Oscars 2022: When will we stop ranting #OscarsTooMale? Here's why this year should've ended that

“Where are the female voices at the Oscars?” is a question I find myself asking every award season. At this point, it is hard to say whether excluding women from an Oscar lineup has become tradition or if it is pure habit. It is as if the word “snub” has now become an exclusive cross for women to bear. And we are talking about a year in which one had to really be blind to even think of not acknowledging the fierce display of feminine brilliance. Still if the Oscar loves one thing, it is repeating history and only awarding men. The statistics this year are as dismal as we have come to expect from the Oscars: Women barely register in the major gender-neural categories such as Directing, Screenplay or Cinematography. And it is not for lack of options. Still, there is some silver lining: For _The Power of the Dog_ , Jane Campion slid into the Best Director race, becoming the only woman to achieve the feat for the second time. Campion’s spellbinding Western is in the running for Best Picture as is the Sian Heder-helmed _ CODA_ . Both Campion and Heder are also contending for Best Adapted Screenplay — the only category that seems to have leveled the field for women — along with debutante director Maggie Gyllenhaal, recognised for her work on the mesmerizing _The Lost Daughter_. [caption id=“attachment_10256171” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Olivia Colman in The Lost Daughter[/caption] In that sense, Oscars 2022 seems to be continuing on its steadfast allergy towards female filmmakers, a gap in the Academy’s thinking that has remained untampered by Chloe Zhao’s _Nomadland_ win last year. Campion is the sole female filmmaker in the Best Director list — that even considers Japanese filmmaker Ryasuke Hamaguchi — which seems ludicrous given that the year has witnessed an unprecedented diversity of distinctive female voices. Just sample the list of female filmmakers who made a film that counted among the very best of the year to understand the level of delusion that the Academy is operating at: Céline Sciamma ( _Petite Maman_ ), Julia Ducournau (Titane), Emma Seligman ( _Shiva Bab_ _y), Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter), and Sian Heder (CODA_). [caption id=“attachment_10386271” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Still from Petite Maman[/caption] That the exclusion of either of them is a matter of the Academy treating works by female filmmakers as less inferior is evident from the fact that Helder is not up for Best Director even though CODA is nominated for Best Picture. It’s as if a director shoulders zero responsibility in putting together a film worthy of a Best Picture nomination if she is a woman. In the case of a male director however, he is the sole reason a film is any good. In fact, even the Best International Feature has no place for women this year. The fact that Ducournau won the Palme d’Or — considered the highest prize in the festival circuit — for Titane, and was still overlooked for an Oscar nomination says everything you need to know about the state of the Oscars today. The sexism is even more frustrating considering that the year has redefined what it means to be a female voice working in the movies today. In Titane and Shiva Baby, Ducournao and Seligman employ body horror and crippling anxiety as the language for female rebellion and liberation. Gyllenhaal and Sciamma turned their gaze toward unshackling motherhood from the prison of selflessness. [caption id=“attachment_8836251” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Still from Shiva Baby[/caption] In both their films, these filmmakers capture motherhood as a series of glorious failures — in past and present to an extent where memory and fact become indistinguishable from each other. With CODA on the other hand, Heder might have just revolutionised the way sign language can act as part of a film’s dialogue, insisting that even silences can be heard by a viewer if a story is compelling enough and told with an extravagance of empathy.   If these films directed by women (and I have not even come to Joanna Hogg’s stunning The Souvenir Part II, which even I recognise is too far-fetched to expect on an Oscar shortlist) during the last calendar year have one thing in common, it is a spellbinding commitment to invention. Each of these films upend genre conventions, filmmaking traditions, and audience expectations with an arresting sincerity. Put simply, these are works that prove the raw ingenuity of the female voice, of spotlighting a perspective that for decades used to be a device.   [caption id=“attachment_10483411” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Still from Writing With Fire[/caption] Indeed, the only category that truly displays the significance of the resilience of the female gaze are the nominations for Best Documentary. The shortlist honoured India’s Rintu Thomas, who co-directed _Writing With Fire_, a documentary about the country’s only all-women-run newspaper shepherded by Dalit, OBC, and Muslim journalists. Similarly, _Flee_, Attica, and Ascension — three of the remaining four nominated documentaries — feature one or more women as co-directors.   But even that is hardly enough to close out the gender gaps that continue to widen with each passing year. A single female contender for Best Director or winner can only move the needle so much if the Academy jury itself is unwilling to look past its biases.

The argument here is not necessarily a comparison between the efficiency of the work of a male director and a female director. Instead, the ask is simple: do not overlook movies by female filmmakers in favour of an all-male lineup.

It is exactly why we still struggle to name female auteurs. After all, the distance between a great director and an undeniable auteur is a matter of a few awards. Moving images are democratic in nature — they breathe life with the kind of vigour that is within reach for everyone who wants to embrace the medium. So how is it then that a jury decides year after year, that gender ends up deciding who can blindly move them to a point where they have to be rewarded? The categories — Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Picture — that have historically witnessed the rampant erasure of women is telling of what the Academy continues believing is only the domain of men. Award categories like Best Music, Costume Design, and Makeup/Hairstyling are naturally considered gender-agnostic. [caption id=“attachment_10148491” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Still from Spencer[/caption] There is perhaps no better example for my point than the injustice meted out to Claire Mathon. Mathon filmed Petite Maman and _Spencer_ , two of the most cinematically rewarding and visceral movies of the year, and still failed to find a mention in the Best Cinematography shortlist (It was only in 2017 that a woman was nominated in the category for the first time in the history of the Oscars). Every nominee in the category, on the other hand, has only shot one film. Mathon’s roving camera made poetry out of suffocation, entrapment, and crushing loneliness. And yet, it was not enough. After all, why do we watch the Oscars anymore unless we are made to frequently remember just how much it proudly brandishes the fact that it chooses to have no place for women year after year.   Oscars 2022 will take place on 28 March. [caption id=“attachment_10418721” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Oscars 2022. Illustration by Poorti Purohit[/caption]

Poulomi Das is a film and culture writer, critic, and programmer. Follow more of her writing on  Twitter.

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