This week I am suffering from the type of fatigue that no amount of coffee or hours of sleep can fix.
Fatigue around the fact that the Academy Award nominations for 2020 have been released and predictably the nomination ballots are devoid of many deserving women’s names, particularly in the all-important Best Director category.
This question around diversity and inclusion that seems to spin aimlessly around us in circles each year, while also failing to progress towards any sort of resolution, is enough to tempt even the most avid moviegoer to give up hope of frequenting the cinema and resign themselves to an eternity of The Big Bang Theory re-runs.
This year the discourse around the curse of women being left out of pivotal Oscar categories became hooked on the narrative of celebrated filmmaker Greta Gerwig and her work on the critically-acclaimed film Little Women.
Watch the trailer for Little Women below. Post continues after video.
When Gerwig first stepped up to the starting line, the deck certainly seemed more stacked in her favour more so than any other woman who had helmed a film that year. After all, she is one of just a handful of women, five in total, who have ever been nominated in the Best Director category, in this case for 2017′s Lady Bird, which she ultimately lost.
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It's true that women are not recognised as much as men as they should be. But I think in this case it comes down to the fact the Little Women is not an original story. Even if Greta directed it, she didn't come up with this idea just like the directors of the live action Disney movies didn't come up with the stories. So while it may win awards for acting or music, not really worthy of winning for direction or story.
I also wonder if there isn't something of the same effect as when women apply for jobs here, because it's not just about the strength of the work itself, but also about marketing both it and themselves.