Earlier this week we discussed Ava DuVernay’s historical Golden Globe nomination and expressed our sincere hopes that she would be able to conquer the Oscars’ Best Director category. Sadly, that won’t be happening. Though the film itself deservedly nabbed a nomination for Best Picture, DuVernay was shockingly left out of the race for Best Director.
On one hand, it’s not surprising. Out of the eight best picture nominees, only The Theory of Everything (arguably) has a female protagonist, and only Selma is about people of color—the Academy Awards have been historically whitewashed and male-dominated. Why would we expect change now?
On the other, it’s incredibly surprising. As a beautifully crafted period piece about real-life events, Selma feels like prime Oscar bait. Though there are other wonderful films directed by women of color out there, we were cheering DuVernay on particularly.
The Academy missed a big ol’ boat on this one. Think of all the positive press you could have gotten for a change, old, white men! We could say there’s always next year, but somehow, that doesn’t make us feel any better about this year.
Image c/o AFFRM
