Cracking Hollywood's Glass Ceiling? What Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar Nod Means for Women

When it comes to politics, Hollywood is branded as a bastion of liberal elitism. Sadly, when it comes to gender equity, Hollywood is way behind the times. That's why Kathryn Bigelow's nomination for Best Director at next month's Academy Awards is a big deal. Her nomination (and hopefully her win) should not give the illusion that men and women are now equal in Hollywood. Instead, Bigelow's nomination should be an instructive conversation-starter, drawing attention to the oft-overlooked marginalization of women in the film (and television) industry.

In 2008, only 6 of the top 50 grossing films starred or were focused on women; meanwhile, women were a whopping 9 percent of all directors and 12 percent of writers. A Forbes article last year on the issue cited the fact that "most mid- to big-budget films are made for a 14- to 25-year-old male audience." Nonetheless, young girls and women pay millions to see films like Twilight and chick flicks and have enormous buying power -- yet this fails to generate female directors. The lack of female directors is evident at the awards shows: Bigelow is only the fourth woman ever to be nominated for an Academy Award.

Bigelow's nomination is about more than statistics in Hollywood: it challenges the stereotypes of female directors. Set in the very masculine atmosphere of the Iraq War, Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is not the "typical" movie for a woman director, demonstrating that the type as well as quality of films directed by women are not dictated by their sex. Bigelow could direct a blockbuster for the young male demographic if she were hired to.

A friend recently told me that writing about women in Hollywood was pointless: “People know it's a male dominated culture. How are you doing anything new by pointing out the obvious?” I hope he's right -- that people do think about gender equity all the time -- but I highly doubt it. And this inequity is particularly troublesome in Hollywood.

By virtue of the medium, film and television have a profound effect on our culture without readily showing who's behind-the-scenes. Hollywood isn’t just a location on a map; it gets into everyone’s homes and everyone’s heads. The number of films about women, much less with an empowering message, are few and far between, and that effects women everywhere. The lack of women writers and directors impacts content significantly. So, if Hollywood as white-boys-club isn't always readily apparent, award shows are the annual events in which the people behind the scenes all gather in one room in front of millions of viewers. If attention to Hollywood's gender disparity were ever more visible and more instructive to acknowledge, it's at the Oscars.

When Bigelow won the Directors Guild Award in January, Lee Daniels congratulated her by saying, "Your movie is as beautiful as your legs. You make me question my sexuality.” Daniels, also nominated for Best Director for Precious, should be credited with creating a movie with strong female roles for women of color -- a rarity. But his comment goes to show just how much attention we pay to how women look in Hollywood, and a lot less at what they accomplish. If Bigelow wins, let's spend the night focusing on what she has achieved, and what women in the industry still need to achieve.

Photo: Mario Sundar