With every awards season comes a deluge of takes about whose art matters most. The result is oddly refractive: We wait for supposed experts to assign value to creative works, but it’s increasingly impossible (or at least, unconscionable) to accept the historically narrow lens through which they deem art valuable.
This year’s Academy Awards was particularly self-conscious about this new reality. Time’s Up pins addressed the ongoing discrimination and violence against women in entertainment. Standing on stage next to Salma Hayek and Annabella Sciorra, Ashley Judd spoke to the importance of representation and intersectionality in film. And presenters Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph jokingly assured us that, in case we were worried there were too many black people at the Oscars, there were plenty more white people to come.
It was funny because it was true. No moment made that more apparent than the montage of former Best Actress winners, which amounted to a parade of white women and Halle Berry. Later, Emma Stone presented the nominees for Best Director as “four men and Greta Gerwig,” unwittingly giving us a lesson on how to not be intersectional by diminishing the achievements of Jordan Peele and Guillermo del Toro, both men of color. As Jia Tolentino wrote for The New Yorker, the quippy brand of feminism on the “ironic feminist mugs of 2013 never did a good job of reminding us that race and gender exist simultaneously.”
Our mission at Token is to explore the intersection where race and gender do exist simultaneously, to celebrate the women who occupy that space. And to remind the world that lack of representation is an issue, twice-over, for the people who live in it. So, in honor of the end of this awards season (and the beginning of the next), here are a few WOC in the movie-making business.
—Ari
GINA RODRIGUEZ
Gina Rodriguez broke out in 2015 when she became the second Latina to win an Emmy for Best Actress in a TV Comedy for her titular role as Jane in CW’s Jane the Virgin. More recently, she starred in Annihilation, the all-woman-led sci-fi thriller from Alex Garland. She’s also a must-follow on Instagram, where she makes a point to support actors and actresses of color.
RUTH CARTER
For 30 years, Ruth Carter has designed costumes that become an inextricable part of characters’ identities. She designed for Spike Lee in Bed-Stuy in the ’80s; she outfitted the crew of a spaceship for Joss Whedon’s Serenity; most recently, she clothed warriors and genius inventors and royalty in Wakanda. She might be behind the scenes, but her work is vital to the imagery we associate with the movies we love.
KEIKO TSUNO
The Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV) in New York is an amazing space for documentary makers, lovers, viewers — they’re a non-profit media center founded in 1972 by Keiko Tsuno and her husband. Keiko has directed and produced documentaries about Cuba, Manhattan’s Chinatown, the health-care system, and so much more. Attend a workshop, apply for a grant, or just go see a movie at DCTV sometime.
