Awards shows are a paradox. Unlike an Olympic event where there is an outcome you can quantify to select a winner, awards shows are based solely on opinion. And as we’ve seen from the 2016 Presidential election - and every Republican primary since – opinions aren’t always a great barometer of quality. Awards shows do provide the opportunity to recognize many unsung, behind-the-scenes heroes on set. They allow us to honor genres that don’t get a lot of attention otherwise, like documentaries. And sometimes they help propel a plucky indie into attention it wouldn’t have otherwise received. But they are also, largely, rich people giving other rich people awards. As if being rich wasn’t reward enough.
One of my best friends has an Oscar. I mention this as often as I can. I’m incredibly proud of her and I do understand what a remarkable achievement this, especially when you don’t have a PR machine behind you spending months campaigning. The flip side - and she is an incredibly humble person despite the hardware, so she would be the first to tell you – is that there is so much amazing work that happens in film and TV, year after year, it’s hard to reconcile that we deem some “the best.” Oh, sure, they’ve tried to change the language into “Outstanding Achievement,” or say, “And the Award Goes to” instead of “The winner is.” But we are not millennials, we know what they mean. They mean winners and losers and not everyone can be the first.
To say that the winners deserve it or have earned it is probably true. What is also true is that countless others deserve it and earned it and won’t receive that nomination, won’t have been able to get that attention. And so – to me - it all seems a bit random. Over at the Emmys we can’t even figure out what’s a comedy and what’s a drama anymore. So I start to wonder if the randomness doesn’t rob it of its meaning.*
Because I have enough conundrums in my life, it’s been years since I have watched an awards show. Instead, The Husband is forced to watch them alone in his office like it was some weird German porn. I mention all of this so it’s clear how little I get wrapped up in who gets nominated or wins. It’s a fan favorite award where most of the fans are old rich white dudes. I don’t expect it to be fair or reflect my tastes. But this week, the Academy Award nominations came out, and not on the list of those nominated for directing was Greta Gerwig for Barbie.
There was outrage on the internet. And then backlash against the outrage. The internet is like the tides; if it’s going out you can count on it coming back in again. Have many other women who deserved it have never been nominated for director? Countless, since the beginning of time. What makes this time different for myself, is the sheer scope of this movie and it’s subsequent success. When you direct a quiet indie, it’s dismissed as simple or easy. Marginalized voices are often barred from even selling or making projects because we’re told they don’t make as much money as “mainstream” endeavours – “mainstream” of course being code for anything white, cis-het male. But here’s a movie that was not simple. It shot on two continents. It had art direction on amphetamines, and car chases, and social satire, and laugh out loud comedy, and dance numbers, and costumes that leave me breathless and a soundtrack that slapped. It was a gumbo of filmmaking that one person had to manage soup to nuts. You can say you didn’t like it, totally valid, but you cannot deny most other people did. The movie made nearly 1.5 billion dollars, becoming the 4th highest grossing movie of all time, reinvigorating a box office that was flat-lining, and had a noticeable effect on the US economy, the largest one in the world.
Not simple. Made money. Still not enough.
Great Gerwig will be fine. I’m sure she’d be the first person to tell you that. This is not about the privileged. This is about what it says to those of us just trying to grind it out, whether it’s on set or in an office or in classrooms. You can do everything above and beyond the greatest of expectations, and it will never measure up against the most mediocre, tired entry from a man they want to like. I’m having flashbacks to 2016 just typing this.
We know the world is like this. But it’s not galling enough to have to live in this reality, we have to be reminded every single day. Nothing we do will be good enough. And when we celebrate something that is ours, that is funny and joyous and smart, and resonates with so many people - they will find a way to diminish and belittle it. They will still find a reason why we aren’t deserving of the spaces men effortlessly ascend to as if it is their right.
There are absolutely far worse problems in the world. But imagine how different they would look if sexism wasn’t so insidious. Imagine where our energies could be spent if we weren’t still fighting for reproductive healthcare fifty-one years after Roe. Imagine if we had pay equity, what we could do with our money and influence. If we had more women in all levels of elected office. If money was given to more women investors and inventors. This makes me so angry because if Greta Gerwig can’t do it, what chance to do I have? What chance do the women with less privilege than me? How are we supposed to make things better for the women who come after us, if we’re being strangled by the system now? I know progress is slow and incremental, but at this point we’re sliding backwards. We say we won’t go back, but heads up, we already have. I’m so sick of it I could choke.
The ultimate irony is that the muddled, long, dry fuck that is Oppenheimer, in all of its three plus hours, seems to have only one conflict that the protagonist faces: that of being denied access. This is the worst thing that can happen to the man who caused untold human suffering with his invention. Spoiler alert: Two white men are being gate-keeped by other white men; one wants his super special security clearance renewed, the other a cabinet post. They are galled that this could happen to them, they who are so deserving of all of it. I guess it's OK to get mad at the patriarchy when you’re part of it.
Access is equity. Equity is true equality. These men know this. That’s why they fight so hard to keep us from it.
*None of this is to say that if I was nominated for anything, I wouldn’t show up as I can’t resist an opportunity to wear a great dress and drink for free. As it is, I don’t need to even be nominated for anything to find chances to do that on a semi-regular basis.