Last night, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an Academy Award for best director, and her film, The Hurt Locker became the first female-directed movie to take home the best picture award. It was a big relief that the artfully constructed film -- albeit a possible propaganda machine -- and Bigelow both won over the blockbuster monstrosity Avatar. But her win, to some extent, was overshadowed by that of Sandra Bullock.
I have nothing against Bullock, since I've followed her career since Love Potion #9, but her performance as a smart-talkin' housewife who takes a neglected child under her wing in The Blind Side is the kind of cliche we always reward women for. It shows how Hollywood normally thinks of women: types who like to wear pretty dresses and meet their friends for lunch, and the female viewers who like to watch women talking to their friends at lunch. Occasionally, as with Bullock's character, they're also so spunky they can get what they want, but usually their husbands are smirking on the sidelines. So Bigelow's win partly feels like a rejection of relegating women in the arts to that sphere.
This may seem less important than the fact that we haven't, say, elected a female president, or that women only represent 17 percent of Congress. But the way women are represented in Hollywood and the roles they're allowed to play in politics are part of the same problem. If the way that mostly male professions start to honor their female members changes, then we can hopefully make room for more women in both.
UPDATED: In setting up the contrast above, I didn't mean to ignore the other big win of the night for women: Mo'Nique for Precious. I think a good actor successfully portraying a monster is another thing the Academy traditionally awards actors for across gender lines, and that performance actually deserved the win.
-- Monica Potts
