The Women of the Oscar Nominations - Miss Representation

I recently became a Social Action Rep with Miss Representation! I will be blogging my thoughts on women in the media.

Source

Let's talk about the lack of female nominees at the Oscars.

Now, there are a handful nominated for producing in the Best Picture category: Stacey Sher (Django Unchained), Pilar Savone (Django Unchained), Debra Hayward (Les Misérables), Kathleen Kennedy (Lincoln), Donna Gigliotti (Silver Linings Playbook), Kathryn Bigelow and Megan Ellison (Zero Dark Thirty). Five out of nine movies had one or more female producers.

For Animated Feature Film? There's only Brenda Chapman, for Brave.

For Cinematography? Zero.

For Directing? Zero.

For Original Score? Zero.

For Adapted Screenplay? Only Lucy Alibar, for Beasts of the Southern Wild.

For Original Screenplay? Zero.

Perhaps it would be easier to visualize this discrepancy in a graph, as the lovely people of Bitch Flicks have so kindly done for us: 

Source

Now, it's not like women are not out there in all of these careers. But time and again, the Academy chooses to nominate more men than women in arguably the more "technical" areas.

What will it take for more women to be nominated? I know that some will argue that it's not the Academy's fault. That the best and most talented contributors just happen to be male. So then who actually needs to deal with this problem?

I do think the Academy needs to nominate more women. But at the same time, movies need to utilize more women. If you don't hire a female director, she can never be nominated. If you don't hire a female  to do the visual effects, she can never be nominated.

I do hope the 2014 Oscar nominations fare better.

Further Reading
www.missrepresentation.org
http://www.btchflcks.com


The views and statements in this message do not necessarily reflect those of Miss Representation.org and their leadership.