A Woman Hasn't Been Nominated For A Directing Oscar In 7 Years Now

But Mel Gibson has!
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The nominees for the Academy Awards in 2017 are looking like a nicely diverse group, given two consecutive years of #OscarsSoWhite protests.

That is, except for the directing category.

This year’s announcement marks the seventh consecutive year that a woman ― any woman ― has not been included in the list of Best Director nominees. In 2017, those are: Denis Villeneuve for “Arrival,” Mel Gibson for “Hacksaw Ridge,” Damien Chazelle for “La La Land,” Kenneth Lonergan for “Manchester by the Sea” and Barry Jenkins for “Moonlight.”

The last female director to be honored with a nomination is Kathryn Bigelow ― who also took home the prize ― for “The Hurt Locker” in 2010.

Yes, Mel Gibson has nabbed a Directing nomination before any woman in the past seven years. David O. Russell has been nominated three times in that period.

This year, the Academy chose to honor a black director, Jenkins, for his lovely picture of a black, gay boy growing up in Miami, which is a win for diversity advocates who can be credited for sparking the organization’s membership shakeup last year. In an industry where women — and especially women of color — are rarely picked to helm big-ticket films, however, there remains a lot of progress to be made.

In 2017, Bigelow remains one of just four women to be nominated for Best Director and the only one to ever win at the movie industry’s most celebrated annual event.

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