The 2023 Academy Awards nominations were recently released to honour the best in cinema for 2022. Apparently, that does not include the likes of any woman-directed films…again. The upcoming ceremony will be the 95th Academy Awards, and since the Academy’s inception, seven women have been recognized for nominations in the category and three have been able to win. Most recently, Jane Campion took it home for The Power of the Dog in 2022 and Chloé Zhao for Nomadland in 2021, twelve and eleven years respectively since Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win in 2009. Despite several critically acclaimed films being directed by women this year, one of which is nominated for best picture, women have once again been snubbed for the directing category.
2021 and 2022 marked huge victories for the visibility of women directors; two years in a row, a woman took home the award and in 2021, more than one woman was nominated. Zhao’s win was especially promising as she became the first woman of colour to even be nominated in the category.
Why does 2023 seem to mark a regression in the progress made? Maybe there just weren’t any films directed by women worth nominating. Not only does that argument not apply to this year, it most certainly can’t be applied to almost 95 years worth of cinema. To say that only seven women have made movies worthy of consideration in such a wide span of history is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Not to mention, of the long list of men who have been nominated, the vast majority have been white.
For 2023 in particular, Aftersun by Charlotte Wells, Women Talking by Sarah Polley, The Woman King by Gina Prince-Bythewood, Till by Chinonye Chukwu, and She Said by Maria Schrader were the most notable films left out of the category. Polley’s Women Talking is particularly notable given that the film was nominated for best picture and writing (adapted screenplay).
Why the discrepancy between best picture and best director? Some may point to the different limits imposed on each category: there are 10 films nominated for best picture and only 5 for best director. To point to this explanation, however, would be to pretend that this was an isolated case when it is clearly not. What needs to be dissected is the demographic of those who vote on the nominations in the first place: the members of the Academy itself.
The Academy is still primarily made up of older white men. After the #OscarsSoWhite controversy in 2016, efforts were made to diversify the members who in turn decide what films are deemed worthy of celebration. By 2019, women still only made up 32% of the members and people of colour a mere 16%. The fact that the movies that typically gain recognition cater to white men doesn’t mean that the members who voted for them are inherently sexist or racist (though some may be), it does, however, reflect the fact that people are drawn to stories that they relate to. With regard to the lack of woman-directed films nominated for the directing category, men might not relate as much to the stories women have to tell. This doesn’t make the stories less worthy of viewership or accolades, but when the target audience isn’t represented in the voting pool, it’s unlikely that recognition will come. Suppose the Academy doesn’t move to include more women, people of colour, queer people, disabled people, or anyone outside of the white boys club in their ranks. In that case, it is unlikely that the pool of movies honoured will change permanently any time soon.
Why does this matter? An award isn’t everything; there are tons of movies that have popular, even cult, followings that weren’t recognized for awards at all and that didn’t stop them from becoming popular. The fact of the matter is, winning an award as coveted as an Oscar gives a director credibility that comes with more opportunities and more people willing to finance their projects. By having a more diverse pool of candidates for best director, more space is made in the industry as a whole. Think back to Crazy Rich Asians; Michelle Yeoh (nominated this year for her role in Everything Everywhere All At Once) spoke about the opportunities the film brought for the Asian community at large during the Hollywood Reporter Roundtable discussion. By having a film with an all-Asian cast be recognized at the scale that it was, Yeoh makes reference to the space created in the industry for more stories that haven’t been given the chance to be told.
Not only would having more women nominees create more opportunities for women directors at large, but being nominated for an Academy Award validates talented and amazing artists who put in hard work to tell a story that mattered to them. It tells directors and audiences alike that you don’t have to fit the norm of the past to be successful and worthy of critical acclaim.
This norm also applies to the usual whiteness of the nominees. The issue of representation is intersectional; some of this year’s biggest snubs were Till and The Woman King. Not only did they not get recognized in the best director category, but they also weren’t recognized in any of the acting categories either despite large amounts of positive reviews for both Danielle Deadwyler and Viola Davis. If more space is carved out in the industry for women, that cannot be reserved for only those who are white, who only stray from the societal norm by one factor: gender.
While this year’s Oscar nominees may be disappointing concerning the lack of women nominated for best director, there are still some amazing films nominated and worthy of celebration. Hopefully, the ongoing backlash to the lack of diversity within the Academy will lead to actual changes on our screen. Whether they will have accomplished that by the 96th Academy Awards remains to be seen.