Oscar Recap: women making progress, still fighting for more
Last Sunday, February 28th, the 88th Academy Awards were held at the Dolby Theater in Downtown Hollywood. This particular award year was defined by controversy and outrage over the absence of black nominees, resulting in the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite and a boycott of the entire show. While a conversation about racism within Hollywood took a forefront, sexism within Hollywood continued.
The day before the Academy Awards commenced, 9th Annual Women in Film Pre-Oscar Cocktail Party was held to celebrate all of the women nominees. Oscar winning actresses such as Jennifer Lawrence and Patricia Arquette spoke about gender equality, the film wage gap, and president Cathy Schulman noted, “No more talking about it. No more dealing with it as only philanthropy.”
A total of 51 women were nominated for an Oscar this year. The categories ranged from Screenwriting to Costume Design, Film Editing and Visual Effects. Films nominated for Best Picture represented stronger leading female roles, including Brooklyn (follows the trials and tribulations of a female Irish immigrant), Mad Max: Fury Road (post- apocalyptic Australia starring a tough female trying to escape a tyrannical dictator), and Room (a story of a young mother and her son trying to adjust to the outside world after freeing captivity).
Though it was an inspiring year at the Oscars for females, the struggle for diversity still plagues the industry.
Filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke, director of the intensely successful Twilight movie series, recently commented on the lack of diversity within Hollywood at the Portland Oregon Women’s Film Festival.
“People are just used to supporting and mentoring and hiring people that look like them. But on another level, we’ve all got this unconscious gender bias built into our systems. Even women too; even conscious women. We have generations and generations of looking at a male as an authority figure, and not a woman,” Hardwicke said.
Hardwicke responded to a question about why she personally thinks “gender disparity is so severe” in Hollywood. Hardwicke continued with mentioning “A lot has been said about the new “Jurassic Park” and Steven Spielberg and the kid that they hired to direct it — and “he looked just like me at that age, he wore his baseball cap and everything.” This ideology is critical in understanding why Hollywood continues to lack women representation on all platforms. It can be assumed that many individuals identify more closely with people who embody themselves. This idea is not new, and is actually something women in film advocates have been trying to promote. To have more women in film means more girls can aspire to become directors, producers, and editors. Although Spielberg's identity comparison may warm the heart, the mindset becomes extremely problematic, especially when Hollywood is made up of predominately white men. This ideology perpetuates gender and racial stereotypes which become more than just “Hollywood’s problem”. Without equal representation of all types of women, Hollywood will continue to fail to reflect the true world.
The 2016 Oscars can be viewed as a (small) step in the right direction for many women — but there is still a long road ahead. While the 2016 Oscars saw mostly white women gaining support, the industry needs to push for more women of color representation. More roles for women are slowly opening, and the film industry must continue the conversation; with more complex roles for women, along with production jobs, Hollywood will witness more innovative and creative projects being achieved.
