that the movies made by female filmmakers are up for several other awards. “Little Women” is up for six of the biggest categories: best picture, Saoirse Ronan for best actress, Florence Pugh for best supporting actress, best original score, best adapted screenplay, and best costume design. It’s clear the Academy liked the film. They’d just rather act like the movie directed itself than (again) acknowledge that Greta Gerwig’s directing is a tour de force.

Instead, the Academy is really patting itself on the back for nominating one person of color for best director, Bong Joon-ho, and four white men for movies that have already been made. I’m no film major, but the other movies (save Sam Mendes’s epic WWI movie, “1917”) in the best director category are, to put it mildly, crappy.

I saw them. Here are my thoughts: “Joker,” directed by Todd Philips, is only receiving praise because the role of the Joker has developed a strange prestige after Heath Ledger’s incredible performance shortly before his death. The film is simply a boring and weird homage to white male rage. If I wanted to see that, I’d speak to literally any white dude in a Whole Foods.

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” has been made already by Quentin Tarantino. The same goes for Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.” Scorcese and Tarantino both wrote and directed movies that they themselves have already made, yet critics are practically licking their boots. “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is like Tarantino made a predictive text bot read his scripts and then write a movie. “Goodfellas” and “The Irishman” are identical, except the latter is three hours long and there’s no Henry Hill.

Meanwhile, Gerwig spun the historically boring “Little Women” into a funny, heartfelt, irreverent story about girls growing into young women, and the Academy is ignoring her.

Sure, the movie is up for a few of the biggest awards, but essentially it’s like they’re just saying, “Female filmmakers can have a little validation, as a treat.”

If you ask me, an awards show that doesn’t acknowledge the impressive filmmaking of female directors, as well as people of color in the film industry, is a joke. It holds no actual weight. So when Tarantino or Phillips win for some dumb movie made for the male gaze, I won’t be surprised.