I usually don’t like getting in the middle of ‘controversies’ on social media. I know just by observing that this is a war nobody wins and the loudest voices trump all logic. But after seeing what happened on social media forums to Jane Campion after her speech at the Critics Choice awards on Sunday – remarks, by the way, I thought were totally appropriate – I feel, as someone who knows the history of Hollywood intimately, must comment. I suspect I will get a fair amount of flames for this – I’ve learned just by making similar comments on other people’s blogs that often there is no reasoning with many of them – but because this is such a tempest in a teapot I feel I have too.
For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about: On Sunday night, the Critics Choice awards gave its Best Director Prize to Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog. Campion is one of the most skilled directors of my generation, and based on the record of all the awards leading up to this, is the front-runner for the Oscar a week from Sunday. Understandably giddy and perhaps a little buzzed (the Critics Choice does provide a fair amount of liquor to everybody) Campion expressed amazement that she was in the same room with Venus and Serena Williams, who were there as producers for King Richard, which has earlier taken the Best Actor prize for Will Smith. Campion joked about taking up tennis and then in that spirit of good humor said: “Venus and Serena don’t have to play against the boys. I only have to play against the boys.” I have a recording of the entire room laughing hysterically and applauding, including Venus Williams. Serena looked a little shocked. I appreciated the joke because of the larger statement it made not just about Campion’s life in Hollywood, but of any female director trying to have a career in Hollywood.
Now I have to give what is always missing from every remark that someone makes: context. In 1993, Jane Campion stunned the world with her masterpiece The Piano. An extraordinarily well-crafted film she wrote and directed, it debuted to extraordinary acclaim for everybody involved, especially stars Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin. It won the Palm D’Or at Cannes and instantly became an Oscar contender. There was just one problem: that was the year that Steven Spielberg had made Schindler’s List.
More context: Hard as it maybe for those under thirty to remember, there was a time when Steven Spielberg was pretty much shutout by the Academy. He was famously denied Best Director nominations for Jaws in 1975 and The Color Purple a decade later, even though both films were nominated for Best Picture. This was galling in the former case because they went for Federico Fellini for Amarcord, which had won Best Foreign Film the year before, and in the latter case, doubly so because The Color Purple received eleven other nominations, but the Academy thought Akira Kurosawa deserved a Best Director nod for Ran. (The Color Purple holds the dubious distinction of being the most nominated film to not win a single Oscar.) There were examples of this throughout the 1970s and 1980s: Close Encounters of the Third Kind got a nod for Spielberg but not for Best Picture and my mother is still outraged that E.T. was basically shutout to the ponderous epic Gandhi in 1982.
So when Schindler’s List came out in 1993, the narrative was: he’s earned, we will give Spielberg the Oscar. The problem was the critics weren’t willing to go along with it. The National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics and The LA Film Critics all gave Schindler’s List Best Picture, but they also all gave Best Director and Screenplay to Jane Campion for The Piano. And oh, the backlash started and the contortion journalists made: One said that the awards of New York didn’t make sense, but rather than logically say the Best Picture should go to the best directed and written film of the year had the audacity to say: “Call the cops Steven, cause you were robbed.” Many of those same critics had spent the last twenty years saying Spielberg was too ‘mainstream’ to deserve an Oscar but why let the fact get in the way of the story?
So everybody turned on Campion and The Piano. And should we be surprised? Campion was only the second female nominee for Best Director to that point, but rather than celebrate this, the whole world turned on her for messing up their celebration for Spielberg. It wasn’t about whether Schindler’s List was a better film than The Piano: it was about making restitution to someone the Academy has spent twenty years screwing over. How dare this woman – from New Zealand, of all places! – spoil our fun? She’ll have another chance. It’s Steven’s turn. The fact that it took another ten years for another female director to get nominated by the Academy – Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation – wasn’t the point.
We all know that Hollywood is a sausage fest and that the worst male director in Hollywood will find financial backing for any film (Uwe Boll just keeps making movies even though they’re all horrible) while the best women directors are always struggling. And Hollywood never sees the irony. Barbara Streisand’s Yentl was a vanity project to be sure, but to complete shut her out for any nominations – especially given that she was the first woman in history to win the Golden Globe for Best Director – was as inexcusable then as it forty years later. Mel Gibson’s Braveheart was a far worse film that was ravaged by critics and didn’t make its money back at the box office. The Oscars Gibson got for Best Picture and Director is among the lowest points in the Academy’s history.
The Academy may say that they have made strides in recent years, and that’s all well and good but its still stage dressing. Campion was the first woman in Academy history to get two Best Director nominations. That’s actually appalling when you consider there were two examples crying out to be honored this past decade. Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty was critically acclaimed and unlikely box office success. She earned a second Best Directors nomination. On nomination day 2013, the world was outraged – for Ben Affleck, who hadn’t been nominated for directing Argo. Greta Gerwig’s Little Women was one of the best films I saw in 2019 (I would rank it just below Marriage Story and Joker) but she was shutout for Best Director that year.
So when Campion made her remark to the crowd at the Critics Choice, she wasn’t just speaking for herself when she said “I only compete against the boys.” She was speaking every single female director, writer or any woman in Hollywood who doesn’t have the patience to just smile for the camera when she’s asked a question. It was funny, but it was true and no doubt painful.
But none of that – Campion’s struggles over the past three decades, which mirror every female creative force in Hollywood, the fact that she’d said she was in awe of the two of them seconds earlier, the fact that she was no doubt giddy for triumph (maybe even a little buzzed), the fact that she was joking – was relevant to social media. All the internet cared about was that somehow Campion had diminished everything the Williams’ sisters had accomplished. The fact that her struggle for appreciation has no doubt gone on as long as the Williams sisters – hell, the fact that they were even there for a movie about their lives illustrates what they had to go through – wasn’t relevant.
And what it comes down to is nothing Campion said but the same biases. I don’t think any of has to do with gender or even race strictly. No, this has to do with the fact that a white woman who I’m willing to bet almost nobody watching the awards knew from Eve before the awards dared to equate her struggle with those athletic icons. There’s a sad parentheses to this. Twenty eight years, Campion underwent a firestorm in the media for daring to deprive the most successful director in history from winning an Oscar. He’s gotten four subsequent nominations (ironically one is this year for West Side Story) and has had a grand total of six films since then nominated for Best Picture. Campion hasn’t had a major success since then, and had to make her film with Netflix for it to be made at all. Now on the verge of finally realizing her twenty-eight year dream, she’s being slammed for making an off the cuff remark about two of the world’s greatest athletes, who had to struggle just as hard to get their film made in the first place. At least King Richard got a theatrical release.
I take it back: part of this is about being a woman. It goes to the narrative than any female who isn’t an actress (and even some who are) must give a pitch perfect acceptance speech and not say anything that even seems controversial. A man can say whatever the hell he wants for winning any award and get cheered by everybody. Hell, there was an example of it that same night. Kieran Culkin was Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for Succession and gave a messy speech in which he humiliated himself and a couple of his fellow castmates. I saw an article online calling it ‘Best Worst Speech Ever’ while even said: “I’ll never win one of these again.” Campion’s speech was perfect on every level but for four seconds and she’s being raking over the coals by social media. Of course, Culkin’s a white actor with a legacy playing a white character who is a legacy while Campion is you know, a woman nobody’s heard of from New Zealand.
And of course, even though Campion did nothing wrong she apologized on social media and in person. Not that it will make a difference. Those trolls who cover Oscar night without having bothered to even watch any of the films will just say racist and sexist slurs about her when she wins. I have no doubt Campion will be just as humble in her acceptance speech, but it won’t matter.
I don’t know how many flames of my own I will draw for writing this article. And I honestly don’t give a damn. Jane Campion shouldn’t have apologized. She made a light-hearted comment about a serious subject at a glorious achievement. She had no intention of offending anybody, certainly not the Williams sisters who again, she was amazed she was in the same room with. She probably didn’t offend the Williams sisters, who by the way if you’d bother to see King Richard (which again I doubt many of this trolls did) have had to undergo far worse in their careers. This moment should have been a triumph for women everywhere. Why am I unsurprised that it led to a moment tearing one down?
No comments:
Post a Comment