Alma Har’el, the visionary director behind this year’s Sundance breakout Honey Boy, slammed the Golden Globes for not having any female directors in the Best Director category. As the precursor to the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes kick off award season at the start of the year and honor the best in both film and television. It’s set to premiere on January 5, 2020, with controversial comedian Ricky Gervais returning to host. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association revealed its 2020 nominations earlier this morning, and there were a variety of highs and lows to be met with each category.
Streaming services dominated the majority of the categories, with Martin Scorsese’s crime epic The Irishman and Noah Baumbach’s heartwrenching Marriage Story racking up multiple nods for Netflix. HBO also secured a hearty amount of nominations for TV with shows like Succession and Big Little Lies. Surprisingly, Game of Thrones only garnered one nomination for Kit Harrington, but nothing else in any major categories. Despite these well-deserved nominations for major productions in both film and television, the lows were heavily felt for those that work behind-the-camera. Unfortunately, the Golden Globe nominations once again overlooked female filmmakers in its directing category, and now more female filmmakers are speaking out about it.
Alma Har’el took to Twitter to share her feelings regarding this morning’s Golden Globe nominations. She explained that she “was on the inside for the first time this year,” adding in that, “these are not our people and they do not represent us.” She went on to say, “Do not look for justice in the awards system. We are building a new world,” before sharing a list of female directors with critically-acclaimed films that released this year including Lulu Wang, Olivia Wilde, and Lorene Scafaria. She concluded by explaining that people need to keep fighting for women and people of color working behind-the-camera, exclaiming, “Don’t make your end game the political money that trades hands in the form of movie campaigns for people who can’t see us and recognize us.” Check out her full thread below:
In its history, the Golden Globes have only ever nominated five women for Best Director since their first show back in 1944. As far as this year’s nominations go, female directors were shut out of the Best Director category, Best Screenplay, along with both Best Motion Picture categories. It’s strange to see so many of them shut out considering a number of the performances nominated this year were directed by women, including Saoirse Ronan who was nominated for her performance in Little Women and Awkwafina who was nominated for The Farewell. The latter is especially interesting, considering it also garnered a nomination for Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language Film, and yet no recognition for filmmaker Lulu Wang.
This isn’t a particularly surprising turn of events, considering the Golden Globes’ track record, but it’s still an unfortunate thing to see happen again. With multiple female filmmakers receiving recognition from other awards associations – the Critics Choice Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards, for example – it’s shocking and difficult to see them slip through the cracks so easily now. As award season carries on into the new year, film lovers can only hope that the Oscars will take a turn from the Golden Globes’ route and see some shift in a more inclusive direction for female filmmakers.
Next: 2020 Golden Globe Movie & TV Show Nominations Revealed
Source: Alma Har’el/Twitter
