State of the Oscars: Director’s Award Still a Boy’s Club

In 2010, at the 82nd annual Academy Awards, Kathryn Bigelow did something that no other woman had done before—she won an Academy Award for Best Director.   The perennially male-dominated award had finally accepted a woman (eeps!) into their club.

But, lest we let ourselves bask too long in the glow of our own excitement over shifting gender norms, this year’s Academy Award nominations were announced today and there isn’t a female director in sight. This isn’t to say that the five nominated directors aren’t deserving by any means.  But the fact that year after year (with the exceptions of 1976, 1993 and 2003), the best directors in the whole world are five men and no one blinks is something to be concerned about.

Of course, there are few female directors to choose from in the first place. Movies, especially wide-release or awards-bait movies, are largely the domain of men. Could the issue come down to a discomfort with having a woman in charge? We are a country that is pretty uneasy with female leadership. True, there was that one time when Hillary Clinton was almost the first female presidential nominee from a major party, but all people wanted to talk about was her husband and that one time she cried.

If we want to see more women nominated for awards, or heck, just directing movies, we need to get comfortable with women in charge.  It’s not as though we’re still in search of a precedent. Not only did Ms. Bigelow win last year, she won for directing one of the grittier war movies (speaking of boys’ clubs) in recent memory. The stage has been set.   It’s time to freshen up this club and show the cinephiles of the world that the new face of leadership can be a woman’s.