Once Again All Male Director Nominees at the Golden Globes
Monday, December 9, 2019 at 7:28PM 
It looks like it’s time to call on Natalie Portman to present the best director award at the Golden Globes again. Somebody needs to shade the Hollywood Foreign Press Association again. Here’s who got nominated this morning:
- Bong Joon Ho, Parasite
- Sam Mendes, 1917
- Todd Philips, Joker
- Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
- Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time....in Hollywood
None of the 10 nominated films in the Drama and Musical/Comedy were directed by a woman. Only in the foreign film category did female directors make an impact...
Both Lulu Wang's The Farewell and Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire were among the nominees. When asked by Variety after the nominations were announced about these omissions, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Lorenzo Soria only had this lame response
“What happened is that we don’t vote by gender. We vote by film and accomplishment.”
So they didn’t think that any of the films and accomplishments of Marielle Heller, Lorene Scafaria and Greta Gerwig worthy despite nominating actors (Tom Hanks, Jennifer Lopez and Saoirse Ronan respectively) from their films? They didn’t think Sciamma or Mati Diop (Atlantics) were worthy despite winning awards at this year’s Cannes? Could not find space for Alma Har’el or Chinonye Chukwu when their work was recognized by the Indie Spirit Awards? They had lots of choices and chose to ignore them all. A good take comes from USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative founder Stacy Smith who told The Wrap:
“The real concern is, when you have an ecosystem that’s starting to change and a governing body that doesn’t, it really thwarts the effort of the entire ecosystem striving to reflect the world that we live in. We’re far from proportional representation, but we’re starting to see change, and this thwarts that progress. It continues to perpetuate a lopsided view of talent that fosters the longevity of male directors over their female peers.”
Let's give one of the directors who did stellar work this year the final word. Here's Har’el.......
Lulu Wang
— Alma Har'el🌪 (@Almaharel) December 9, 2019
Mati Diop
Greta Gerwig
Olivia Wilde
Lorene Scafaria
Marielle Heller
Melina Matsoukas
Chinonye Chukwu
Céline Sciamma
Made films this year that reached people and touched them.
That’s our awards.
No one can take that away.
Reader Comments (49)
Disgraceful. Like me.
Maybe they need to divide the best director category at the Globes by gender? Some other organization did that this year which I found strange. But to avoid the bitching from all camps that there must be recognition for female filmmakers fine. Until the patriarchal stranglehold over the film business ends we might have to take protective measures.
I tried changing my user handle but they just mimic that one. So I accept my fate here as the resident Jodie Foster.
Update: After foolishly typing "Jodie Foster," I realized I don't have the range. I'll be the resident Cuckoo bird instead.
I don’t think it’s fair to anyone to fill out ballots thinking of the gender/race/etc of the prospects. Voter should be voting for what they like and not what they think it’s correct to vote for (not that they always do). I think is more sexist and insulting to vote for a woman just to have inclusion in the category if they don’t really think the merit is there.
I have a sincere question. Let’s say you’re a major awards voter and your five favorite achievements in direction, for the year, are by men. Without malice toward anyone, that’s just the way this year shook out. What are you supposed to do? This is a practical question, don’t overthink it. Key word is “do.” Or put differently, how are you supposed to vote?
Let’s assume this hypothetical voter came to her ranking after seeing /every/ movie released this year.
The merit is there.
I’m curious to see how many female directors we’ll see nominated at the Film Bitch Awards.
90% of the people complaining wouldn’t list women as nominees for Director either. Why bring up female directors from Clemency, Honey Boy, Olivia Wilde, Scafaria, Heller, when we know even you guys won’t nominate them. I remember this site raving about Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, but will you nominate Heller? I wouldn’t bet on it. Maybe Gerwig. But all the others? Please, you most certainly won’t do that either. So let’s not pretend we’re horrified when most people can’t wait to give their director awards to men anyway.
I understand what the problem is, but it’s definitely not a problem coming from the Globes.
I would have removed Todd Philips who basically ripped off "Taxi Driver"
I think an issue here is that the Globes see themselves-- and are proud to do so-- as the start of Awards Season. Everything is filtered through a lens of what will get nominated for an Oscar.
Looking at the folks that were nominated in Director, Bong is an obvious pick for this category, I haven't seen 1917 but supposedly Mendes's feat is undeniable, and Tarantino/Scorsese directed auteur films that are, with Marriage Story and the nominated Parasite, our leading Best Picture contenders. It's hard to take issue with those nominations.
Would I have loved to see Lulu Wang or Céline Sciamma nominated in that fifth slot? YES! But with a film that is on the bubble for a Best Picture nomination (The Farewell) and one that is firmly relegated to the Foreign Language ghetto ('Portrait'... and it's not even eligible for that Oscar), that was never gonna happen in HFPAworld. Little Women's buzz has been rather quiet and Heller's 'A Beautiful Day' is falling fast.
If we really want these nominations to be more equitable, then it starts with opening up the conversation about what should be an Oscar contender so that quiet films like The Farewell and foreign films like Portrait of a Lady on Fire are firmly in the race when the HFPA gets around to making their nominations. And I think we as Oscarwatchers are complicit in closing the doors on them. So much energy (for me included) is spent on predicting what will get nominated, asserting that X film has no chance based on our cynicism from the Academy's past slights, that we neglect to advocate sufficiently for what should be nominated. It's almost a self-fulfilling prophesy.
In short, I find it hard to fault the HFPA for choosing what they did from the slate of films that we basically handed them this year...
It's important to push women to the fore and have them represented.
But this is a stupid article, because it's written like someone responding to a YouTube video..slightly crossed with a tweet.
As a writer, you have a responsibility to do better.
In a perfect world, Claire Denis, Mati Diop, and Lorene Scafaria would be nominated.
Nathaniel nominated Heller in the Film Bitch awards last year, and he has raved about her as one of the best directors working. He also predicted her as a Best Director nominee after seeing A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood at TIFF. So it's odd that people are so certain she won't be a Best Director Film Bitch nominee this year.
For what it's worth, I think she's a worthier choice than two of the four Globe nominees. I haven't seen 1917 yet, but I think she has a stronger filmography than Mendes.
DF
I'd assert that with the current lack of opportunity I can imagine a year where your top five directorial achievements were done by men. That stated, that doesn't hold up as much outside a vacuum.
I wish I had a shotgun to just shoot all of those Golden Globe trophies. That's what I think about them. No women directors... BOO!!!!!!!
I actually liked Joker, but in no way is it more worthy of a Best Director nom than The Farewell or Little Women. It’s just not.
The criticism is that the default position, all else being equal, is male.
Women, am I right?
I also think the awards pundits and columnists are part of the problem. They need to be anointing more female directors as front-runners early on, treating them seriously and trying to change the narrative.
Too many commentators seem to regard female-directed films as prospects for acting and screenplay only, thereby perpetuating the issue of awards voters only thinking they can nominate certain types of stories for Best Picture (and therefore Best Director).
It's a shame Dee Rees' THE LAST THING HE WANTED didn't turn out to be part of Netflix's big push this year. That might have changed things a bit.
Maybe its a blessing in disguise n this backlash will once again propel one female director to a nom, jus like two yrs ago??
DGA will weigh in soon n I tink they hav more sway in this category (duh) 😂
This year we r spoiled for choice! But Greta, Lulu n Marielle seem the likeliest! I wld b v hapi to see any o them make it!! 😁
I was fortunate to live a dream and attend the April 9, 1985 Oscar ceremony. I vividly recall the protesters across the street from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion holding placards supporting Barbra Streisand and protesting AMPAS failure to award the movie filmmaker with a Best Director nomination for Yentl.
Streisand was asked at the time if there should be separate Academy Awards for direction based on gender. Streisand firmly said no.
I think she was wrong. Had the megastar used her considerable power in the industry to lead the charge for a Best Director Oscar - Female, imagine the impact that could have been generated. Studios would be more willing to hire women as directors to take advantage of the Oscar sticker of approval to build box office receipts. Streisand would probably have a 1991 Best Director Oscar for The Prince of Tides instead of another snub. Most importantly, a total of 35 female directors would now have Oscars. I can't help but believe that such a powerful collective would be able to move the issue of equity in the workplace forward.
James, I think we will see gender neutral acting categories before we see gender segregated director categories. That’s the direction music awards have been heading for a long time, anyway. And I think the former (merging acting) would be less controversial than the latter (separating directors) in this political atmosphere. At least among left leaning people who follow film. Not saying either is good or right, it just feels like the writing is on the wall for that to happen eventually, at this rate.
It's the Globes. What do you expect?
I personally would take Phillips and replaced him with Baumbach or Scafaria because those are the best directors in terms of quality in my opinion.
Base it on merit, not gender.
Peggy Sue/Suzanne - You’ve turned into bullies, you can’t claim discrimination and unfair treatment in the comments if you take an action you yourselves call wrong and disgusting and then turn it tenfold on /3rtful, who tends to stay all of to these matters. Shame on you.
Thank you Volvagia. I don’t mimic yet these hippocrites target me in a new way. I’ll give my original name another shot I think. I agree with Me and especially Steve G. Award pundits and columnist could have firmed up either of the strong most deserving black women (Lupita and Alfre) by this point of the season but they fell back into white status quo predicting.
Yeah, I don't put any stock in the HFPA, an organization of foreign "journalists" which inexplicably has a self-imposed rule that non-English language films are not eligible for Best Picture. That's just bananas, so the fact that a female director hasn't been nominated since 2014 (i.e. Ava DuVernay) is simply par for the course. Fuck 'em.
P.S. Scafaria > Phillips, as is Gerwig, Heller, Wang, etc. No question.
First of all, having gender-separate directing nominations is ludicrous. How does a woman "direct" differently from a man? The art form that is directing does not, and has not, been a gender-coded one, unlike acting, which allows both genders (and all genders in the spectrum, because let's be honest, I can't even keep up anymore) to showcase their individual talents in performing. How can a director "perform" as a female or male, when theirs is to synthesize a product using ALL genders, usually all at once? It's mind-boggling to think gender-separated directing categories could ever be a thing.
Also, it's pretty insulting to assume that women, who rightfully fight for equal rights, would need to stand separate from men at ALL. Doesn't that go against the very battle they're in?
That being said, having a female nomination just for token effort is equally dismissive and offensive, and would show that the institution, whichever it may be, considers the movement of women towards equal rights a sham. "Here, have a cookie, you tried."
I haven't seen Little Women, but I've seen The Farewell, and lovely as it is, it's not a Top 5 of the year feat in directing, even discounting Joker, which would not have made my Top 5, either. If anything, Eggers's Lighthouse needed to be there.
And if a woman had directed that movie, it would most certainly STILL belong there. It just happened to be directed by a man.
We need to stop trying to politicize every little thing or we're going to draw ourselves in a very unpleasant and fascist box, not unlike the one Jojo Rabbit tried to pretend it wasn't trying to escape throughout its entire running time.
And yes, this is really me. Haha!
Amazing that the Globes was allowed to become some harbinger of awards glory, with only around 100 members who are a herd of navel gazing starfuckers. How else do you explain that nomination count for The Morning Show?
I appreciate the charitable aspect of the HFPA, but it really is a joke sometimes.
Do they really have to nominate a white actress like Cate Blanchett for something like Bernadette over Constance Wu for Hustlers? It's 47 on rotten tomatoes and 50 on Metacritic, wtf?
Well, the president is right. It reminds mé of when people went maď about how acting categories at the Oscars were "so white" and kept saying Will Smith was snubbed for Concussion. But they didn't not nominate him because he was black. They didn't nominate him, because it just wasn't a worthy performance.
These awards should reward the achievement, not the person. In fact, they don't even need to know, who directed the film. If they like the achievement, they should just vote for it anyway.
Among all the female filmmakers, the only one who actually had a legit shot at a Directing Globe nomination was Greta Gerwig.
There is an easy way to correct this. Fill up slots 1 to 4 in the directing category with the top 4 vote getters. If these four slots are alle filled by the same gender, then pick the first person from a different gender by number of votes, provided there is one in the top 10 of total votes. If there is a tie --> the categrpy just expands to 6 (or 7 slots). It's a great way to get more exposure for female directors without skimping on the merit.
Ok...I think this is my final straw with this blog, care of your referencing of that insufferable moment with Natalie Portman. I thought it was going to be the head-scratching rave for Charlie's Angels, or the forwarding of that silly race obsessed article by Mark Harris in Vanity Fair....But no.
I just want to say that this blog used to be one of my favorite places to read about film. Been visiting the site since 2010. Ten full years. However I started to notice, and especially in a heightened way since Trump became president,that it has turned into a non-stop echo chamber of fourth wave feminist ideology obsessed with patriarchy, white privilege and other intersectionalist nonsense.I get that I may be projecting onto larger areas than this blog in particular but is it depressing nonetheless to see it every. single. week, both subtle and overbearingly obvious.
You, collectively speaking, are arguing about the Golden Globes and lack of female representation across all racial demographics, yet the Globes are barely even considered legit by actual filmmakers.It's just a party for them. And yet here you all are. Giving your input when we know that this ceremony doesn't really matter.
It's worth noting that AMPAS, especially in the acting branches this decade have made some very adventurous choices that you couldn't even imagine the HFPA touching. So I think there will be strong inclusions. Or deep down are you hoping for some controversy and Change™, a la #Oscarssowhite to guilt trip people into voting for an all female line up, or some such rubbish so as to prove their virtue?
It;s annoying to read about the casual denigration of all male achievements and yes, ALL male achievements when in discussion with the seemingly obligatory achievements of 'Women In Film™'. It's patronizing to assume that any woman deserves an automatic slot just to fill a quota, which is really what this comes down to.It actually bears wondering if the praise for some women's achievements are genuine or if there is some primary ideological reason?
Seems to be the case with some of the films this year. It would be redundant of me to make a disclaimer that some women deserve nominations as that is just glaringly obvious. However to read the reviews here it seems as though Merit™ certainly seems to be an afterthought. Why else was The Farewell,Hustlers (a horrible film about horrible people, with a bit of sick real-life casting with the abhorrent Cardi B) Charlies Angels (honestly, that review was some bath-salt level bullshit) all lavishly praised when they ranged wildly from merely adequate to jaw-droppingly terrible?
Victimization™ really is a drug in America right now and I don;t see how bitching because some rich elites didn't get nominated for a statuette is going to solve anything. And I truly, truly believe that Natalie Portman was coming from a place of enormous Privilege™ herself which is what prompted me to write this rant down. I'd like to believe that with her platinum class education that the irony was not lost on her. But alas, self reflection and objectivity seems far too much to request from a card-carrying member of the elite who has the gall to call herself and others like her oppressed.
And no. I don't see this as a problem with the world at large. This is, and always has been, a Hollywood issue. Women are obviously capable of doing whatever they want.Could it possibly be that Hollywood is just a microcosm (a horrible, elitist, evil microcosm) of what happens in the real world, as realistically speaking, it's not the easiest place for anyone to be sane in let alone work in or even be successful in? So no, I will not accept the criticisms of The Patriarchy™ in Hollywood as a representative of the world at large.
I know, I know. I can hear it already. that some of you are only going to call me a misogynistic ignorant who needs to 'Do Better'. And of course,you'll tell me that I don't understand the varying intersections of race, sexuality, class and (eye roll) all genders to fully understand the complicated factors in implicit bias, microaggressions and non-violent Violence™' to the varying Historically Marginalized Victim Groups™ to really know what I am talking about. And how I will never understand how Representation Matters™ because my victim points are much lower than blah blah blah....Maybe I don't understand, though I'd like to believe that I don't need a degree in Gender Studies or Sociology to know ideological bullshit when I see it.
Also, Alma Har'el, and anyone else who spouts similar rhetoric, just sounds bitter right now, throwing her toys out of the pram and calling for a separate female category. I think that's patronizing and this type of nonsense and all the ideology surrounding it only serves to divide relations between men and women (more so than they already are).
Also, what the Hell is happening with the duplicate accounts bullying and impersonating 3rtful? It's cruel. Please try and stop this once award season is over.
A bit overboard Amanda but essentially correct. Like Irvin said Gerwig was the only real possibility for this group. We all know the HFPA is an easily influenced by stars/lavish gifts attention and not a group that is into diversifying it’s strangely made up membership. I’m more annoyed that people care so much about the globes.
And on your last point we’ve had Peggy Sue and Suzanne graciously being the bigger people and rebranding under new handles in 2020. Afresh start and doing the best thing to show they care about Nathaniel and this website since he can’t just up and change the comment system in a click of his fingers. I believe I read even /3rtful is revertingto his previous name as an olive branch, sign of truce which I thought was very admirable.
Articles like this are pretty disingenuous. It's fun to rail against an organization that nominates only male directors, but we all know there weren't many likely female options for them to go with.
I am likely to nominate Kasi Lemmons in my own list. (I don't care what the reviews say; Harriet is quite an achievement.) Maybe even Lulu Wang. Did either of them have a realistic shot? No. Neither did Fernando Meirelles, Rian Johnson, Lorena Scafaria, or any number of other directors of any race and gender. Call it an echo chamber if you want, but you're going to regress to the middle when you have a larger group. You know that. So yeah, it would be awesome if Alma Harel or [insert your beloved director's name here] would be nominated by a large awards body; but until they get the default status of a Scorsese or a (ugh) Tarantino, it's not very likely.
We know what the problem is; we also know what the solution is: make more movies directed by females. This year was a great step in that direction. Would you have known that A Beautiful Day in the Neightborhood, or Queen & Slim, or Hustlers (or even Captain Marvel) were directed by women if you weren't constantly reminded as such? I'd say no. And the more that happens, the better it will be in the long run. So let's not cherry pick some random out-of-left-field contender and complain when they don't get nominated.
Final thought: this is the same group that nominated Ava Duvernay when no one else would; and gave a female their Best Director award a full 26 years before the Oscars did. So let's give them a wee bit of a break, shall we?
If there’s 5 slots, I guess to please everybody more slots need to be instituted for identity politics. Slot #6 must go to a woman, #7 to an African-American, #8 a Latino, #9 for a religion, #10 for a foreign country, #11 for a physical handicaps, #12 for sexual orientation, #13 on political views, #14 on charity work/humanitarian contributions, #15 on age, #16 on nepotism. Can we vote for the Film and not the other factors?
My original question stands. What does a voter do when men fill out her sincere top 5? I'm gathering two possibilities:
1. Her opinion is wrong and she needs to interrogate her biases, check her privilege and arrive at a new opinion that puts a woman in the top 5.
2. She needs to demote someone she considers worthy to create space for a woman whose work she liked less.
As a liberal who believes in freedom of belief and expression, these prescriptions seem intolerable. But anyone who's issuing a fatwa about representation needs to be honest that one or both of these approaches is what you would like to see.
Agree wholeheartedly with Manny, Evan and DF. The reason nobody has answered DF's question is that the correct answer makes them uncomfortable.
Basically the reason there are no women in the Best Director category is that the Globes didn't seem to warm to Greta Gerwig's film. No other women were seen as frontrunners 48 hours ago.
This conversation is almost as annoying as the "Marvel movies are not cinema" conversation. Some good points to be made, sure, but an overall pointless topic.
Why? Because all of this is so subjective. And the people complaining aren't the people who ever had a chance. The director of Honey Boy, for example. Her film got decent reviews, was never a major awards contended, and she's the one tweeting out? Maybe if Greta Gerwig spoke up, or Ava Duvernay, I'd listen, but they are being a little more humble and classy about it.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is one of my favorite films of the year. I loved the way A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was directed. I really admired The Farewell. Were any of these films seriously in consideration for best director? No, they weren't. And those films all got nominations, so what's the problem?
It's like every year, people forget what these awards shows are like, and how these awards bodies vote. Critics groups are not the same as the HFPA, and not the same as the Academy. We will never get these wonderful indie, art-house films nominated in all the big categories, no matter how hard we tried, unless they're SO undeniable like Roma or Moonlight or Lady Bird.
AD, I actually wish people would just say that #2 is the correct answer. Demote someone you would otherwise nominate, to make space for a woman. Do it on the basis that women have been denied the abundant opportunities than men have gotten, and until there's parity in the pipeline it's something we have a responsibility to do. It's not a permanent solution but in the meantime, it's necessary to achieve representation and stimulate opportunity.
It's simple, easy to understand and if you believe the ends justify the means, you should have no shame or hesitation arguing for it. In a nutshell, that's affirmative action. Affirmative action is controversial, but well established as a remedy for systemic injustice. And it works! It's very easy to argue that the ends justify the means: That argument has been favored in the supreme court, and elsewhere! Conservatives have turned it into a dirty word.
But if you're afraid to say that's what you want, it's impossible to have the conversation. And it forces us to debate on the grounds of taste (who has "good" taste and who has "problematic" taste) rather than on the practical terms of elevating women.
I think my advocacy for an Academy Award for Best Director, Female touched a raw nerve.
The common assumption that the best work wins awards is sweet and naive. Folks need to learn their film history.
The first Oscar ceremony was intentionally organized to create recognition among the audience that would increase box office receipts. When it became apparent that Charlie Chaplin was going to sweep the first ceremony, a meeting was held. All of the nominations for The Circus were rescinded. Chaplin was awarded a special Oscar so that multiple films could benefit from this new advertising tool.
In the first decade of television, Best Picture was awarded year after year to lengthy color spectacular that offered an alternative to TV. That became truly ludicrous in 1962 when three Best Picture nominees (Mutiny on the Bounty, The Longest Day and The music Man) failed to have nominations for direction, writing or acting. The objective of promoting studio fodder became too obvious to ignore.
Noted film critic Roger Ebert once remarked that his top ten list always contained little seen films that he wanted to support though they weren't the best of the year.
For those of us who love film, if a Best Director, Female award increases opportunities for female directors and the projects they develop, I want to see them. I long ago stopped believing that award winners were the "best."
It would be nice to have women directors nominated but this is more industry problem than awards problem. Just because there are a couple of women who would deserve the mom doesn’t mean they can be curanteed to get it. There are similarly male directors who missed out of non even if their job was worthy but it’s just that not everyone can get in. Hollywood Foreign Press nominated one foreigner who non-white here too. That is important too and foreigners is more of their “cause” too considering who are nominating. So they nominated worthy directors and thought of outside of box too for what Hollywood industry usually does so I don’t think their choices can be blamed here. Even if we all want women directors be more recognized.
Female directors need to make better films then.
The affirmative action option would only work if all voters (or enough voters) got behind the same woman. Who knows - maybe this year GG voters individually voted for the likes of Gerwig, Sciamma, Heller, Wang etc. - but not enough of them voted for any one of them. That happens with male directors all the time - but it didn't happen with Tarantino, Scorsese, Bong, Mendes or Phillips this time. That suggests two things: campaigns need to coalesce more forcefully around female-directed films so that they are seen as pole-position contenders rather than fingers-crossed contenders, and more women need to get opportunities to direct films in the first place.
The GGs (and the Oscars) are an easy target: the status of women in Hollywood is a huge issue and people are bewildered as to what to do, and so awards ceremonies seem to present opportunities for 'easy' solutions. My main problem with the affirmative action approach is that it may lead a female director to feel that she only got nominated because she was a woman. At the same time, awards ceremonies don't just respond to the narrative (What is the best film of the year?): they help drive it (What is seen to be quality filmmaking?), and so I wouldn't say that awards have no part to play in changing things. There's no objective measure of 'best' - we are indoctrinated to see certain types of films as the quality films. Something like The Farewell is, to me, just as good as The Irishman, but The Irishman is much more the sort of film that attracts awards attention - because of its director, is subject matter, its stars and even its length. The sooner that sort of bias can change, the better. But it will take a while.
Two more things: it feels a bit unfair to pick on the GGs. They gave Streisand Best Director in 1983, and they have given a film in a language other than English the directing award three times - in 2000, 2007 and last year. They therefore have, I would say, a better record than the Academy in terms of diversity in awards winners. But also, the Oscar nominations are still a few weeks away - maybe a female director will get nominated after all? The Academy's Director's branch has sprung a nice surprise on us pretty much every year this decade. There's still time for voters to rally around the above-named female directors' films if they think they are worthy of awards.
Edward--ITA!
The men deserve it this year :shrugs
1. Even though I think it's a ridiculous organization, these awards do matter. They are on primetime. It matters when the slate is made up entirely of white men. It matters. This isn't the St. Louis Film Critics (no offense). If you don't understand that, you're in the wrong century.
2. The solution doesn't have to be affirmative action. But I do think organizations like this one have an obligation to test themselves, undergo inherent bias training, think about how the biases of Hollywood and the broader culture are pushing certain films to them, think about whether they should be thinking outside the box.
3. It might just be a coincidence that Scorcese and Tarantino made particularly great films this year, but every damn time? No. That starfucking should have stopped years ago. It's time for something new.
mikey--Bong Joon Ho is not white.
Mikey, bias training doesn't work, despite all the magical thinking around it—in fact, evidence shows it can exacerbate the issues. That's before you account for the subjectivity that's inherent in evaluating art. Even left-leaning researchers and experts agree.
"Companies like Starbucks love anti-bias training. But it doesn’t work — and may backfire."
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/4/19/17251752/philadelphia-starbucks-arrest-racial-bias-training
So sure, the HFPA can waste its money implementing such a program and brace for even harsher browbeating when it doesn't yield the desired results. At least affirmative action is upfront about its goals and tactics.
It's hilarious to think someone would nominate "Lorene Scafaria" when even her movie is not getting any traction besides a token nomination for supporting actress. Yeah, let's leave out Tarantino or Scorsese or Bong or Mendes to put some random woman director, that did a "good" job, but we'll put it in front of better work just because she's a WOMAN.
Just because they are women doesn't mean they should be nominated by default.