2020 Oscars Nominations Continue to Lack Diversity

In 2016, the Oscar vowed to make a push for more diversity in its voters and its nominations. It has now reached the year they said we should be seeing the results of this change, however, the 2020 Oscar nominations are once again startlingly straight, white, and male. 

Cynthia Erivo is the only non-white nominee in this year, only one female led movie was nominated for Best Picture (Little Woman), and no women directors were nominated for Best Director.

The biggest achievement for diversity this award season is the recognition of the film Parasite, marking the first time a Korean film has seen any nominations at the Oscars. 

While a record number of women were nominated for Oscars (sitting at 62 nominations), this does not take into account the female only categories such as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. The point still stands that women are constantly shut out of categories that are not gender specific. 

Only one woman, Kathryn Bigelow, has ever won Best Director (and only five have ever been nominated). Most people in the Entertainment blame the lack of diversity in the 2020 Oscar nomination on the lack of women directors in general.

2019, however, was an incredible year for women in Hollywood. 

Movies such as the aforementioned Little Women (dir. Greta Gerwig), as well as Portrait of a Lady on Fire (dir. Céline Sciamma) and The Farewell (dir. LuLu Wang) all received critical acclaim during their run—and were consistently ranked among the top movies of 2019. The number of women directors in the Top 100 films of the year jumped up to 10.6% in 2019. 

And yet they were all snubbed for Best Director. 

There is no clear answer as to why this lack has continued besides the fact that the people who vote on these films are mostly white males. After the Oscar’s promise for diversity in 2016, 2,000 more voters were added to the Academy.

Even with this influx of new voters, only 28% of all Oscar voters are female and only 13% are minorities. The Academy is still mostly straight white males, so the films and people nominated will reflect that. 

Amazing women directors like Greta Gerwig and Céline Sciamma will continue to fall by the wayside of Oscar recognition unless people continue to call out the blatant favoritism towards white males. The directors themselves most likely cannot call this out for fear of future snubs in all categories—not just best director.