Apart from Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, female nominees don’t outnumber males in any Oscar categories
AMPAS
This year’s Academy Award nominations have tied a record for the most female nominees in a single year, but women still make up less than one-fourth of the total number of Oscar nominees.
According to the Academy’s awards librarian, 40 women were nominated in competitive, non-acting categories this year, with an additional 10 nominated in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories. That ties the record of 50 set two years ago, and is four more than the 46 nominated last year.
But more than 150 men were nominated in acting and non-acting categories, which pushes female representation among the nominees to less than 25 percent.
That’s about the same percentage the Oscars achieved 10 years ago, when there were fewer female nominees (44) but also fewer overall nominees.
Also Read: Oscars Nominate First Female Cinematographer: Rachel Morrison for ‘Mudbound’
In only two categories, Best Costume Design and Best Documentary Short Subject, did Academy voters nominate an equal number of men and women; in no category outside of Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress did the female nominees outnumber the males.
And while Rachel Morrison became the first female nominee in the Best Cinematography category and Greta Gerwig only the fifth woman nominated for Best Director, women were completely shut out in three categories — Best Score, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects — and were in the minority in 14 other categories.
One sign of progress: Where 10 years ago only three women were nominated as producers of Best Picture nominees, this year eight were. But the number of male producers who were nominated grew almost as fast: 12 in 2008,22 this year.
Also Read: Oscars: ‘The Shape of Water’ Swims Ahead With 13 Nominations
Of the nine Best Picture nominees, six have both male and female producers, with only “The Post” having more women than men. The other three nominees – “Get Out,” “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” – do not feature any nominated women producers.
Overall, female membership in the Academy has increased from 25 percent in 2015 to 28 percent after two consecutive years of a record number of new member invitations. Those years have seen a 359 percent increase in invitations extended to women – though until women are put in positions of power that make them eligible for Oscar nominations, Academy voters won’t have the chance to cast ballots for them.
On the other hand, women are the central characters in at least four of the nominees (“Lady Bird,” “The Post,” “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards”) and are arguably as central as the male lead in “Phantom Thread” as well.
Oscars 2018: 8 Biggest Snubs and Surprises, From Tom Hanks to Denzel Washington (Photos)
Every year at the Academy Awards, there are inevitably certain nominees that raise eyebrows in surprise and glaring omissions that furrow those eyebrows in anger. 2018 was no different. Here are some of this year’s snubs and surprises.
SURPRISE: Denzel Washington for “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”: Washington’s portrayal of a lawyer caught in a moral quagmire left critics lukewarm and didn’t make much of an impact at the box office, yet it has earned the beloved actor his ninth Oscar nomination and sixth in the Best Actor category.
SNUB: Tom Hanks for “The Post”: Many awards prognosticators expected that the Best Actor slot taken by Denzel would have gone to Tom Hanks for his portrayal of Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. Instead, Jason Robards’ performance in “All The President’s Men” remains the only Ben Bradlee to get an Oscar nod.
SURPRISE: Lesley Manville for “Phantom Thread”: Daniel Day Lewis got much of the press for “Phantom Thread,” but Manville has earned some attention for her performance as Reynolds Woodcock’s devoted sister and business partner, who spends the whole film putting up with Reynolds obsessive nonsense.
SNUB: Holly Hunter for “The Big Sick”: Kumail Nanjiani’s true-story dramedy earned a screenplay nomination, but Hunter, who was considered an early contender for Best Supporting Actress last summer for her performance as Kumail’s tough but loving future mother-in-law, ended up sliding out of the final list.
SURPRISE: Paul Thomas Anderson for “Phantom Thread”: It feels weird to call it a surprise that an acclaimed filmmaker like Anderson got a nomination for Best Director, but in such a competitive field, not many awards analysts expected him to sneak in and take a nod for his work immersing audiences in Reynolds Woodcock’s meticulous world. That’s especially considering he managed to beat out…
SNUB: Steven Spielberg for “The Post”: With its paean to journalism and not-so-subtle tweak at Donald Trump, it was expected that Academy voters would go ga-ga over “The Post.” Instead, it’s getting the “Selma” treatment, earning a Best Picture nomination but only getting one other nom for Meryl Streep while Spielberg misses out on an eighth Oscar nomination.
SURPRISE: “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail” for Best Documentary Feature: PBS will get a surprise nomination for their powerful recounting about how a small, family-owned bank in New York’s Chinatown became the only bank prosecuted by the feds in the wake of the 2008 recession.
SNUB: “City of Ghosts” for Best Documentary Feature: Docs about the ongoing Syria crisis have been fertile ground for award winning docs like “Last Men In Aleppo” and last year’s Best Short Doc winner, “The White Helmets.” But the Academy didn’t go for this horrifying but moving tale about Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, a team of citizen journalists reporting the abuses of ISIS at the risk of their own lives. Previous Slide Next Slide
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Who got robbed at the Oscars this year?
Every year at the Academy Awards, there are inevitably certain nominees that raise eyebrows in surprise and glaring omissions that furrow those eyebrows in anger.
