One of the first disagreements I ever had with my mom revolved around movies.
I was five years old, and one of my friends had invited me and my sister to see “The Rugrats Movie.” But my mom would not let us go – she worried the character Angelica was a bad female representation for young girls, and she did not want us to become exposed to that at such an impressionable age. At the time, I was furious with my mom. But now, almost 20 years later, I am grateful I had someone who was looking out for me and my feminine identity. Today, I seek out those examples of positive female representation on my own. And with films, like “Selma,” “Wild” and “Gone Girl” released this year, I find it inspiring to see more and more films directed by, written by and starring women as more than just the leading man’s girlfriend. But if you looked at this year’s Academy Award nominations, you would see a Hollywood apparently lacking in girl power. All eight of the nominated films for Best Picture star male protagonists. Not a single female received a nomination in the directing or writing categories, especially shocking since Ava DuVernay directed “Selma,” one of the most universally acclaimed films of the year, and was considered a frontrunner for the Best Director statue going into the nominations announcement. The Academy Awards have been in existence for more than eight decades. It is a major cultural platform for the U.S. to show the world the extraordinary movies our filmmakers created over the year. If the Oscars cannot represent the diversity that exists and is continuing to flourish in Hollywood, it's sending a message to the international film community that the only films that matter are those helmed by men. While these nominations came as a shock to me and others in the film community, when you look at who is voting on these honorees, it all starts to make sense. The Academy itself is a sausage fest - 94 percent of all Oscar voters are male, according to a study by the Los Angeles Times. This is not the first time this year the discrepancy between male and female actors in Hollywood has been exposed. In November 2014, the widely publicized Sony hackings revealed that five-time Academy Award nominee Amy Adams and Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence were paid less than their male counterparts in the film “American Hustle.” Both women received nearly universal praise for their performances in the film – they both even nabbed Oscar nominations – not to mention the film didn’t receive studio support until Lawrence’s “Hunger Games” franchise proved a major hit. But that didn’t stop their paychecks from coming up short of fellow stars Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jeremy Renner. Pay gaps between men and women have long existed in American culture, and while it may take greater steps to fully amend that, I say there’s something that can be done for the Academy to represent greater diversity. The voting body for the Academy Awards needs to be more representative of the film community at large. This year shows more clearly than ever that a heavily male-skewed voting pool has some effect on the outcome of the nominations, and therefore the winners. Not only do we need more diversity involved in the film-making process, but we need diversity in those who decide to honor them. I long for the day when films created by and starring females are awarded the same recognition as those starring men. Until then, I encourage all film lovers to seek out strong female role models in the industry who are a part of powerful films. And no, that does not include “The Rugrats Movie.”
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