The women of the #MeToo movement and the #TimesUp initiative brought their activism to the Academy Awards last night. From Ashley Judd, Annabelle Sciorra, and Salma Hayek’s video sharing their vision for “a new path forward” in the industry to Frances McDonald’s call for “inclusion riders,” a prerequisite actors can have added to their contracts that require certain levels of diversity in a film’s cast and crew, many spoke out against Hollywood’s diversity problem.
Emma Stone tried to get in on the action too.
While presenting the award for best director, the La La Land actress stated pointedly, “These four men and Greta Gerwig, created their own masterpieces this year,” smiling smugly as the audience caught on and cheers and applause broke out.
Stone’s bit of shade echoed that of Natalie Portman’s from the Golden Globes. The actress addressed the lack of gender diversity in the category’s nominations, stating, “Here are the all-male nominees.”
Many on twitter were quick to praise Stone’s diss.
But as many other’s noted, whatever power move Emma Stone was trying to play ended up being one straight out of the white feminist playbook.
Greta Gerwig was nominated along with Jordan Peele for Get Out and Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water. By writing them off as being a part of the “four men,” Stone completely erased the significance of them being nominated. While Gerwig is only the 5th woman to be nominated within the best director category, Peele is only the 5th Black person, and Del Toro being a Mexican immigrant is very much important to notice. If Stone had wanted to point out the lack of recognition female directors within the category received, she could have done so without putting down Peele and Del Toro. There was no need to minimize the achievements of the men of color in the category for the sake of white feminism. Hollywood’s lack of diversity doesn’t just stop at gender but also includes race, greatly impacting MOC just as it impacts White women.
Not to mention, It would’ve also been nice to see the same energy Stone had to throw shade be used to highlight the lack of diversity amongst the female categories. White women were the only ones nominated for the best actress category this year, and while Greta Gerwig is only the 5th female director to be nominated for an Oscar, all five of them have been White. Despite Mudbound being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, Black female director Dee Rees was kept out of the nominations.
And as many pointed on twitter, Emma Stone wasn’t in much of a position to be calling for gender equity and diversity in the industry seeing as she’s not only worked with Woody Allen twice in the past but also played a whitewashed role in the movie Aloha, actively contributing to the same problem she tried to call out.
Glamdom 