#OscarsSoWhite – Bitch Flicks

Call For Writers: Women Directors

Our theme week for March 2016 will be Women Directors. The gender gap in the entertainment industry has risen to the level of popular consciousness, such that prominent public figures are frequently commenting on it and demanding change, but while awareness of the under-representation and misrepresentation of women in film and television has grown, is there much being done to combat it?

Our theme week for March 2016 will be Women Directors.

The gender gap in the entertainment industry has risen to the level of popular consciousness, such that prominent public figures are frequently commenting on it and demanding change, but while awareness of the under-representation and misrepresentation of women in film and television has grown, is there much being done to combat it?

Women directors face myriad obstacles: despite there being an abundance of talented female directors struggling to produce work, many companies refuse to give them projects (only 3.4% of all film directors are female and only 9% of the top 250 movies in 2015 were directed by women), they are not paid as much as their male counterparts, there’s an expectation that their work be stereotypically female (i.e. chick flicks), and their work is rarely appreciated with the same level of acclaim (only 4 women have ever been nominated for a Best Director Academy Award). Despite all these obstacles and hardships, there are a growing number of women making amazing work with wide range of genres and topics: romantic, thought-provoking, innovative, hilarious, or even terrifying. In 2009, Kathryn Bigelow broke barriers with The Hurt Locker, a film about soldiers and war, when she took home Academy Awards for both Best Picture and Best Director. She was the first woman ever to receive an Oscar for Best Director. In 2014, Ava DuVernay’s depiction of the civil rights movement Selma won an Academy Award for Best Song and garnered nominations for Best Picture. But DuVernay didn’t receive an Oscar nomination, an unfortunate snub as she would have been the first Black woman to ever receive a nomination for Best Director.

However, the Oscars are typically white and male-dominated and are increasingly being disregarded as an antiquated, patriarchal, elitist group who should no longer be regarded as the gatekeepers of important cinema, and women are increasingly working in the independent film scene. Despite the somewhat encouraging rise of women directors, white women tend to dominate the field, receiving accolades and projects with far greater frequency than women directors of color, which is a microcosm reflective of the stratification of the feminist movement itself.

The examples below are the names of women directors alongside an example of one of their most acclaimed works. Feel free to use those examples to inspire your writing on this subject, or choose your own source material.

We’d like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know which film you’d like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece as a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. We encourage writers to use our search function to see if your topic has been written about before, and link when appropriate (hyperlinks to sources are welcome, as well).

The final due date for these submissions is Saturday, March 26, 2016 by midnight Eastern Time.

Ava DuVernay (Selma)

Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation)

Haifaa al-Mansour (Wadjda)

Jane Campion (The Piano)

Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)

Amma Asante (Belle)

Lena Dunham (Girls)

Julie Delpy (2 Days in Paris)

Mary Harron (American Psycho)

Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary)

Meera Menon (Farah Goes Bang)

Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust)

Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle)

Penny Marshall (Big)

Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right)

Emily Ting (It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong)

Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone)

Dee Rees (Bessie)

Randa Haines (Children of a Lesser God)

Barbra Streisand (The Prince of Tides)

Jodie Foster (Orange is the New Black)

#OscarsSoWhite: The Fight for Representation at the Academy Awards

But beyond academy membership, changes need to be implemented on every level, from writing to directing to acting. Speaking in a roundtable on Oscar Diversity, Lara Brown notes that in order to diversify the entertainment industry, women ought be present in a variety of roles. Brown, who directs the Political Management Program at George Washington University believes that women ought to be present in every aspect of the filmmaking process.

This guest post is written by Danika Kimball.

In recent years, moviegoers, critics, and activists have been increasingly outspoken about Hollywood’s apparent diversity problem. Most recently, the battle over identity and inclusion came to a head with the January unveiling of Oscar nominees, where for the second year in a row, all 20 of the acting nominees were revealed to be white — a point which was not glossed over at the 88th Academy Awards.

During last year’s academy awards, April Reign, an attorney who manages BroadwayBlack.com, began using the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite in an attempt to express her frustration at the state of diversity in Hollywood. The hashtag has since gone viral and catalyzed a vital conversation. Reign explained to the Los Angeles Times:

“It happened because I was disappointed once again in the lack of diversity and inclusion with respect to the nominees. … And we see, despite all of the talk since last year, nothing has changed and it looks even worse this year.”

The lack of diversity and inclusion at this year’s academy awards was not glossed over, as Chris Rock opened the program with an biting monologue highlighting the academy’s representation issues — renaming the Oscars the “White People’s Choice Awards.”

“If they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even get this job,” he added later, “Y’all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now.”

The Academy Awards are just the most recent of many instances that show if you’re looking for an accurate depiction of ethnic and gender diversity in the American workforce, Hollywood is the last place you should be looking.

Recent studies by USC Annenberg’s Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative recently released a brand new study, which offers an unflattering overview revealing the true extent of the ways in which Hollywood is failing diversity practices. Dr. Stacy Smith, who led the team responsible for these findings, said in a recent interview, “The prequel to OscarsSoWhite is HollywoodSoWhite. … We don’t have a diversity problem. We have an inclusion crisis.”

Their report evaluated every speaking character across 414 films, television, and digital stories released in 2014-2015, covering 11,000 speaking characters who were then analyzed on the basis of gender, racial/ethnic representation, and LGBT status. Researchers also analyzed 10,000 directors, writers, and show creators on the basis of gender and race, and 1,500 executives at different media companies.

Their analysis? “The film industry still functions as a straight, white, boy’s club.”

Other studies performed this year have had similar findings. As reported by NPR, a 2015 UCLA study of Diversity in Hollywood confirms the gender and racial imbalances in film and television, behind the scenes and in front of the camera, which compares minority representation to their proportion of the population.

Darnell Hunt, who co-authored the UCLA study, notes that at every level in Hollywood, women and people of color are underrepresented, although people of color have made slight gains in employment arenas since the last time the study was performed.

Despite the fact that ethnic minorities “make up nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population,” they are represented in leading Hollywood roles a mere 17 percent of the time. And as far as Hollywood executives are concerned, the UCLA study notes that “the corps of CEOS and/or chairs running the 18 studios examined was 94 percent white and 100 percent male.” The study also notes that behind the scenes, directing and writing positions still remain largely white and largely male.

Ana-Christina Ramón, who co-authored the findings notes that the findings are not surprising by any means, but the statistics carry an important message to studios about the profitability of diversity. She tells NPR:

“We continue to see that diversity sells. … And that’s a big point that needs to be then relayed to the studios and the networks.”

She’s not wrong, as her studies prove, films with diverse casts enjoy huge profit margins in the box office, the same for which can be said with television. But it seems as though, despite these statistics, gatekeepers in the entertainment industry (who are white men by and large) believe that the best way to keep their jobs is to surround themselves with people who look like them.

The study also notes that diversity has won out in television, as shows like How To Get Away With Murder, Grey’s Anatomy, Empire, Fresh Off the Boat, and Master of None have proven to draw in high amounts of viewers. The reason? Author Darnell Hunt argues that the answer to that question lies in the general amount of risk associated with each genre.

Television shows are produced in relatively high numbers each year, and budgets operate on a fairly small scale, but for studios produce relatively few films each year and budgets for those can cost upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars — making it imperative to higher ups that these films are successful.

Social media has also changed the landscape of television, as viewers now have social capital to effect change. Ramón tells NPR, “Every viewer has really the power to influence the network directly, especially through Twitter.” To show the power of social media in television, she sites the ABC show Scandal, where viewer opinion changed the arc for a show which was on it’s way to being canceled.

Scandal’s success has prompted even more diverse programming to appear on television, with another Shondaland series How to Get Away With Murder making its television debut just two years later. Television executives are beginning to recognize that shows with a Black female lead are profitable.

For television and film alike, the statistics are sobering, and change ought to be enacted quickly in order to bridge the gross lack of diversity present in all forms of entertainment media. But it looks as though change is in the making. Following this due criticism, it appears as though the academy is increasing measures to diversify their membership. Earlier this year, the academy’s board of governors unanimously voted to double the number of women and people of color in its roster by 2020.

“I think the way [diversity increases] is to have more women in those behind-the scenes in writing, directing, and studio executive roles, because you have to make women more integral to the story, not just the side arm candy to the man’s story.”

In February, the New York Times published, “What It’s Really Like to Work in Hollywood (*If You’re Not A Straight White Man),” which featured interviews with 27 women, people of color, and LGBTQ people in the entertainment industry, highlighting their “personal experiences of not being seen, heard, or accepted.”

Actress, director, and producer Eva Longoria shared:

“I didn’t speak Spanish [growing up]. I’m ninth generation. I mean, I’m as American as apple pie. I’m very proud of my heritage. But I remember moving to L.A. and auditioning and not being Latin enough for certain roles. Some white male casting director was dictating what it meant to be Latin. He decided I needed an accent. He decided I should [have] darker-colored skin. The gatekeepers are not usually people of color, so they don’t understand you should be looking for way more colors of the rainbow within that one ethnicity.”

Wendell Pierce added his experience while in the casting office of a major studio:

“The head of casting said, ‘I couldn’t put you in a Shakespeare movie, because they didn’t have black people then.’ He literally said that. I told that casting director: ‘You ever heard of Othello? Shakespeare couldn’t just make up black people. He saw them.’”

In a similar fashion, Emmy winner Viola Davis mentioned the importance of creating unique roles for women and people of color, as expressed in her acceptance speech earlier this year:

“The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. … I always say that Meryl Streep would not be Meryl Streep without Sophie’s Choice, without Kramer vs. Kramer, without Devil Wears Prada. You can’t be Meryl Streep if you’re the third girl from the left in the narrative with two scenes.”

Danika Kimball is a musician from the Northwest who sometimes takes a 30-minute break from feminism to enjoy a TV show. You can follow her on twitter @sadwhitegrrl or on Instagram @drunkfeminist.

‘Spotlight’ on the Wrong People

‘Spotlight’ isn’t the kind of film that just changes some facts (though I never understand “based-on-a-true-story” films that do so: if you’re going to fictionalize their lives why not fictionalize their names too?), it’s one where the most basic plot summary contradicts what happened.

[Trigger warning: discussion of rape and sexual abuse]

We’re winding down to the Oscar ceremony no thinking person is looking forward to. The Black director who should have been nominated last year, Ava DuVernay, and the Black director who should have been nominated this year, Ryan Coogler, will be in Flint, Michigan with other Black celebrities on Oscar night, raising funds for and drawing attention to the majority-Black community whose water was poisoned as a result of government misdeeds. I see some outlets still trying to pretend this ceremony is like all the others. Among the fluff articles about white nominees are ones that focus on the “real” people behind the film Spotlight, which is nominated as it has been at other galas (it swept last night’s Spirit Awards) for multiple awards, even Best Supporting Actress. (One writer posited that Rachel McAdams got a nomination for a performance that consists of her mostly listening, nodding and taking notes because she “dared” to wear unflattering chinos, just like a real reporter would).

Spotlight centers around the intrepid editors and reporters (the vast majority of whom are male) of The Boston Globe, claiming they are the only reason we know the extent of child sexual abuse perpetrated by Boston archdiocese priests and the cover-up by the archdiocese itself. For those of us who know the facts around this basic premise, the film plays as a long, elaborate, tedious lie. Spotlight isn’t the kind of film that just changes some facts (though I never understand based-on-a-true-story films that do so: if you’re going to fictionalize their lives why not fictionalize their names too?); it’s one where the most general plot summary contradicts what happened.

Instead of the investigation beginning, as it does in the film, with a powerful man looking solemnly into the middle distance and declaring “I know there’s a story here,” it began with a young woman reporter, Kristen Lombardi at the alternative weekly The Boston Phoenix, with the encouragement and guidance of her out, queer, news editor (previously a longtime reporter at Boston’s LGBT paper) Susan Ryan-Vollmar.

As has been reported elsewhere, Lombardi’s story was published nearly a year before the first “Spotlight” story and shares with it a number of “discoveries”. One of these “discoveries” is a turning point we see in the film: Mark Ruffalo’s Woodward-and-Bernstein-esque Mike Rezendes (in one of the few performances that has made me dislike the actor) interrogating an expert on sex-offender priests and inferring from his data that a far greater number of the offenders existed than anyone had previously thought. Not only did Lombardi do the interview with the same expert first, she also literally did the math to come up with the number of probable offenders.

Lombardi has been gracious in interviews, explaining, “I was aware that there was a bigger story that I couldn’t tell because I didn’t have the resources,” and that the ability to stick with the story week after week was something only The Globe could do. But she also wishes she had gotten some credit. Although repeatedly given the chance to acknowledge her contribution, editor Baron, (played by Liev Shreiber in the film: the real-life Baron has moved on to another, larger newspaper as one character in the film “predicts”) has steadfastly refused to do so. With at least one of his colleagues admitting that Lombardi broke the story, Baron’s continued silence seems like a tacit admission of guilt. In the film, Rezendes says that no one in town saw Lombardi’s cover story in The Phoenix, which is laughable considering the very streets we see the film’s reporters endlessly walking up and down would have had, at that time, on every corner big, bright, red boxes full of free copies of The Phoenix. Its cover story, including the one about Law and the cover-up, would be facing anyone on the sidewalk, through the box windows at each intersection.

Tom McCarthy, the co-writer and director, did interview Lombardi as research for the script, but he decided her role wasn’t important enough to include in the final cut of the film. Instead McCarthy decided to focus on white-guy, mainstream newspaper mythology, and that focus not only makes the film untrue, it renders it dramatically inert.

Nearly every scene of this film involves two (or more!) men of a certain age glowering at each other: over a conference table, a golf game or a shadowy bar like in some Saturday Night Live parody while spouting dialogue that could have come from a comic book.

“You’re going to give me their names and the names of their victims!”

“Are you threatening me?”

“They knew, and they let it happen!”

The film suggests, nonsensically, that Rezendes, Baron, and the lawyer who represented many of the victims, Mitchell Garabedian (played by Stanley Tucci) were willing to go against the Catholic Church because they were respectively, a Jewish bachelor who didn’t like baseball, someone from a Portuguese family and someone from an Armenian family: all so-called “outsiders”.

But the real outsiders were those who realized, before the scandal hit, that the Catholic Church was far from the benevolent institution each of the male characters in Spotlight seem to think it is at the beginning of the film. The people with ties to the Catholic Church were (and are) the same ones who shout at women as they enter Planned Parenthood and other clinics that perform abortions in Boston. Six years before the scandal broke, John Salvi had shot and killed people in two of these clinics in Brookline, the town next to Boston, and pointed to his Catholic beliefs as the reason.

Ryan-Vollmar would have seen firsthand, as a reporter for a queer paper, that the Catholic church had tried to block every state law (including, eventually, the one for marriage) that gave queer people the same rights as everyone else. And The Phoenix, like many alternative newspapers with roots in the 1960s was founded because mainstream papers like The Globe did not cover events or politics in ways that confronted the existing power structure.

Women, especially in the past, were much more likely to listen to and believe allegations of rape and sexual abuse perpetrated by men in power than… men in power were. One of the many omissions the film makes is that women, usually relatives of the victims, were among the very first whistle-blowers on the church’s cover-up of sexual abuse–and were ignored for years.

Spotlight goes so far out of its way to make its story all about white guys it should have all of us questioning every “based on a true story” film from now on. Let’s not let another smarmy white-guy writer-director shrug his shoulders, smile, and say he would have loved for women to play the leads in his film, but the “facts” got in his way.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg5zSVxx9JM” iv_load_policy=”3″]

Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing, besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender

Feminist Highlights and Fails at the 2015 Oscars

This year’s Oscars lacked racial diversity with all 20 acting nominees being white. The overwhelming whiteness of the Oscars, which hasn’t been this egregious in nominating people of color since 1998, spurred a Twitter boycott and the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite created by April Reign. In addition to racial diversity, once again the Oscars lacked gender diversity. No women were nominated for director, screenplay (adapted or original), original score or cinematography. The snub of Ava DuVernay especially stung.

I usually eagerly anticipate the Oscars. As a huge cinephile, I love seeing films, actors, and filmmakers celebrated. But this year, I dreaded them.

The Oscars may be the most visible celebration of filmmaking in the U.S. and possibly the world. This is why they matter. Whether we agree or not, they signify what films are collectively deemed important in our society.

The Oscars often overlook female filmmakers — only four women (no women of color) have ever been nominated for Best Director, only one has won (Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker) — and women-centric films. It was disappointing to see that all eight of the Best Picture nominees were written and directed by men, except for Selma, which was directed and co-written by Ava DuVernay, a woman of color. Each of the films revolves around men as the protagonists. However, Selma is a notable exception for spotlighting not only Martin Luther King Jr. but the vigilance and dedication of Black women and Black men in the fight for equality.

Lack of diversity amongst the nominations disappointed, and racism and sexism often tainted the evening. Yet powerful moments emerged during the awards ceremony.

Labeled as “the most feminist moment” of the night by many writers and those on Twitter, Patricia Arquette advocated for equal pay and women’s rights during her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress for Boyhood:

“To every woman who give birth to a taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s rights. It’s our time to have wage equality, once and for all. And equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

Yes, yes, a thousand times YES. Patricia Arquette’s speech was a powerful feminist declaration condemning the gender pay gap and the need for wage equality. Women earn 78 percent less than men for the same job. But women of color earn far less. Black women earn 64 percent less, Indigenous women earn 59 percent less and Latina women earn 54 percent less than white men. Hearing the words “wage equality” and “women’s rights” uttered on a national broadcast delights me. Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez excitedly cheering in the audience was the icing on the cake.

Arquette elaborated backstage, mentioning the ageism comingled with sexism that women actors face: “The truth of it is the older an actress gets, the less money she makes.” She is absolutely right. Male actors earn more than women. After the age of 34, women actors earn far less than their male colleagues. But unfortunately, here’s where Arquette’s speech unravels:

“It’s time for all the women in America and all the men who love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve fought for, to fight for us now.”

Sigh. Why couldn’t she have just stopped? My initial excitement faded to disappointment, irritation, and anger.

Her statement implies that LGBT people and people of color have achieved equality. They haven’t. LGBT justice and racial justice still have far to go. It blatantly ignores coalition building that has happened across movements. Arquette excludes women of color and queer women with her statement. Women have multiple, intersecting identities. To ignore that fact erases many women’s existence. When feminists talk about women’s rights, we should not be claiming, either overtly or covertly, “women” equals straight, white, cis women. We white women need to do a much better job to make feminism an intersectional, inclusive movement.

Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne won Best Actress and Best Actor for playing people with disabilities. Each actor mention ALS and Alzheimer’s in their acceptance speeches. Moore said: “I’m thrilled we were able to shine a light on this disease. … “Movies make us feel seen and not alone.” However, The Theory of Everything has been accused of being guilty of “inspiration porn” and using a person with a disability as “Oscar bait.”

Julianne Moore was absolutely outstanding in Still Alice. A chameleon, she melted into the complex, nuanced role. It was also great to see a woman win for a film revolving around a female protagonist. Considering the ageism of Hollywood and the Oscars, I appreciated seeing a woman over the age of 50 win. We need more roles for women in general but particularly women of color, queer women, older women, and women with disabilities.

Suicide was discussed in two acceptance speeches. Dana Perry, the co-director of Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 which won for Best Documentary Short, shared the tragedy about her son who committed suicide:“We should talk about suicide out loud.” Best Screenplay winner Graham Moore (The Imitation Game) revealed his own suicide attempt:

“When I was 16 years old, I tried to kill myself because I felt weird, and I felt different, and I felt like I did not belong. … So I would like for this moment to be for that kid out there who feels she’s weird, or she’s different or she doesn’t fit in anywhere. Yes, you do. I promise you do. Stay weird, stay different.”

Not only did these two heartbreaking speeches illuminate suicide, but they ultimately gave a positive message, that for people suffering, you are not alone.

Selma may not have been honored with all the awards it deserved. But a tribute to the film and to racial justice was depicted in Common and John Legend’s powerful performance of “Glory” from Selma. Accompanying the uplifting yet searing lyrics, they visually recreated the march in Selma onstage. In their passionate acceptance speech for Best Song, Common spoke about the historic bridge in Selma where the civil rights march took place.

“This bridge was once a landmark of a divided nation. But now it’s a symbol for change. The spirit of this bridge transcends race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, social status. … This bridge was built on hope, welded with compassion, and elevated by love for all human beings.”

John Legend highlighted institutional racism, incarceration of Black men and the prison industrial complex.

“Nina Simone said it’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live. … Selma is now because the struggle for justice is right now. We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more Black men under correctional control today than were under slavery in 1850.”

Selma may be a biopic of an iconic civil rights leader. Yet as legend says, it remains extremely relevant, a reflection of the racism and white supremacy happening currently with the harrowing murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and the activism in Ferguson and with #BlackLivesMatter. It was crucial to hear Legend discuss the pernicious racism of our criminal justice system. Sadly, the lack of applause for his statements by an audience often deemed liberal was extremely disconcerting.

But perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised at the audience’s reaction, especially as many in Hollywood look the other way when it comes to racism and abuse of women. I cannot fully express my disgust at seeing Sean Penn, an abuser of women, as a presenter onstage. He made a racist joke when announcing Birdman, directed by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, as the Best Picture winner: “Who gave this son of a bitch his green card?” How lovely to see racism and xenophobia at the end of the Oscars. Sigh. Unfortunately the racism didn’t stop there.

Within the first few minutes of the show, Neil Patrick Harris said, “Tonight we celebrate tonight’s best and whitest, oh I mean brightest.” Here’s the thing: I love when a celebrity shines a light on inequality or injustice. But the “joke” felt more like a way to acknowledge the Academy’s glaring racism rather than actually calling them out and holding them accountable. It lets Hollywood off the hook for not taking measures to increase diversity. Harris also tokenized accents, did a “joke” where Black actor David Oyelowo read a denouncement of the Annie remake starring Quvenzhané Wallis and had Octavia Spencer “watch” his ballot predictions box as if she was his servant.

Thankfully, Iñárritu took the opportunity in his acceptance speech to counter Penn’s racism advocating for immigrant justice. He dedicated his Oscar for Best Picture to his “fellow Mexicans” and Mexican immigrants. He is the second Latino to win Best Director and the first Latino to win as producer for Best Picture. Iñárritu spoke of the need to build a new government in Mexico and for the need for rights for immigrants:

“…I just pray they can be treated with the same dignity and respect of the ones who came before and built this incredible immigrant nation.”

What this disjointed awards show accentuated to me is the need for an intersectional lens in everything we do: our daily lives, activism, making media and consuming media. We can’t truly claim a milestone a victory if it only benefits wealthy, white, straight, cis, able-bodied women. We can’t call truly call ourselves feminists if we ignore the plight of those more marginalized or oppressed than ourselves.

Equal pay for women (along with highlighting the need for intersectional feminism), racial justice, mass incarceration, suicide, rights for people with disabilities and immigrant rights – all of these took center stage. Now if only the Academy had been so radical and the Oscar nominees had reflected such diversity.

Megan Kearns is Bitch Flicks’ Social Media Director and a Staff Writer, a freelance writer and a feminist vegan blogger. She tweets at @OpinionessWorld.

Captain Uhura Snub: The Politics of Ava DuVernay’s Oscar

It is appropriate, when celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., to recall Dr. King’s words to Nichelle Nichols, as she considered quitting ‘Star Trek’ in frustration at the limitations of her role: “You can’t leave!… For the first time on television, we are being seen as we should be seen every day. As intelligent, quality, beautiful people … who can go into space.” Dr. King’s words show that he clearly understood the value of a token image, as a symbol, a precedent and a possibility model for future progress.

Written by Brigit McCone as part of our theme week on the Academy Awards.

After seeing Selma, I’ve finally stopped yelling “Ava DuVernay was robbed! Robbed, I tell you!” long enough to jot down some thoughts. Let’s be clear: Ava DuVernay was robbed because her work on Selma turns familiar history into a gripping story, humanizes Martin Luther King Jr. while honoring his legacy, and captures the sweep of history without sacrificing the resonance of individual lives. It was inspirational history, the kind the Oscars typically reward, executed with supreme skill. Though her representation of L.B.J. was criticized, DuVernay’s characterization accurately reflected his wider shift from obstructing to supporting civil rights, while taking artistic liberties with the timeline of that shift. If Ron Howard could win Best Director for the blatantly inaccurate A Beautiful Mind, DuVernay was obviously due a nomination for Selma. Minimum.

It is because DuVernay’s work was brilliant, beyond her race and gender, that we must ask why a Black woman was snubbed. Did 12 Years A Slave‘s triumph at the 2014 Oscars influence the snubbing of Selma‘s director and actors? Recall Kathryn Bigelow’s win for Best Director in 2010. The moment Barbra Streisand stepped out to present the award, it was clear Bigelow’s name would be called. Though Bigelow’s acceptance speech never referenced being the first woman to win, Streisand’s presence shrieked, “It was time we gave it to a woman,” even as the hypermasculine Hurt Locker hardly challenged the Academy’s preference for male stories. Or recall 2001, when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry made their historic wins at the same ceremony as Sidney Poitier’s lifetime achievement award, a synchronicity that shrieked “It was time we gave it to Black performers,” threatening to overshadow Washington and Berry’s individual excellence. The Academy is not exactly subtle in framing minority wins as token gestures. If Bigelow resisted the symbolism of her win, Berry embraced it, using her speech to honor Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll, Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox, and Oprah Winfrey. Tokenism is uncomfortable, but it’s still visibility. Tokens are symbols, precedents and possibility models (as Laverne Cox might put it). If we read Oscars partly as tokens, the question arises: was Ava DuVernay snubbed because, as a Black woman, the Oscars of Steve McQueen and Kathryn Bigelow collectively represented her category?

The African American feminist Ana Julia Cooper wrote “Women versus the Indian” in 1891, criticizing white suffragettes who viewed women as a separate category, in competition with racial minorities for their rights (see also Sojourner Truth’s “Ar’nt I a Woman?”). Those who mentally isolate categories of oppression seek to maximize mainstream approval in their choice of spokesperson: the straight man of color for racial justice; the white, cis woman for feminism; the white, straight-acting gay man for LGBT causes. Each individual choice of “representative” collectively upholds the overall superiority of the straight, white male perspective (add wealthy, educated, able-bodied etc.). Because this pattern channels subversive impulses into a collective reinforcement of dominant ideology, dominant culture rewards it. One symptom is the repeated use of white women and Black men to collectively represent Black women – “the Captain Uhura snub.”

Not pictured: Captains Sisko and Janeway

It is appropriate, when celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., to recall Dr. King’s words to Nichelle Nichols, as she considered quitting Star Trek in frustration at the limitations of her role: “You can’t leave!… For the first time on television, we are being seen as we should be seen every day. As intelligent, quality, beautiful people … who can go into space.” Dr. King’s words show that he clearly understood the value of a token image, as a symbol, a precedent and a possibility model for future progress.

Nichelle Nichols’ Lieutenant Nyota Uhura should be an icon to every woman who is underemployed and unappreciated at work. Her mouth said, “Klingons on line one, Captain,” but her eyes said, “I should be running this place.” Within the limitations of her role, representing both token Black lieutenant and token woman, and thereby freeing a seat for another white guy, Nichols took every opportunity to demonstrate Uhura’s intelligence, charisma, courage and sex appeal. When allowed to banter with Spock, in scenes that inspired their romantic relationship in JJ Abrams’ reboot, Uhura revealed herself to be Spock’s respected intellectual equal, with the skills to man the helm, navigation and science station if needed. In combat with Mirror!Sulu, she revealed potential as an action heroine, anticipating Pam Grier (whose groundbreaking stardom in blaxploitation inspired a trend of white action heroines, instead of mainstream opportunities for Pam Grier). Uhura was cool under pressure and commanding. Though the original Star Trek‘s “Turnabout Intruder” episode claimed that women were not emotionally capable of captaincy, Uhura disproved that claim on the animated (and female-authored) “The Lorelei Signal.”

In time, society progressed and its vision of the future evolved. Dr. King’s dream of television normalizing inspirational Black leadership came true for the Trekverse, when Captain Ben Sisko of Deep Space Nine took command, combining professional skill with hands-on fathering. The aspirations of feminists paid off when Kate Mulgrew’s swashbuckling Janeway helmed Voyager. But while evolution in Star Trek‘s racial and feminist politics produced a few token promotions of Uhura’s rank, it left her marginalized supporting role unchanged. Zoe Saldana’s Uhura occupies roughly the same position in Star Trek reboots as Nichelle Nichols did on the original show. Black women can be judges, police chiefs, or politicians on our screens, at statistically disproportionate rates, but only in tokenist supporting roles that serve to discredit the reality of discrimination. When the time comes for diversity among aspirational heroes, those heroes become white women and Black men. That, in a nutshell, is the Captain Uhura snub, the intersectional finger trap of representation politics. Nichols herself aged regally and with no diminishing of spirit in the later Star Trek films, but Sisko and Janeway substitute for the unique icon that Nichols’ Captain Uhura could have been, not only as a Black woman but as a woman who paid her dues in limited and sexualized roles before showing what she was capable of. Voyager drew a sharp line between the asexual (or rather, not overtly sexualized) competence of Janeway and the spandex-clad sex-bot Seven of Nine. Captain Uhura would have straddled that line, challenging the assumed incompatibility of being a sexual object with being an aspirational hero.

Not pictured: Captain Marvel and Black Panther

Ororo Munroe, a.k.a. Storm, is an icon. As a member of the X-Men, she fights for the rights of the mutant minority, against those who fear what they cannot understand. As an ally (and sometime wife) of Black Panther, she defends the sovereignty of Wakanda against colonial forces. Oh, and she also flies, bends the elements to her will and shoots lightning. 20th Century Fox owns the rights to X-Men, so Marvel Studios cannot be directly blamed for scheduling Captain Marvel and Black Panther to headline instead of Ororo (though they can easily be blamed for taking a decade to produce diverse superhero films). But upcoming plans to film starring vehicles for Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel have put female superheroes on the agenda. Why hasn’t this prompted 20th Century Fox to greenlight a solo outing for Wind-rider Storm, despite the rich source material of Greg Pak’s popular solo comics and the fact that the woman shoots lightning? Storm’s role in Bryan Singer’s X-Men franchise screamed “Lieutenant Uhura,” providing visible diversity while being constantly marginalized by the plot. Pak has the last word: “Storm’s the embodiment of fierce, raw power – and deep abiding empathy. She’s the most powerful woman in the Marvel Universe — incredibly exciting and elemental — even dangerous.” Movie, please.

Not pictured: Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers

In an earlier post, I discussed evidence for regarding Loretta Mary Aiken, better known as Moms Mabley, as the pioneer of modern stand-up comedy. Evolving from vaudeville monologues, Jackie Mabley was nicknamed “Moms” because of her nurturing attitude to other performers. Her tackling of taboo topics such as race, gender, sexual double standards, poverty, and substance abuse, defined the truth-telling role we associate with the art of stand-up today. Moms herself said that everyone stole from her apart from Redd Foxx, and she was older than Redd, too.

In particular, Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers, many decades younger than Mabley, both recognized her as a major influence. In pop culture, Pryor is often hailed as the “Godfather of Comedy.” The tendency of Black comedians to recognize Pryor as the most significant pioneer of Black comedy comes at the expense of Pryor’s own acknowledged debt to Mabley, as does the tendency of feminists to cite Joan Rivers as the groundbreaking pioneer of female stand-up. Moms is often totally omitted from lists of top stand-ups, despite her claim to being the original. These choices of “representative” diminish the unique contribution of Moms Mabley, and the visibility of Black women as innovators of world culture.

Not pictured: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

As we prepare for Barack Obama to step down from the U.S. presidency, all indicators point to the next Democratic nominee being a white woman, with Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren as the frontrunners. When we celebrate womankind finally getting their shot at global leadership (Angela Merkel aside), let us take a moment to remember the candidacy of Shirley Chisholm (not to mention that Ana Julia Cooper should clearly have been running the country in the 1890s).

A founding member of the 1971 National Women’s Political Caucus, as well as the first Black congresswoman, Chisholm actively mentored an all-female staff, took political stands in favor of reproductive rights and against the Vietnam war, and fought against social exclusion on the basis of class, race and gender. Her political philosophy may be summarized by her 1972 presidential campaign slogan: “Unbought and Unbossed.” She was the first woman to win delegates for a major party nomination and the first Black candidate to run on a major party ticket. Chisholm’s voting record shows exceptional integrity and political courage, matched by the intelligence and determination to rise from a background of poverty and intersectional discriminations. Chisholm was an exemplary candidate. The fact that her career trajectory – breaking boundaries for both women and Black candidates before being snubbed for leadership – mirrors a fictional Star Trek character, hints at the power of the collective imagination to shape reality.

Change will come. After establishing her reputation with Grey’s Anatomy, which introduced a dynamic, multiracial cast behind the commercial appeal of white protagonists, Meredith Grey and Dr. McDreamy, Shonda Rhimes has created compelling, multi-faceted Black heroines (or antiheroines) who dominate Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder. Whoopi Goldberg has directed a documentary on Moms Mabley, while Shola Lynch directed one about Shirley Chisholm’s presidential bid. Last year, directors Amma Asante and Gina Prince-Bythewood offered Gugu Mbatha-Raw starring roles as fully realized protagonists. But these are all examples of Black women directors, fighting alone for better screen representations. Yes, Ava DuVernay has demonstrated talent and ambition with Selma that cannot be destroyed by a mere Oscar snub. Yes, she will probably continue to make great films until her achievements are officially recognized (am I the only one rooting for a biopic of Queen Nzinga starring Lupita Nyong’o?). But it’s high time that the “progressive” mainstream, from the Academy to Star Trek to white feminist commentators, started opening doors without waiting for them to be beaten down.

"Open a hailing frequency, Mr. Kirk" — “Open a hailing frequency, Mr. Kirk”

Brigit McCone reckons Ranavalona of Madagascar should be the next epic Shonda Rhimes antiheroine. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and shouting at the television on Oscar night.