Women have always been in film, but continue to struggle to get the pay and recognition they deserve for roles.
But now women are coming forward and calling it out loudly.
Brie Larson, a lead female actress in Captain Marvel, has told her peers to “ask for what you deserve,” which is hard to do as women due to backlash from the media or even being not hired for asking for “too much.”
It’s displeasing to see that female directors and actresses aren’t getting the same opportunity this year to win awards despite their movies having great standing and considered competition.
There has only been one female director, Kathryn Bigelow,who actually won best director within the history of the 90 years the Academy Awards have been around.. Bigelow won for “The Hurt Locker.”
Nominations are fine and dandy but when the ones who are winning are just men, isn’t there a reason to be concerned that women are underrepresented?
This year’s biggest slight is being called out as Greta Gerwig has had numerous articles written about her lack of a nomination for Best Director for her work on “Little Women.”
Women change the film industry and help push more women to break out as a study done by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film states “films with at least one female director, women comprised 72 percent of writers versus 11 percent on films directed exclusively by men.”
Even though generally women are underrepresented, women of color are even more marginalized.
According to Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, only four women of color directed a top 100 movie in 2019 and only one percent of all directors of top grossing movies over 13 years were women of color.
It’s sad that women have to fight for screen time or to be able to direct a movie.
It’s time to make 2020 the year of improvements and I hope women continue to fight past these boundaries.