By PopZette Staff | January 13, 2020
The Academy Award nominations came out this morning, and outrage has since ensued due to the fact that no women were nominated for Best Director.
When John Cho and Issa Rae announced the nominations early this morning, the five nominees for Best Director were:
Martin Scorsese for “The Irishman”
Todd Phillips for “Joker”
Sam Mendes for “1917”
Quentin Tarantino for “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood”
Bong Joon-ho for “Parasite”
After announcing these nominees, Rae let her displeasure at the lack of female honorees be known by flatly saying, “Congratulations to those men.”
Issa Rae, after announcing the Best Director category: “Congratulations to those men.” pic.twitter.com/Sf8KHGRMGJ
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 13, 2020
Though the lack of female directing nominees has caused outrage, it was not unexpected. Before the nominees were announced, one academy voter who spoke on the condition of anonymity said he was “anticipating that it’s likely going to be very controversial” because “a lot of male directors” would be nominated.
“Unfortunately there are just five nominees” for best director in an “incredibly strong year,” he said, citing the fact that directors Scorsese, Tarantino and Mendes all have beloved bodies of work, according to Breitbart.
Very sad to have prewritten this story, and to have it turn out to be true. https://t.co/69erz5joe3
— Kate Aurthur (@KateAurthur) January 13, 2020
Chris Beachum of the Oscar-tracking website Gold Derby explained that members of the Academy “want to choose the best but they also want to be sensitive to women and minorities.”
“Greta (Gerwig) certainly has a shot at becoming the first woman to get in for (best) director twice,” Beachum continued. Gerwig was previously nominated for Best Director in 2017 for Lady Bird, but she was snubbed this year for Little Women.
No Greta Gerwig for ‘Little Women,’ no Lulu Wang for ‘The Farewell,’ no Lorene Scafaria for ‘Hustlers,’ no Melina Matsoukas for ‘Queen & Slim’ no Marielle Heller for ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.’ Once again, the Oscars nominated five men for best director. #OscarNoms
— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) January 13, 2020
This comes one week after Ricky Gervais joked about the lack of female director nominees while hosting the Golden Globe Awards.
Related: Ricky Gervais Opens Golden Globes by Telling Hollywood Stars Not to Talk About Politics
“No female directors were nominated this year,” Gervais said, according to Indiewire. “That’s bad. I’ve had a word with the HFPA and they have guaranteed this will never happen again. Working with all the major studios, [the HFPA has] agreed to go back to the way things were when they didn’t hire women directors. That will solve the problem. You’re welcome.”
Another year of Oscars, another year with no female directors in the running. As we head into the 92nd Academy Awards only five women have ever been nominated for best director. More in @latimes: https://t.co/edLwbRmuXX
— jen yamato (@jenyamato) January 13, 2020
Anyone who is actually outraged about this should remember that at the end of the day, the Oscars are just a dumb awards show. There are far bigger issues in the world right now than a lack of female director nominees at the Academy Award, so calm down, people!
This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.
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