Emma Stone: You Do You.

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This past weekend the Oscars aired and because we are in the midst of #TimesUp and other talks about minority representations in film, there were SO MANY tear jerking, snap-worthy, thunderous-applause-inducing speeches, and introductions that I personally could not help but snap at in approval. One such speech that sparked a snap in my fingers was Emma Stone’s introduction for Best Director. She introduced the category by applauding the directors for their incredible feats and vision saying, “It is the director whose indelible touch is reflected on every frame… It is the director who, shot by shot, scene by scene, day by day, works with every member of the crew to further the story.” She then concluded, saying, “These four men, and Greta Gerwig, created their own masterpieces this year.” There was no real inflection or tonal shift in her voice when she said this, but the in-house audience and other viewers at home, like me, knew the point she was trying to make. Greta Gerwig getting nominated for best director is HUGE considering she’s a woman in a seriously male-dominated job, and considering this occurred in the middle of the #MeToo movement. And since I absolutely adore her, I didn’t think twice when I joined in with the in-house audience’s thunderous applause from my own living room. It wasn’t until I went onto twitter later that night to get my daily dose of intersectionality from various sjws on twitter that I realized what Emma Stone said was maybe was a teensy weensie bit white feminist-y. My timeline was filled with tweets like:

and

AND

And they made a good point, honestly.

Jordan Peele and Guillermo del Toro were nominated as well, which is arguably just as big of a feat as having a woman director. @women_direct made a really good observation, saying Gerwig is the 5th white woman to be nominated and Jordan Peele is only the 5th black male. On some further investigation, I discovered that Guillermo del Toro is only the 7th Latino director to be nominated for best director– 8th if you want to define Latino as a phenotype rather than genotype in the US (which we do) and include the 2002 dest director nom for Pedro Almodóvar’s Talk To Her (Hable Con Ella). So there were a lot of incredible feats for both gender and PoC representation in the best directing category this year and so it was kind of shitty for Emma Stone to ignore the PoC in the categories (especially considering her past history of ignorance towards PoC issues of representation shown by her portrayal of a blatantly white-washed character in Aloha) However, I only say” kind of” because when I first heard the criticisms, something about them was slightly unsettling. And upon further reflection of the issue, I feel my intuition was right on the nose.

I of course recognize the need for intersectionality on a general basis, but does there need to be the inclusion of PoC MEN in an obvious reference to the #MeToo movement??? I agree with the various twitter user’s statements on the matter, but I can’t help but think they would also be ones to criticize someone for saying “Ya, #BlackLivesMatter, but what about Latino lives?” We know Latino lives matter, but that’s it’s own movement, it’s own hashtag. And in this day and age of people getting pissy over other minorities stealing their movement, I can’t help but think the criticism for Emma Stone’s statement is a tad bit hypocritical, particularly if you look at the most recent Hollywood diversity report for minority and female directors.

I do wish the report would have gone into more specific stats about the different types of PoC minority directors because it could have challenged my argument, but the facts still stand: It is less likely to find a female director in Hollywood than it is to find a male minority director. Furthermore, the history of the number of female directors in Hollywood is far more bleak than the history of minority male directors (even though I recognize how horrible it is that the percentages for minorities has not increased in several years). So is it really that uncool of Emma to say “These four men, and Greta Gerwig, created their own masterpieces this year” considering that, statistically speaking, it is more rare for Gerwig to be up there amongst the likes of all those men? #BlackLivesMatter exists because of the disproportionately targeted police brutality crimes toward black individuals and #MeToo exists because of the disproportionately targeted sexual assault crimes toward female individuals. These movements have clearly outlined their purpose, and #MeToo’s is not to talk about PoC men in the film industry. Emma’s lack of acknowledgement for Peele and del Toro isn’t a lack of acknowledgement for the struggles of PoC directors, I think it was just simply a moment to uplift Gerwig who fought just as hard, if not arguably harder according to the Hollywood Diversity Report, to be nominated in a truly male dominated world. So in conclusion: you do you, Emma Stone. I don’t think what you did was that bad if it is any consolation. And hey– maybe I’m bias because man I really do love Greta Gerwig.  But I’m also a black queer woman who hopes to some day be nominated amongst a hopefully more gender-diverse group of directors who thinks that it does’t hurt sometimes to just give a woman the recognition she deserves (even if said woman is white!!!). References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_American_Academy_Award_winners_and_nominees#Best_Director https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_Academy_Award_winners_and_nominees#Best_Director https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_Academy_Award_winners_and_nominees#Director