The talented women who pound the doors of men ruling Hollywood made their marks on this year’s Oscar’s with their nominations and awards. But in spite of this success, their acceptance to Hollywood is still in the hands of the producers and the studios. And in all fairness, we can say that Hollywood is not eager to work with women even today. In order to understand the position, you can look at the Oscar ceremony. The journalists just interested in the red carpet walk, who’s dating who gossips and the ceremony’s support to the fashion. So the public… Of course this year’s ceremony was a little bit different. Director Kathryn Bigelow beat her ex husband James Cameron who was also in the race with his blockbuster movie Avatar. Bigelow became the first woman who won the Best Director award in Oscars’ 82 years. Her film won 6  important awards and it all happened in 8th March, on the Woman’s Day! All of these things were very important for media so that nobody think about the facts of Bigelow’s film Hurt Locker’s success. Because in order to comment correctly on such a situation you have to know women’s posititon in Hollywood and the Academy’s working rules very well. Also you have to understand what Bigelow’s ‘war opponent!’ film says and wants to say indeed. 

According to the statistics, AMPAS (Academy of Motion Pictures and Arts) is an organisation which has over 5000 thousand members. 22 percent (1311 members) of these members are actors. But nobody knows anything about their identity. This organization accepts members regularly ever year but when you look at the member population you can still see the numbers of 2007. And also voting system of Academy is a big mystery however it seems just democratic.

The organization uses the proportional represantation to select nominees for each category. Academy uses this system to create a diverse slate of nominees that reflects the preferences of the large spectrum of film artists who make up the organization’s branches.

The voting in Academy goes like this according to the Fair-Vote which is a voting and democracy research center: All members vote on Best Picture, while peers vote for nominees and winners in the other non-specialized categories. Each nominating ballot has five numbered slots of each member only gets one vote, they are entitled to choose up to five potential nominees, in order. In case their favorite nominee is eliminated, their vote counts toward their second choice. Academy members can support an unlikely candidate, as their vote will count for their second choice if their first choice is eliminated. Any potential nominee that is supported by 20% of the voters will get 1 of the 5 nominations. With more than 5,000 ballots expected to be returned to the Academy in the Best Picture category, the magic number of first-choice votes for a would-be nominee for Best Picture is a little more than 1000. In fact the exact quota is a bit lower than 20%. In order to find the lowest number of votes needed to win one of five nominations, the Academy divides the total number of votes by six (not five), and adds one more vote to that figure. That is 16.6% plus one more vote. Once the five nominees are chosen by proportional representation, another ballot is sent out to all Academy members. This time, preferential voting is not allowed. Whoever gets the most votes wins the Oscar and there is no need to get a majority of votes. That really seems democratic at fist sight but it’s not. Proportional represantation is somehow a difficult system that voters have so much difficulties when they don’t choose in direction of majority.

Besides this voting system the most important thing you have to know about the Academy is its conservatism and the traditionalism of excluding ‘the others’ in the cinema industry. American people’s traditional family structure, government’s politics and movements are all supported by Academy just like its reflection Hollywood. But while doing this it always find a way to treat people in a way calculated to please them. For example it’s not a big surprise to see the nomination of ‘Precious’ which tells a dramatic story about black people on the ground of a black, fat and sick girl while Obama is the President. Also it’s not surprising to see ‘Precious’ taking no awards. Another example is Sandra Bullock who won the Best Woman Actor award when the other nominates are Helen Mirren, Merly Streep and wonderful ‘Precious’ actress Gabourey Sidibe. This is a perfect Academy classic to give Bullock the award that she’s not a good actor indeed but represents ‘the girl in the next door’ for America. As is understood if Academy gives an award to someone that doesn’t fit its opinion then there’s certainly another reason for giving it. Hurt Locker is  a perfect example for this ascertainment. This film and its 6 awards also designates something else: The Academy loves to exaggerate! 

Of course before talking about Bigelow’s film we have to inform you a little bit about the women’s posititon in Hollywood. Shortly we can say women are still the second-class citizens in the eyes of the studios. Of course  the film and scripts of them are loved by large audiences and most of them hit the box office. But it doesn’t change the reality. Two years ago on Sunday Times Culture there was a an article that points the women’s position in Hollywood. The numbers in it are very interesting: In 2008 Diablo Cody’s ‘Juno’ which is awarded for the Best Script writing had a 7 million budget and brought 124 million dollar to its producer. Same that year ‘No Country for Old Man’ got 61 million and ‘There will Be Blood’ got only 31 million dollars to the studios. But in spite of their success ‘write a script but don’t shoot a film’ is the general rule of Hollywood for women. And that writing area is not that large as you guess. A few years ago

9 percent of directors, 12 percent of writers and 23  percent of producers in Hollywood were women. In 2006, 6 percent of films made by women. But when you go back 6 years you can see a 5 percent regression: in 2000  11 percent of the films were made by women. In Oscar History for writing categories 133 women nominated and only 21 got the award. Of course men are at the front line as usual with 1200 nominations and 230 awards.

There are reasons why studios don’t want to work with women. Box office receipts are the main reason. According to the statistics the first week’s auidence is mostly young men. Studios think that men directors understand the audience better than women. Also producers think it’s risky giving a huge budget film to a woman. That’s why women directors make their films with 6 or 7 year breaks. There are so many examples for this. In 1999 when Hillary Swank got the Best Actress Oscar with ‘Boy’s Don’t Cry’. Kimberly Peirce, the director of the film, thought that things would be different in the future. But she had to wait 8 years for her next film ‘Stop-Loss’. There is 6 years between two films of director Callie Khouri despite her succesful screenplay ‘Thelma and Lousie’. You can lengthen the list as you wish: ‘Waitress’s director Adrienne Shelley, Kasi Lemmons with ‘Talk To Me’ ‘The Name Sake’s Mira Nair, ‘2 Days in Paris’s Julie Delpy’, Miranda July who we know with ‘Me and You and Everyone We Know’, Julie Taymor and Susanne Bier… And of course Kathryn Bigelow. She also had to wait for Hurt Locker for 8 years.

By the way, the reader must know that the purpose of this article is neither to  burnish the ‘women artist’, ‘women director’ or ‘women something else’ cliche nor to tell women’s diffucilties in a men ruling world. This is another article’s subject that has to be told by sociologists, academics etc…. The main theme of the article is to look at the other side of the 6 Oscars Kathryn Bigelow got and working of the system. And while doing this of course we have to analyze ‘Hurt Locker’ with really different eyes.

Before Kathryn Bigelow, there were only 3 women who were nominated for the Best Director Award in Oscar History: In 1977 Lina Wertmüller with ‘Seven Beauties’, in 1994 Jane Campion with ‘Piano’ and of course in 2004 ‘like father like son’ Sofia Coppola with ‘Lost in Translation’. Of course none of them took the award. Till Kathryn Bigelow and her film which was telling a story about the continuing Iraq War came on the scene.   

Of course this award is a big surprise for Bigelow that you can see her confusion while taking the Oscar statue. She was so excited that she dedicated the awards of her ‘war opponent!’ film to all the men and women who serve in war. But what was the real reason for her taking the Best Director award? Was it Academy’s exageration? This was one thing. But the main reason of her taking this award was in the sentences of Barbara Streisand who gave her the statue: ‘The time has come’. Of course the time has come. The Academy has to give this award to a woman. But why didn’t Sofia Coppola take the award? What was the difference between the other 3 nominees and Bigelow? Was that because of the film’s ‘war opponent’ skills? Or was the race between James Cameron and Kathry Bigelow seem so sweet?

The answer of these questions are totaly political: the continuing Iraq War and U.S. government’s political point of view to this war. Obama promised to withdraw the American troops in Iraq before he was elected. But he didn’t keep his promise for months. The U.S. military was planning on maintaining its current 98,000 boots on the ground in Iraq elections. President Barack Obama has ordered 50,000 troops to leave Iraq by 31, Aug, 2010 with the remainder pulling out by the end of next year under an Iraqi-American security agreement. “Our forces will have three tasks: train, equip, and advise the Iraqi Security Forces; conduct targeted counterterrorism operations; and provide force protection for military and civilian personnel” remarked The White House.

The meaning of these sentences are so clear that they don’t need an underline. Just like ‘Hurt Locker’, Obama and the U.S. government seem like ‘war opponent’ but they are not. The government doesn’t think about civilians, just cares the U.S. military forces. And Kathryn Bigelow dedicates her awards to all who serve in this war!

Mark Boal is the scriptwriter of ‘Hurt Locker’. He was telling a team’s story who serve in Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal EOD bomb squad in Iraq. The script is mostly based on an article about one of the bomb experts, Sergeant Jeffrey S. Sarver, entitled ‘The Man in the Bomb Suit’ which was written by Boal and published in Playboy magazine in 2005. But Boal didn’t accept this. He insists on that his story is totally a fiction. (Five days before Academy Awards ceremony Master Sergeant Jeffrey S. Sarver announced he was suing the producers of the ‘Hurt Locker’ because the screenwriter based the main character and virtually all sitautions in the film on events involving him. But the producer’s spokesperson has reiterated the screenplay is fictional.)

The film opens with a quote from former New York Times Iraq expert Christopher Hedges: ‘War is a drug’ and it continues with near documentary style scenes of Bigelow. She reflects her talent and experience of action movies and tells the story perfectly. There is no way to say something bad about the film technically. It was so well shooted that after a time you find yourself near that bomb team. Civilians are shown us as bombers, murderers, dangerous brutals who were just watching the things happen. And in this chaos the team leader William James’s psychopath fluctuations seem so sympathetic to the audience after a time! Film mainly focuses on the moods of the soldiers: the soldier who has fear of death, the soldier who is brave, the soldier who wants to leave this jungle to return his normal life, soldier who plays football  with civilians, soldier who doesn’t have the sense of fear and so on… The result is a disaster: after the film you just emphatize with these soldiers

Some can say ‘What is the problem of telling these kind of stories? Somebody has to say something about these soldiers’ situtaion in war!’ But the problem about the film is to tell a story on a continuing war. If you comment on a war that is ended, you will be the side. But saying something about a continuing war is propoganda. By doing this you will be the supporter of that thing! And besides, if you dedicate your ‘war opponent’ film to all who serve in the army you can think that there are so many soldiers in that army who was convicted in with torture and prisoner abuse like at Abu Gharib prison in Baghdad.

Perhaps 50 years later Bigelow’s film means something different. But now its point of view puts a bomb on the civilians’ pain and justifies the U.S. military forces. I think this is the reason why Bigelow beat her ex husband’s million dollar box office hit Avatar which is also an allegory of Iraq war in Oscar race. Academy doesn’t like the message of Cameron’s film as against ‘Hurt Locker’. Though Cameron was not so brave in Avatar that he made the Omatikaya people rescue (who symbolizes the Iraqians) by the help of the one from the occupying forces (guess who?). He didn’t press the border of conservative Hollywood. His film is on Omatikaya people’s side one way or another. So that he took just a few unimportant  awards.

As a result ‘Hurt Locker’ has 6 big awards but its reality still discussed by the experts of the situation. It’s war opponent but the director dedicates it to the military forces. It shows the occupiers as victims and also it carries a name that is a phrase which is used in Vietnam war used by soldiers to tell ‘in trouble or at a disadvantage; in bad shape’. Also this film’s director became the first woman who took the Best Director award on the  Woman’s Day. In this chaos and with all these mind confusing datas we want to think that she’s just innocent not guilty. But it’s really difficult to comment like this on ‘Hurt Locker’ and Bigelow. Then there’s one thing to do: (Though we passed the date) congratulate Bigelow and for all the civilian women in Iraq who lost their husbands, children, relatives and neighbours for their Woman’s Day. The award was one small step for mankind but one giant leap for womankind. The time has come…