Following last year's Oscar nominations, it became clear that there was an underlying issue in Hollywood that needed to be addressed: racism. When no actors of color were nominated for an Academy Award, many argued that the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were blind to the work of black actors and filmmakers by not recognizing their cinematic achievements.
This is what lunched the #OscarsSoWhite campaign, which ultimately led to the induction of more diverse members in the Academy's membership.
So while I have your attention, I'd like to discuss another problem when it comes to the Academy that needs to be addressed: sexism.
But before we get there, let's go back 20 years to a high school party in a living room in Woodsboro, California.
One of the most memorable scenes in Wes Craven's 1996 modern classic Scream is when an intoxicated Randy, played by Jamie Kennedy, stands in front of his peers explaining the rules of how one survives a horror movie. When stating Rule #2, Randy explains that drinking and doing drugs attributes the "sin factor" to the unlikely-to-survive individual.
This "sin factor," he embellishes, is what causes the killer's next victim (along with having sex and/or saying "I'll be right back") to smother any chance of living to see another day. As Randy bluntly puts it: "sex equals death."
Whether sex, drinking, or drugs is the crime, Randy argues that this immoral behavior makes it impossible to outsmart the killer in the film's final act. Only virgins - usually females - are able to do this.
In modern horrors, we look at this way of thinking as a dated point of view - Jay makes it to the end of It Follows, recovering drug addict Mia survives a gruesome and gory ordeal in 2013's Evil Dead, and even Scream's Sydney Presoctt outsmarts Billy Loomis after giving him her virginity just minutes before the on-screen finale (and just after Randy gives his speech).
Movies have gotten past this idea that only "pure" and "sinless" characters can win in the end. Unfortunately, it seems those who make and award these movies don't feel the same way.
If I were to tell you that the ideal woman is obedient, loyal to her partner, and possesses a quiet strength to be used only when absolutely necessary, you'd probably label me a sexist. Rest assured, I do not think this way. This is not the ideal woman, nor the ideal person for that matter.
Now what if I told you that all men are untrustworthy - all have some inherent evil inside of them, a sinful nature that eventually overpowers any chance of them doing good. Again, you'd likely think my way of thinking is ludicrous, and again, I'd reassure you that is not my opinion.
It appears, however, that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences possesses these dated and inaccurate views of both sexes. Hollywood appears to bask in the villainy of men and find it repulsive in women. In fact, a male character independent of the "sin factor" is basically incomplete.
This is where the crux of my sexism argument lies. Granted, the Academy Awards are, as stated by two-time winner Cate Blanchett, "random and subjective." However, a certain archetype appears to have formed in the recent batch of Oscar winner that doesn't seem very random.
Just take a look at the winners of the past few Oscars for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress.
Let's start with the boys.
The men who have won in the past ten years all have enormous character flaws, ranging from understandable imperfections to embodying a malicious attitude towards themselves and others.
2015: Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies - A Soviet spy tasked with stealing information from America in a time of war. His actions, if successful, would have lead to the deaths of countless innocent citizens. Rylance notoriously beat Sylvester Stallone for his performance in Creed, where he played a selfless coach and acted as a father figure to the young protagonist.
2014: J.K. Simmons for Whiplash - A brutal, violent, and verbally abusive college jazz band conductor whose behavior caused a former student to commit suicide.
2013: Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club - A regular drug user who dies from a deteriorating, self-abused body. It's worth mentioning that Leto was nominated against a Barkhad Abdi for playing a machine gun-wielding pirate in Captain Phillps, Michael Fassbender for playing a sadistic slave-owning rapist in 12 Years a Slave, and Jonah Hill for playing a money-scheming investor and drug addict in The Wolf of Wall Street.
2012: Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained - A gun-toting bounty hunter. Admittedly, (most of) his murders are legally justifiable, and he does show a commitment towards freeing Django and his wife. But at the end of the day, he is still a killer who dies immediately after shooting a man in cold blood.
2011: Christopher Plummer for Beginners - A man who lied to his wife for decades about his true feelings and nature. Here, the sin factor is not as strong, but it is still present. Interestingly enough, out of all the other nominees that year, he is second in sin only to perhaps Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The Master, who plays a manipulative cult leader.
2010: Christian Bale for The Fighter - An ignorant drug addict who winds up in jail. Like Leto in 2013, Bale's fellow nominees were also among the usual suspects - two criminals (Jeremy Renner in The Town & John Hawkes in Winter's Bone) and an adulterous father figure (Mark Ruffalo in The Kids Are All Right). The only good one of the bunch was Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech.
2009: Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds - Coined "The Jew Hunter" for his very successful efforts in locating and gleefully exterminating Jewish fugitives. "Au revoir, Shoshanna!"
2008: Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight - Need I say more?
2007: Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men - The dude walks around with an oxygen tank to blow people's brains out with concentrated air and uses a coin toss in place of a moral compass.
2006: Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine - A grumpy old man who dies from snorting heroin, tells his 15-year-old grandson to embrace a polyamorous lifestyle, and rants about the "f@%king chicken" in front of his young grandchildren.
As despicable as some of these character are, we do see redeeming qualities from some of these male characters. For example:
- Alan Arkin tells his granddaughter Olive to be comfortable in her body and not to starve herself to win a beauty pageant. He's also there to congratulate his son for his efforts after a failed book deal and helps Olive with her dance routine.
- Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained risks his life and gives away a fortune to reunite Django with Broomhilda.
- Christian Bale, despite his ignorance, is there for his brother at the final scene to call him the champ.
While we see goodness in these characters, they still have their flaws - some more glaring than others. But these flaws go a step further than those you and I have: lying to life partners, murder, drug use, and aiding in the Holocaust to name a few. For the men, the sins supersede and iota of selflessness.
Now, to draw a comparison, let's take a look at the past eight women who have won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
Now, to draw a comparison, let's take a look at the past eight women who have won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
2015: Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl - A woman whose life and marriage are ruined when her husband undergoes a sex reassignment surgery, ultimately leading to the husband's death. Many of Vikander's scenes involve tears and the struggle to accept her new role in life. She won against Jennifer Jason Leigh's murderous Daisy Domergue in The Hateful Eight, the first Taratino film since Death Proof not to win an acting Oscar.
2014: Patricia Arquette for Boyhood - A devoted mother who puts her children above all. She skips a date to read them Harry Potter and also goes back to school to make a better living for her family. This is also a woman who is abused by an alcoholic husband and cries in every other scene she's in (a tad of an overstatement, but still). She won her Oscar against recovering drug addict and dismissive daughter Sam (played by Emma Stone) in Birdman and The Witch (played by Meryl Streep) in Into the Woods.
2013: Lupita Nyong'o for 12 Years a Slave - A tortured slave who never loses her spirit or heart of gold, even when being whipped again, and again, and again. Notably, she beat American Hustle's Jennifer Lawrence for this award. While I believe Nyong'o gave the better performance, it's notable because Jennifer Lawrence beat Nyong'o at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs for Best Supporting Actress. Nyong'o only won at the SAG Awards and Critics' Choice Awards. The former two awards tend to be a stronger prediction of Oscar gold.
2012: Anne Hathaway for Les Misérables - She moved us all with her rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream." She sings this song after losing her child, her hair, her tooth, her job, and selling her body to buy food for her child. And then she dies.
2011: Octavia Spencer for The Help - A black housekeeper who faces the reality of southern racism and suffers through a physically abusive marriage.
2010: Melissa Leo for The Fighter - Admittedly the outlier of the discussion, Leo's character Alice is a horribly berating mother. Still, she is a mother, and works with her son on his career.
2009: Mo'Nique for Precious - Another apparent outlier, but let's take a closer look at the dismissive, baby-dropping, TV-throwing mother of Gabby Sidibe's Precious. In the final scene, we discover the mental instability, abuse, and neglect that Mary Lee lives with, and this is why her character does what she does. She has been victimized to the point where it is incapable for her to love or trust anybody, and this mindset is not by choice. Her erratic and evil beavior is a direct result of her suffering. Unlike the men, her suffering supersedes her sin.
So why do I highlight all of these specific Oscar victories? Well for one, the Academy chooses a specific, sex-dependent winner in each category. With only one obvious exception in Melissa Leo, every winner of the Supporting Actor/Actress for nearly the past decade plays a character with an undeniable similarity to the other winners. For the men, it is the "sin factor" - some definitely being more guilty than others.
For women, it is victimization. It is suffering. The recent winners of Best Supporting Actress have all been victimized in their lives in ways that most of the men have not. In fact, most of this victimization come from men.
- Arquette, Spencer, and Mo'Nique from their husbands/boyfriends.
- Nyong'o from her owner.
- Hathaway from the man who defiled her.
- Vikander isn't really a victim of hatred or ignorance, but her sadness and suffering are evident and are because of her husband's actions.
Despite the fact that women and men in the western world no longer fit this cookie cutter image of what society says they should be, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - as a whole - does not appear to buy into that progressive view. If they did, maybe more women playing ignorant and unstable mothers who dance to "Live and Let Die" would win Oscars over women who play slaves. Maybe more actors playing re-married fathers serving as a role model for their son would win over actors portraying student-slapping jazz coaches. Maybe an actress playing a drug user would win over one playing a protective mother, and a male playing a drug addict would lose to one playing a speech therapist.
Another issue here is the selection of nominees - many of whom also fit the bill with regard to the issue at hand.
- Keira Knightley (2015) snagged a nod for playing a character who got engaged to a man who was trying to conceal his homosexuality.
- Sally Hawkins' (2013) character put up with an erratic and selfish sister.
- Jacki Weaver (2012) portrayed the frustrated mother of a bi-polar man.
- Jessica Chastain (2011) played a woman who faces constant miscarriages.
On the male side?
- Tom Hardy's (2015) character killed a frontiersman's son.
- Edward Norton (2014) played an obnoxious and violently confrontational actor.
- The three men I mentioned in 2013 (playing a slave owner, pirate, and financial scumbag to refresh your memory).
- Nick Nolte (2011) portrayed an unfit father and recovering alcoholic.
- The aforementioned crew of criminals and the adulterer from 2010.
- Stanley Tucci (2009) delivered a performance as a child killer.
- Phillip Seymour Hoffman (2008) was a potential child molester.
The reason this is so sexist and so troubling is this: acknowledging certain types of performances specific to either men or women results in overlooked performances from men and women who don't fit the bill, and this also paves the way for Hollywood to create even more of these sexist roles. It's a vicious cycle that may not be completely attributed to the Academy, but can definitely be attributed at the very least in part.
I'm a firm believer that life imitates art. So long as the Academy continues to recognize the work of sinful men and victimized women with these most prestigious awards, the longer we will see these roles written for men and women for millions to see on screen.
It's unfortunate, however, that this trend doesn't seem to be ending. The next winners of Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress are predicted to be Mahershala Ali and Viola Davis for Moonlight and Fences, respectively. While this will may amend the issue of apparent racism/racial ignorance in the Academy, it will only serve to further the issue of sexism that I have noticed.
In Moonlight, Ali's character is a drug dealer who - despite serving as a father figure to a young Chiron - supplies Chiron's mother with the narcotics that keep her from being a good, stable parent. His admirable actions towards the boy are contradictory to his character's true intentions - selling drugs to pay for his nice house and buy things for his girlfriend and profiting off of a family's hardships.
In the Fences trailer, we see a confrontation between Davis's character and Denzel Washington's. Washington expresses frustration that he has been standing in the same place for the bulk of his life, to which Davis tearfully and angrily responds "Well I've been standing with you. I gave 18 years of my life to stand in the same spot as you." While I have not seen Fences yet, I think this single line of dialogue speaks to my point.
I guess we'll have to see if the future of movies will change course on February 26th.
I know that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is not fully to blame for this trend. Like the recent allegations of racism in the Academy, the root of this problem is not necesserily the Academy members. Instead, I argue that that issue precedes the nomination ballots and can be traced back to the desks and meetings of Hollywood execs. After all, the less movies made about black America, the less people of color to receive nominations and awards. Similarly, the more characters who are sinful men and victimized women, the more Oscars go to actors who play these characters.
Therefore, it would be unfair for anyone to tell the Academy to not nominate this type of performance when this specific type of character is the foundation for the majority of today's film characters. Saying that certain spots should reserved and quotas should be set for specific types of characters, people of color, people in an age bracket, or actors from foreign films is absurd.
Instead, let's go back to the root of the problem and hope that the Oscars follow suit.
In the meantime, let's hope the Academy will begin to recognize art in ways they haven't before without feeling like it should be an obligation. Let's hope they encourage the creation and writing of unique characters. Let's hope they pay tribute to the performances that don't always represent the world as it was, but instead as it is and - perhaps - what it could be.
