The Oscars Think Piece You Don’t Need but Are Getting Anyway

We don’t need another Oscars think piece. I know this. You know this. We all know this. But what else is a woman to do when she is not a filmmaker and not an executive, but just an ordinary writer with no real power beyond the sentences she can string together? I love film — I have always loved film. As a kid growing up in the nineties, The Lion King changed me. Jurassic Park inspired me. I write because I believe in a good story, well told. So, let us begin with a story.

The first Academy Awards ceremony was held at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel as a private dinner event on May 19, 1929. The first woman to receive an Oscar that wasn’t for acting was Frances Marion, who won Best Writing (Original Screenplay) for The Big House in 1931. And the first woman even nominated for directing? Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties in 1977. There have only been five women nominated in this category since Wertmüller. To this day, Katheryn Bigelow remains the only one who won (for The Hurt Locker in 2010).

The year Seven Beauties was released, not one of the top ten grossing films in the United States was directed by a woman. And the year The Hurt Locker came out? Same answer. Zero. This year — with all male nominees in the directing category — two of the top grossing films were directed by women (as part of man and woman directing…