Earlier today, the Golden Globe 2018 nominations were released, and there was one thing notable missing: female directors in the Best Director category.
That’s not to say any of the nominations are exactly poor choices. You have Ridley Scott for All The Money in the World, Christopher Nolan for Dunkirk, Steven Spielberg for The Post, Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water, and Martin McDonagh for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
But there were some incredible female directors this year, too.
Greta Gerwig, who directed Lady Bird – currently the best reviewed movie of all time on Rotten Tomatoes and film festival darling – was snubbed. So was Patty Jenkins, who directed blockbuster hit Wonder Woman and became only the second female director in history to command a budget of more than $100 million. And so was Dee Rees, who directed the formidable and powerful Mudbound, about the racism, fear, humiliation and terror inflicted on black people in the South around the Second World War.
Five white, male, established film directors? Right in front of my salad?
Compared to the more prestigious awards ceremonies – the Oscars and the Emmys – the Golden Globes is significantly less predictable. The Emmys might have rewarded the same television shows over and over again, but the Globes shake it up almost every year. And while the almost 8,500 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences vote on the Oscars, just 90 or so members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) vote on the Globes.
So what does it matter that no female directors were nominated for Best Director? Well, according to Vox, the Globes often pave the way for lesser-known films (i.e. Lady Bird and Mudbound, in this case) to be nominated for an Oscar.
And in the last twenty years, just three female directors were nominated, and none of them won (Coppola in 2003, Kathryn Bigelow in 2009 and 2012, and Ava Duvernay in 2014). The Globes is still very much a boys’ club.
FWIW, it wasn’t just female directors who were snubbed. Jordan Peele, whose directorial debut Get Out became one of the highest rated films of all time, missed out, and Luca Guadagnino, who’s widely expected to receive a Best Director nod at the Oscars for his breathtakingly beautiful Call Me By Your Name, also missed out.
By comparison, the inclusion of five male Hollywood heavyweights – Scott, Nolan, Spielberg, del Toro and McDonagh – seems stuffy, boring, and utterly predictable.
At the end of a year that has been marked by male Hollywood power players being exposed as predators, it’s a huge disappointment that women have been denied entry into the boy’s club.
The #GoldenGlobes could have nominated Greta Gerwig, Dee Rees, Jordan Peele or even Patty Jenkins for Best Director. But no, we got five white men. Very disappointed.
— Denizcan S. (@MrFilmkritik) December 11, 2017
Where is @PattyJenks? Where is Dee Rees? Where is Greta Gerwig? This is a year when women directors are making it to the finish line in awards season, and STILL they can’t break through. https://t.co/LvcJWagHEK
— Melissa Silverstein (@melsil) December 11, 2017
https://twitter.com/TessaThompson_x/status/940312136848261121
https://twitter.com/harleivy/status/940221590024916992
Not a single woman nominated for best director in a year when Greta Gerwig’s @LadyBirdMovie is 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes and is, hands down, one of the best directed films of the year. Not a good look, @goldenglobes . https://t.co/aOTXa8fRsR
— Listening in the Dark ✨ Amber Tamblyn (@ambertamblyn) December 11, 2017
https://twitter.com/ira/status/940216175400689666
The biggest disappointment of the morning: No Greta Gerwig. No Dees Rees. No Patty Jenkins. The #GoldenGlobes nominated five men for best director.
— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) December 11, 2017
