Women Snubbed from Golden Globes ‘Best Director’ Category Again

The Golden Globe nominations were announced on Monday, and not a single female director made the cut for the “Best Director” category. Fans took to Twitter to express their outrage, as there were many female-directed films that hit the box office this year.

However, this is not the first time that women have been excluded from Golden Globe nominations. Over the past 77 years, only five women have been nominated for Best Director.

Last year, as Natalie Portman took the stage to announce Best Director alongside Ron Howard, she made a comment about the lack of women in the category. “We are honored to be here to present the award for best director,” Howard said, to which Portman responded, “And here are the all-male nominees.”

The Golden Globe nominees are determined by The Hollywood Press Association, a group of about 90 international journalists based in Southern California. Demographics about this year’s organization’s members are not publicly available, but HFPA president Lorenzo Soria said the association votes solely based on film quality. “What happened is that we don’t vote by gender,” Lorenzo said. “We vote by film and accomplishment.”

The argument can be made that more male-directed movies have done better over the course of the year; however, could that be because not many women have been allowed into the directors chair? Only 4 percent of the top 1000 films over the last decade have been directed by women and only three films were made by women of color.

Here is a list of some of the female-directed films that did not receive a nomination:

• Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women”
• Alma Har’el’s “Honey Boy”
• Marielle Heller’s “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”
• Melina Matsoukas “Queen and Slim”
• Lorene Scafaria’s “Hustlers”
• Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell”
• Olivia Wilde’s “Booksmart”

In the year of Fleabag, Killing Eve, Little Women, When They See Us, Booksmart, Harriet, Hustlers, Late Night and many more…

No lady writers.
No lady directors.
Again. #GoldenGlobe https://t.co/dO13bRGqU6

— Caitlin D. Fryers 🦄🖋️📚 (@cdemrys) December 9, 2019

“Booksmart” was Olivia Wilde’s debut as a director featuring slapstick comedy and female leads. “Little Women” has received so much praise and is expected to do very well in the box office. The list goes on.

Extra annoying because this has been such a great year for woman filmmakers: The Farewell, Booksmart, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Little Women, Hustlers, Honey Boy, Queen and Slim, The Souvenir, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, just to name a few.

— Chad Merrell (stands with Ukraine) 🇺🇦 (@thechadmer25) December 9, 2019

Fans have also been irked by the Golden Globes for the fact that Zendaya was not nominated for her role in “Euphoria,” one of the most streamed shows of 2019.

They didn’t nominate Zendaya for her performance on “Euphoria”? Wow. https://t.co/aER5cVTucC

— Saeed Jones (@theferocity) December 9, 2019

In addition, only three non-white performers were nominated for acting awards — Billy Porter for “Pose,” Rami Malek for “Mr. Robot” and Ramy Youssef for “Ramy.” No women of color received acting nominations.