Wonder Woman 1984 director Patty Jenkins was not happy that the Academy Awards did not nominate any female directors for their Best Director award.
The Oscars nominated Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All At Once, Steve Speilberg for The Fabelmans, Todd Field for Tar, and Ruben Östlund for Triangle of Sadness.
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Jenkins spoke to Variety’s Marc Malkin telling him, “I give up, I give up.”
She continued, “I say that even with all of their push to have diversity. The numbers are just hugely imbalanced of who votes for these things. I sort of just stopped paying attention to it.”
“It’s still going to take a long ways to go. It’s going to take a lot more to really see truly more diverse awards. I really appreciate the efforts that they’re making but we have a long way to go,” Jenkins added.
Ironically, women have won the Best Director award the previous two years. Chloe Zhao won the award in 2021 for her film Nomadland.
Last year in 2022, Jane Campion won the award for her film The Power of the Dog.
YouTuber Ryan Kinel reacted to Jenkins’ comments questioning her double talk.
He said, “Are you giving up or are you saying there is a long way to go? If you are saying there’s a long way to go then saying I give up doesn’t really make any sense. So what exactly are you giving up?”
Later in the video, Kinel asserted, “The reality with the Oscars and the whole female director thing — there’s not as many women directors as there are male directors. That’s just the reality. Is that because of sexism? No, it’s just because there’s not as many female directors as there are male directors.”
“Now, is that going to change over time? They certainly want it to. They are certainly pushing for it, and maybe you will see that. But the idea that after two years of women winning Best Director that you’re pissed that it’s all over, it’s all done, it’s not enough, I give up because no one got nominated this year.
Kinel then questioned, “Do you think there should be a token female nominee? Is that what you’re asking for? You need your quota so regardless of whatever dogs**t female directors like Patty Jenkins put out there in the world they deserve to be nominated because they have a vagina?”
“I don’t think most people think that way, but knowing woke Hollywood they’ll probably end up doing something like this. They’ll probably institute these — hey, we need to nominate women. We need to have at least half of the directors that are nominated are women because that’s only fair. I guess only time will tell,” he concluded.
There already is precedent for the Oscars to institute a quota. The organization announced Representation and Inclusion Standards for Best Picture back in September 2020.
As part of their announcement they explained “standards are designed to encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience.”
“The aperture must widen to reflect our diverse global population in both the creation of motion pictures and in the audiences who connect with them. The Academy is committed to playing a vital role in helping make this a reality,” said Academy President David Rubin and Academy CEO Dawn Hudson. “We believe these inclusion standards will be a catalyst for long-lasting, essential change in our industry.”
What do you make of Jenkins’ comments about Best Director?