If you have paid any attention to this year's Oscar nominees, you know that a glaring lack of diversity is sharing the spotlight with all of this year's stars. Selma director Ava DuVernay, who would have been the first black woman nominated for best director, was snubbed in that category. And the all-white slate of acting nominees spawned its own hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite.
In a post on Ello, Squarely Rooted focuses on gender diversity and finds that this is the first year since 2004 that none of the best picture nominees have featured a woman protagonist.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2938948/optimized.0.jpg)
(Ello)
And even then, 2004 may have been more woman-friendly than this year. Squarely Rooted counts "Million Dollar Baby" as focusing on a man alone (Clint Eastwood's grizzled boxing coach), but you could easily make the case that Hillary Swank shared the spotlight with him. In that case, the last man-centric year was 1999.
Which makes this year's best picture sausagefest all the more depressing, as there are now 10 opportunities, not the former five, for a film focusing on a woman to make it into the top.
And it really highlights that even today, telling men's stories is simply the norm. Women may make up half the population, but the stories the (old-white-men-packed) Academy celebrates overwhelmingly center around men — and usually white men, at that.
