Kathryn Bigleow

A Good Year for Directors Who Aren’t Straight White Men

by Brendan Bettinger    Posted: December 30th, 2009 at 11:07 pm

The position of director has long been dominated by heterosexual, Caucasian males in Hollywood. For evidence of this, one need only look at the Academy Award for Best Director nominations over first 81 years of the award’s existence. Only three times have female directors received nominations (Lina Wertmüller in 1976, Jane Campion in 1993, and Sofia Coppola in 2003) and only once has an African-American director been nominated (John Singleton in 1991). Homosexual directors have had more luck, with such notable openly gay directors as Rob Marshall, Gus Van Sant, and Pedro Almodovar gaining nominations, while John Schlesinger and George Cukor even won the award. Still, directing in Hollywood is not a particularly diverse game. So it is noteworthy when, as Variety points out, “it’s possible the best-director noms might not include a single English-speaking, Caucasian, straight male”.

For a look at the directors who might instead seize this year’s Oscar nominations, including Kathryn Bigelow, Lee Daniels, Tom Ford, Lone Scherfig, and Rob Marshall, hit the jump.

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