Archive for November 17th, 2009

Maryl Streep as Julia Child in "Julie and Julia"

An article on HollywoodReporter.com, written by Steven Zeitchik, talks about how up to this point in time in the Oscar race very few actresses have made much of an impression. Maryl Streep will likely be nominated (yet again) for her role as Julia Child in Julie and Julia, and Zeitchik claims that only two other leading actresses (Carey Mulligan and Gabourey Sidibe for An Education and Precious) have a shot at taking home the gold statuette.

One possible reason that Zeitchik postulates deals with the kinds of roles available for women in mainstream Hollywood. Independent films (such as An Education and Precious) offer many more dynamic, “serious” leading roles for women than Hollywood does (the reasons for which are up for speculation), but being in an independent flick doesn’t downgrade one’s performance in the eyes of the award voters. The Academy is not averse to giving the Best Leading Actress award to a “new face,” so-to-speak (ex. Jennifer Hudson, Marion Cotillard, etc.). Zeitchik later argues that unless you’re the likes of Angelina Jolie or Hillary Swank it’s hard for a woman to land a “serious” part in mainstream Hollywood. So shallow is the Oscar nomination pool for leading actresses, Zeitchik says, that Sandra Bullock is getting award buzz (for her role in The Blind Side).

Those who don’t think much of this year’s lack of standout performances by leading actresses chalk the issue up to the cyclical nature of each category, while some others speculate that it relates to bigger (supposed) issues like Hollywood making less award-worthy films. Zeitchik attempts to debunk such a speculation by noting that the Best Leading Actor category is overflowing with quality nomination possibilities (ex. George Clooney, Colin Firth, Jeff Bridges, Jeremy Renner, etc.).

You can read the full article here, which includes other related topics such as the possibility for three women to be nominated for Best Director, which is an unprecedented feat.

Quick Opinion: I can’t be certain that the number of quality leading roles for women in Hollywood is going down, if for no other reason than because it’s a more complex issue than one might think at first. Sure, maybe this year’s crop isn’t all that extensive, but last year saw 5 great actresses in the nomination pool, which led to hugely diverse speculation before the awards show about who was going to win. And being that Hollywood is still a big supporter of patriarchal ideology (for better or worse), there is and probably always will be plenty of quality leading roles available for men. Who’s to say, though, that there simply aren’t a lot of good scripts with great leading roles for women making the rounds around Hollywood? Script ‘X’ may have a dynamite female lead character, but if its overall story stinks then it doesn’t matter. Studios don’t typically buy works-in-progress. In any case, why would they take a chance on a lousy script just to satisfy a male/female ratio of leading roles? I’m all for equal representation of the sexes in the arts, but the film industry is a business (the biggest financial risk-takers being Hollywood studios) and if it were to adopt some brand of affirmative action to assure such equality I would speculate that the industry would suffer both financially and artistically. Simply put, you can’t tell an industry dealing in creativity what to create.