Women at the Oscars – A History of Academy Snubs

Women in film have not only had a hard time on the so-called ‘casting couch’ throughout history, but at the celebration of film, the yearly Oscars ceremonies where sadly women have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, by being trumped on the podium by male actors/producers/directors.

Betway Insider has analysed the dire situation for women at the Academy Awards.

• Out of 442 Oscar ceremonies, only five women have ever been nominated for Best Director.
• This massive discrepancy can also be followed by the statistic that out of the five nominations, only one woman has ever won an Oscar for directing, and that’s Kathryn Bigelow – ‘Hurt Locker’ at the 82nd Academy Awards in 2010.
• Greta Gerwig, was nominated for ‘Lady Bird’ at the 2017 Academy Awards, the first since Kathryn Bigelow in 2010.
• The other female directors nominated for Best Director were: Lina Wertmuller, ‘Seven Beauties’ (1977), Jane Campion, ‘The Piano’ (1994) and Sofia Coppola, ‘Lost in Translation’ (2004).

In an industry dominated by men, the film industry has to change its inherent bias, and address the multitude of female talent whether in acting or direction.

Who would ever think that a film celebrating woman power like ‘Wonder Woman’ and actress Gal Gadot was completely snubbed at the 2017 Academy Awards? This says it all.

• As for screenwriting, only 14 out of a possible 162 winners have been women at the Academy Awards.
• It was not until the 64th Academy Awards in 1992 that a solo female screenwriter was honoured with an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and that was ‘Thelma and Louise’ writer, Callie Khouri.
• Three female screenwriters have won the award since then: Jane Campion, ‘The Piano’ (1994), Sofia Coppola, ‘Lost in Translation’ (2004) and Diablo Cody, ‘Juno’ (2008).

• Outlining the other categories at the Academy Awards, a woman has never won the Oscar for Best Cinematography, or even been nominated for the award until 2017 when Rachel Morrison was nominated for ‘Mudbound’.
• The only category that has produced the most female winners is Best Costume Design, with 58 of the possible 86 awards going to women.

So why is this happening?

Women have as much talent behind and in front of the screen as men.

Should women not be treated equally in Hollywood with regards to their capacity for talent in important film roles?

• Well, the reasons for this bias can only be found in the fact the Academy is a male-dominated industry. As of 2018, 72 percent of Oscar voters are men.
• Only two women have ever hosted the Oscars solo: Whoopi Goldberg and Ellen DeGeneres, who have done so six times between them (1994, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2007 and 2014).
• In comparison, a man has hosted the ceremony on his own 56 times.

Will Hollywood, and the Academy Awards ever address this massive bias towards women, or will it always brush this subject under the red carpet as it always seems to do?

Now is the time, in the millenium, to finally bring forth women in the industry’s important roles, and to say goodbye to the old days, and old way of thinking.