The Oscar nominations are out, and Kathryn Bigelow is in the running for Best Director for war film The Hurt Locker. Her win at the Directors’ Guild of America has put her as the front-runner of the Oscar race and into the centre of a media frenzy, above and beyond the normal racket of the usual Oscar hype. Why all the added attention? Because the DGAs have never, in a 62-year history, recognised a female director. Only three women have been nominated for an Oscar for Best Director. None have won. A Bigelow win would make history.  

It’s about time. The film industry has historically shut women out, except in the editing suite (the process was thought to be akin to the feminine pursuit of knitting). You could conclude that all is now hunky-dory in Hollywood: a woman wins, sexism smashed, that’s entertainment!

But Bigelow is the exception in Hollywood. Of the 600 new films reviewed in The New York Times in 2009, only ten percent were directed by women – and many of these were foreign films that received limited releases. The numbers only get worse when you look at the six or so major studios: last year, Paramount and Warner Brothers did not release a single film by a woman. It’s not even the case that those bankrolling movies are men: women have run studios since the 80s.

The excitement over Bigelow’s nomination disguises a much deeper problem in Hollywood: the lack of representation of women, both at a directorial level and in film itself. Scroll down the list of top ten highest-grossing films: with the exception of Titanic and Avatar, women are either on the sidelines of a story centred on male protagonists or are part of an ensemble cast (think Arwen in Lord of the Rings  or Hermione in Harry Potter). Women almost never front a major studio film. When they do, it’s in paint-by-numbers romantic comedies. No wonder films like The Devil Wears Prada do well with women: at least it’s not Sandra Bullock playing another career-minded shrew. You have to wonder if some part of Hollywood’s dire lack of imagination is due to the absence of female directorial voices. 

Why does the industry continue to turn their backs on female directors and female audiences? Part of it is because women aren’t seen as loyal moviegoers. Received wisdom holds that outside of romcoms, women don’t go to movies and they can’t open them. By extension, women who want to make films about women are consigned to romcoms, and those who want to make films about anything else are seen as risky propositions. Bigelow, for example, struggled to find any Hollywood funding for her film. Female directors, the argument goes, just don’t create profitable films. That’s patently untrue, though: a study in 2008 showed that the budget of the film has more to do with its box office than the gender of its director.

You’d think that Hollywood would realise that women, making up half of the population, are a pretty profitable target demographic. Yet every time women flock to movies like Mamma Mia!, the industry reacts with shock. These films might not be Schindler’s List II, but they’ve forced Hollywood to begin re-evaluating the way they look at female audiences. Hopefully, a Bigelow win at the Oscars will finally change the way they look at female directors.