Amid the barrage of critical brickbats tossed at Sunday night’s Oscar show — plus the widespread dissatisfaction with certain winners — I didn’t see much mention made of this particular milestone, but it strikes me as worthy of note, particularly a year after Kathryn Bigelow’s history-making Best Director win.
I’m happy to say that one other category is no longer an all-boys’ club: as part of the technically robust “Inception” team, Lora Hirschberg became the first woman (to my knowledge) to win an Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing.
Hirschberg shared the award with colleagues Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick, with whom she also scored her first nod two years ago for “The Dark Knight.” (The Cinema Audio Society has been more generous to her over years: dating back to “The Horse Whisperer” in 1998, she has amassed six nominations, if no wins, from that group.)
Anyway, congratulations to Hirschberg. Knocking down that particular pin just leaves Best Animated Feature and Best Cinematography as the lone category in which no woman has yet claimed an Oscar. The situation is worse than that in the latter category: we’re still waiting to see a female cinematography nominee. Here’s hoping an Ellen Kuras or a Maryse Alberti can rectify that situation one of these days.
[Photo: People’s Daily Online]
Comments
65 responses to “Another barrier broken?”
Animated Feature doesn’t have a female winner yet (Marjane Satrapi is the only female nominee so far). I’m not 100% sure on Visual Effects but I don’t think a woman has won in that category yet.
Good point about Best Animated Feature — such a relatively new category I didn’t think of it.
As for Visual Effects, Suzanne Benson won at the 1986 ceremony for “Aliens.”
What about best supporting actor?
Pretty shocking that Best Cinematography hasn’t even had ONE female nominee.
I still find it strange that IMDb doesn’t have a footnote under Bigelow’s win last year; noting that she’s the first female winner certainly is just as important as noting Wertmuller was the first female nominee
But that’s aside the point. I’m thrilled for Hirschberg, a deserving win and hopefully this is the first of many.
John G:
Insert picture of Phillip J. Fry here. :)
…should be now time for the Academy to reward Anna Behlmer too, whose work in sound mixing has earned her so far 10 nominations, from 1995 with Braveheart to last year’s Star Trek, but no wins.
(Apart from Behlmer and Hirschberg, only another woman has been nommed for sound mixing, Pud Cusack in 1998 for The Mask of Zorro)
Here’s hoping Glenn Close can win leading actor next year. :)
This reminds me: Is it legitimate to have separate categories for male and female actors, especially when there are not separate categories for male and female writers, directors, cinematographers, editors, composers, etc.? Acting is the same craft, whether practiced by men or women, isn’t it? If voters can properly judge whether Firth’s performance in KING’S SPEECH is “better” than Bardem’s in BIUTIFUL, then why couldn’t they judge whether Firth’s performance in KING’S SPEECH is “better” than Portman’s in BLACK SWAN. (I can think of some faulty and cynical reasons to separate male and female acting awards, but no legitimate reasons.)
Dear Anon, I think one consideration is fairness to females. Males get more roles, and they get more solid ones often. So, women might be disadvantaged.
The other thing is while it might cut down on time, the acting presentations strongly interest your average viewers. So, it might make the telecast less engaging.
A potential solution is a comedy/musical breakdown. Although it’s widely thought for good reasons that males get better opportunities in comedy, Annette Bening, Meryl Streep, and Sally Hawkins were widely seen as more legitimate and deserving than male counterparts.
Some also believe that sex segregated categories encourage some to give women good roles, like Portman in ‘Black Swan.’
Speaking from strictly personal perspective (and as someone who is somewhat senstitive to marginalization of women), I don’t really disagree with your point. It’s something I wondered about myself on occasion but, ultimately, never felt particularly strongly against the category split and here’s why.
For one thing, there’s an inherent sense of equality here that I think is difficult to accuse of sexism. Unfortnuately, sexism is somethign that is MORE likely to occuer should the categories be merged.
Secondly, the thing to understand is that, by their very nature some categories are inherently rather arbetrary. One could easily extend your argument to Supporting Categories as well.
One could also argue that unlike most below the line work, acting is a uniquely physical discipline and a person’s particular gender characteristic may be worth taking into account. Besides, the type of objectivity that you talk about in relation of best of existing category judging simply is not there and it’s hard enough to try to objectively picke a winner in a those categories without having to introduce more variables.
That said, I am sympathetic to your point of view. It’s the kind of attitude societies should strive for, I think, but we are not yet at a point where it’s doable logistically. So take the categories as being arbuitrary for now, I guess.
This is dumb. There’s no discrimination against women sound mixers. There’s just not many women sound mixers. How many women want to get into sound mixing? There’s not exactly a long line of women being turned away because they don’t have a penis.
Women directors – yeah I get that. Plenty of women want to direct, have directed, and have been ‘snubbed’ in the past. But I hardly think that a woman finally winning for sound mixing is worthy of note – it’s not as if we’ve seen worthy nominee after worth nominee get shafted over the years.
If either Arthur Christmas or Kung Fu Panda 2 wins Best Animated Feature, then that category will have a female winner.
But, animation has mostly been a man’s game, with very few women making the claim of directing an animated feature.
Over the years, the female animation directors have just been, in addition to the aforementioned Sarah Smith and Jennifer Yuh, the notable ones have been Sandra Fierlinger (My Dog Tulip), Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues), Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi), Jill Culton (Open Season), Vicky Jenson (Shark Tale and Shrek), Brenda Chapman (The Prince of Egypt) and Janice Karman (The Chipmunk Adventure).
isn’t hooper gay?
isn’t hooper gay?
Which has precisely what to do with anything?
Brenda Chapman is writing Brave, but she’s not directing. Darla Anderson produced Toy story 3.
Although she didn’t win the award for Best Supporting Actor, Linda Hunt did win an Oscar in 1983 for playing a male character in The Year of Living Dangerously.
“This is dumb. There’s no discrimination against women sound mixers. There’s just not many women sound mixers. ”
Anyone else sees anything funny about this kind of logic?
Please?
Maxim,
Nothing funny about that statement if women have no inclination to be sound mixers. Unless your the kind of guy that screams politically incorrect or sexist when someone reasonably suggests that there may be fundamental differences between genders that make males more predisposed to wanting to be tech geeks and women, well, not.
“Which has precisely what to do with anything?”
Another barrier broken? First gay director to win? (If he’s gay, and if he’s the first to win…)
First gay director to win?
Hardly. To my knowledge, John Schlesinger became the first openly gay director to win at the 1969 awards — though the victory for George Cukor, whose sexuality was essentially an open secret, predates that by five years.
John Schlesinger already broke the gay director barrier many years ago when he won for Midnight Cowboy.
What’s the ratio of women-to-men costume design winners? Makeup winners? Not to be sexist, but aren’t women usually more right-minded, as opposed to a left-brained trade like sound or editing.
Actually, male winners considerably outnumber female ones in the Best Makeup category.
What about the barrier preventing older actresses and younger men from winning oscars?
The youngest best actor winner was 29 at the time and pretty much 99.99 percent of best actress winners are under 29.
Sexist and ageist pricks.
Yep, here’s something kinda mind-blowing: out 150-some-odd male acting winners, only 5 have been in their 20s.
18, Choices are shaped by a lot of factors. There are some sizable sex differences on the things V. People dimension, but sounds in a movie do need a narrative frameework, often one tied into characters’ perspectives. A lot of psychologists and neuroscientists today argue against a left-right brain dichotomy like that.
Didn’t a woman win sound mixing for “Thoe Bourne Supremacy”? Or was it sound editing?
Hans
Shameful! I sometimes wonder why people still hold AMPAS in such high regard. Why? it’s obviously a fraudulent and corrupt institution.
Was in another world the first film directed by a woman to win foreing?
“What’s the ratio of women-to-men costume design winners? Makeup winners? Not to be sexist, but aren’t women usually more right-minded, as opposed to a left-brained trade like sound or editing.”
Hans you logic is idiotic. Even if your “usual” theory was true, wouldn’t you say that there would be enough “unusuals” to make at least some sort of presence?
“Was in another world the first film directed by a woman to win foreing?”
Marleen Gorris from the Netherlands, for Antonia’s Line, in 1995.
No need for hostility, Maxim. Just tossing something out there into the convo. Anyway, you’re right in that the disparity is just nit there and the fact of the matter is that Hollywood is just a male-dominated business. Simple as that, really.
On gay directors: If it’s gay directors, period, then George Cukor won a few years before Schlesinger. I think Cukor was as openly gay as he could in those days. As for female cinematographers, don’t forget Mandy Walker who was probably close to a nom for”Australia” a couple of years back.
In regards to Anonymous, you are absolutely right. Ideally it would be Best Leading Performance and Best Supporting Performance. The separation of the categories makes no logical sense, although from a publicity/ratings standpoint, it does. Let’s say that the categories were merged, and Portman/Bening/Franco/Firth/Eisenberg were the nominees. All of the sudden, you are leaving out a star like Nicole Kidman, former winners and respected actors like Bridges and Bardem, as well as attractive younger ladies in Williams and Lawrence.
Men and women may play different roles, but that isn’t concrete. The characters vary as much within a gender as they do opposed. A drunken Marshal and a stuttering king overcoming adversity have as much alike as a struggling ballet dancer and an overbearing mother.
Eddie: Karen Baker Landers won for Sound Editing for “The Bourne Ultimatum.”
Alquimista219: As Andrej says, Marleen Gorris was the first. And since then, we’ve also had Caroline Link (“Nowhere in Africa,” 2002).
Hans, I sincerely appologize. Your comment seemed like you were using the “right/left brain” theory as a justification for lack of females (i.e. it’s this way because that’s how women are). I find that a wrong way to think of the situation but I should not have lashed out like that.
I think if there were just leading and supporting awards, the nominees this year would have been:
Best Performance in a Leading Role
Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
James Franco (127 Hours)
Colin Firth (The King’s Speech)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Best Performance in a Supporting Role
Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Christian Bale (The Fighter)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
With the winners being Firth and Bale. The problem with this system would be that it would always favor the men, I think. However I think that had this system been in place over the past ten years, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Connelly, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Hudson, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, and Mo’Nique all would have won over their male counterparts.
Mike, you speak of justness and then stick Hailee into supporting category. That doesn’t seem just at all.
@ Maxim – I never said anything about it being fair. And this isnt my own set of nominees. This is what I think would have happened at the Oscars.
And an out lesbian winner, at that! She kissed her wife after her name was called (and ABC didn’t censor this, unlike the Bardem-Brolin smooch). The wife was also thanked during the speech, by one of the two dudes, who thanked “our three wives” by name. Hurrah!
Thanks for some thoughtful responses to the question about separate awards for male and female acting.
It’s interesting to speculate about whether, as some have suggested, a single combined category would produce significantly more nominees and winners of one sex. (Indiewire does an annual best performances list that combines men and women, but I could only find results from the last two years, whcih is too small a sample to be meaningful.) In any case, providing separate male and female acting awards to ensure against gender-skewed results is, to my mind, just plain odd, when AMPAS does not do the same to ensure against such results in other categories.
It’s probably just one of those things we take as a given and don’t think much about, but which, upon reflection, make no logical sense. Still, I suspect it’s here to stay because it increases attention on “stars,” which helps with publicity.
I know Kris is recharging, and rightfully so.
But will there be a cinejabber post this weekend? Or is incontention on hiatus for now? :)
Kris is on a break. I’ve been a bit out of sorts, but will chip in next week. Let this be your Cinejabber thread.
Oh, okay then. Cinejabber mode activated.
I saw Rango this week. I’m stunned with the attention to detail given to the character designs, textures, settings, and everything else in between its art direction and cinematography.
However, and despite of all the praise, I thought it had a boring and lacking plot. Maybe if it had some greater background about Rango’s origins then I’d weight his turnabouts and conflicts a lot more. But as it is, I thought it wasn’t deep enough to convey all its meta-narrative about character development with Rango’s passion for acting and playwriting.
Plus, what’s with those references? I’m not sure kids will understand them… but even if they do, was that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ref really necessary? It kinda cheapened the movie in less than 15 minutes of screening.
Anyways, if this turns out to be a year of five animated films, sure, nominate Rango. But in a year of three… not seeing it happen.
I’m wary of Rango. Reviews are great. Adults seem to laugh at it. Kids apparently hate it. And now I hear ‘beautiful, but boring’. Trying to decide whether or not to see it in the theaters.
Saw Barney’s Version and The Adjustment Bureau.
Barney’s Version was fan-friggin-tastic for over an hour. Then it got really, really depressing and it’s epic scope is diminshed towards the end. But overall, pretty decent. Giamatti should have gotten more buzz during the season. Though, GG win is obviously awesome.
The Adjustment Bureau. Well, I liked it. I can’t put my finger on why. But I did. And funny enough, my two friends I saw it with agreed completely. Packed theater. Buzz leaving was good. I think I wanted the movie to be a bit more substantial in the end. But, despite some slow sections, I definitely dug it.
She was the first woman to win for sound mixing. Karen Baker was the first woman to win for sound editing, in 2008 for THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
Kel: I stated as much in comment #35.
woops, missed that. firefox doesn’t let me search for anything within a page, oddly
also, guy, and if this is a rehashed talking point, i apologize:
do you think that the Academy’s sudden decision to bound back to the “traditional” Oscar movie with TKS was a response to last year’s record breakers Bigelow (first woman to win best director) and Fletcher (first black person to win as writer)? Yah, they gave Hirschberg an award this year, but the sound category’s gender bias is far less discussed in comparison
Honestly, I think the Academy’s choices rarely “respond” to previous ones in a calculated sense — we’re talking about a large group of individuals voting, not a committee with instructions or an agenda. (Even if that were the case, I don’t think the milestones passed last year would prompt any kind of retreat on the Academy’s part — if many voters felt threatened by a female director, or a black writer, winning, they wouldn’t have voted for them in the first place.)
The bottom line is that a lot of them just liked “The King’s Speech.” They’ll like something different next year. As easy as it is to overthink these matters, that’s really the basis on which most members vote.