The Golden Globes Are Under Fire for a Lack of Women and People of Color

Too many Hollywood Awards shows have, time and time again, largely ignored women and people of color, and this year’s Golden Globes look no different after the announcement of the nominees this morning. With actors from movies like The Farewell, Little Women, Honey Boy, and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood being nominated, there was no love for the female directors of those films (and even more telling, female writers also did not get any nominations)—or any others, for that matter—and the nominees in the major categories were overwhelmingly white and male.

The Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language category was the big exception to that rule, The Farewell (directed by Lulu Wang), Les Misérables (Ladj Ly), Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar), Parasite (Bong Joon-ho), and Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma), along with a few others, but Bong Joon-ho was the only one to break out of there into the overall director nominations, leaving the overall picture pretty bleak. Women were entirely shut out of the Best Motion Picture, directing, and screenplay categories with the exception of 1917, nominated for Best Motion Picture, being cowritten by Krysty Wilson-Cairns, and you could almost say the same for people of color. (Also, Frozen 2, nominated for Best Motion Picture – Animated, was co-directed and written by Jennifer Lee.)

The TV categories did slightly better on at least nominating things created by women, but the TV acting categories were downright abysmal for people of color. Variety outlined the snubs they thought were the most outrageous, and I agree with some (none for Cats is what it deserves). All it shows is that the system is continually racist and sexist, and even when there are films that are better than those nominated, the directors do not see the love they deserve.

This is what’s interesting: Their actors are nominated, their movies are nominated, but they aren’t? It doesn’t make sense to me that a director can get snubbed when her film is nominated. How does the nominating committee think that movie came to be? Magic?

Twitter was, rightfully, mad about the snubs.

Will people of color and women see their time at the Golden Globes in categories not completely dedicated to them? Who’s to say, but right now, it’s a disaster.

(image: Universal Pictures)

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Rachel Leishman

Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is an Assistant Editor at the Mary Sue. She's been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff's biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she's your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh. She has multiple podcasts, normally has opinions on any bit of pop culture, and can tell you can actors entire filmography off the top of her head. Her current obsession is Glen Powell's dog, Brisket. Her work at the Mary Sue often includes Star Wars, Marvel, DC, movie reviews, and interviews.

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