WHAT’S THE STORY?

THE nominations for the 92nd Oscars were unveiled yesterday and marked a momentous year for Netflix but fell flat on diversity and female representation.

WHAT’S GOING ON?

THE Oscars (formally known as the Academy Award of Merit) are known as an international recognition of excellence in the film industry. The awards are nearly 100 years old and it’s the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony.

But in recent years, the Oscars have courted controversy due to the lack of female representation in the directing category and ethnic diversity in its acting award nominations. Unfortunately for this year’s nominations are proving to be no different.

Both the 2020 Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor and Actress were made up of an all-white category. Out of the 10 best actor and actress nominations, there was only one non-white nominee, Cynthia Erivo for Harriet.

This follows on from 2016, where no actors of colour were nominated for the second year in a row.

In 2017, following the #OscarsSoWhite campaign against the lack of diversity, seven out of the 20 acting nominations were people of colour.

However, the nominations did make history with the black comedy Parasite becoming the first South Korean film to compete at the Oscars, where it earned six nominations.

The Asian-American film The Farewell however, was snubbed.

Actor, Awkwafina made history as the first woman of Asian descent to win a lead actress Golden Globe but didn’t even get nod at the Oscars.

WHAT DO THE EXPERTS SAY?

DR Rebecca Harrison, film critic and academic at the University of Glasgow, said: “Every now and then there is a small victory in terms of awards recognition than becomes a big moment in the media narrative about diversity and positive change.

“But these are anomalies rather than patterns demonstrating real progress”.

Lauren Clarke, co-producer of Femspectives at the Glasgow Feminist Film Festival, agreed: “Representation of women is a constant struggle within these larger institutions and women of colour are facing these barriers ten-fold”.

There was no shortage of women who could have been recognised by the academy.

Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Lulu Wang (The Farewell) and Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers) would not have looked out of place on the shortlist.

In 2019, a record-breaking number of films were directed or co-directed by women. 10.6% of the 100 highest grossing films were directed or co-directed by women, according to USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

Their omission wasn’t hugely surprising, both the Golden Globes and the Directors Guild of America had an all-male list of nominations.

Harrison, told The National: “Women are being massively underrepresented at the world’s top film awards”.

She said the “problem runs much deeper”, adding that it isn’t just about awards, “as films directed, written, produced and shot by women also tend to be shut out of major film festivals and get less press coverage than those directed by men”.

ANY SCOTS ON THE SHORTLIST?

KRYSTY Wilson-Cairns from Glasgow is the co-writer of 1917, alongside director Sam Mendes.

The film is a box office hit and is nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

The epic war film about the plight of two British soldiers and their race against time during the First World War opened in the UK last week.

It has already been a great success during award season winning two Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture and Best Director.

It also won three Critics' Choice Awards and is nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Writer’s Guild of America.

The Govan Graving Docks in Glasgow were used to shoot scenes for the film.

It so happens Wilson-Cairns grandfather worked there 90 years ago.

And as anyone who’s seen the film will know, she managed to have Glasgow front and centre, with one of the trenches in the film named Sauchiehall Street.

Wilson-Cairns says this is based on true events, as there is a plank in the Imperial War Museum called Sauchiehall Street named by the Highland Watch.

An alumnus of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Wilson-Cairns first gained work experience on the set of Taggart.

There was no nod for Wild Rose, a musical drama about a Scottish woman with dreams of becoming a country star while juggling a job and two children.

The standout song Glasgow was snubbed had won at 25th Critics Choice Awards.

THE RISE OF NETFLIX?

AFTER being nominated for 34 nominations at the Golden Globes, and winning only two awards, the streaming service has certainly made a mark on the Oscars.

Their productions Marriage Story and The Irishman were both nominated for Best Picture.

The Martin Scorsese-directed Irishman, a three-and-a-half-hour long epic, received 10 nominations.

While Jonathan Pryce and Adam Driver were nominated for Best Actor for their roles in the Two Popes and Marriage Story.

The streaming giant is still relatively new to the award scene, only picking up its first Oscar in 2018, but Clarke is worried about its impact.

She said: “It can be tricky for small independent films to beat the algorithm without a significant marketing budget.”