Ahead of the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday night, filmmaker Patty Jenkins is expressing her disappointment over the nominations. Notably, this year’s nominees for Best Director do not include any women. Those up for the award are Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin), Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans), Todd Field (Tár), Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness), and the directing duo of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once).
This list of nominees has already led to some criticism against the Oscars, given how women have won Best Director for the past two years. Chloe Zhao took the win for Nomadland in 2021 while Jane Campion won for Power of the Dog last year. It’s been argued that the lack of female nominees in 2023 has nothing to do with there not being anyone deserving, as this leaves out some notable names like Sarah Polley (Women Talking), Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Woman King), Charlotte Wells (Aftersun), and Maria Schrader (She Said).
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Speaking with Variety, Jenkins shared her opinion on the all-male nominee list for Best Director this year. She says she’s “stopped paying attention” to the Oscars at this point, claiming she’s given up on the awards show due to disappointments like this. Jenkins does admit there have been some “efforts” made by the Academy to improve diversity, but that there’s still more work to be done. As Jenkins said at the pre-Oscars dinner:
“I give up, I give up. I say that even with all of their push to have diversity. The numbers are just hugely imbalanced of who votes for these things. I sort of just stopped paying attention to it. It’s still going to take a long ways to go. It’s going to take a lot more to really see truly more diverse awards. I really appreciate the efforts that they’re making but we have a long way to go.”
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The Woman King director Gina Prince-Bythewood has also spoken out about getting snubbed by the Oscars. She says she won’t ever be able to get over it because of how it’s just one small part of a much larger problem in Hollywood.
“I’ll never get over it, because what happened was egregious and … it speaks to such a bigger issue in our industry,” she said. “But [it also speaks to] who I am, the people around me, these actors. We will never take our foot off the gas. We’re ready to do something next. We’re ready to do something as big, we’re ready to do something together. So we always keep that energy no matter what happens.”
The Academy Awards will air live on ABC starting at 8:00 p.m. EST.
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