Do I Dislike Actresses?

The Academy Awards are on tonight and I’ll be doing something other than watching them.  I’m in the group of people who really don’t care what wins or doesn’t anymore.  I lost my faith in the judging and nomination in the 90s and so I’ve only partially kept an eye on this marketing scheme over the last decade.

But I was troubled today when I looked at the list of nominated actresses today and couldn’t opine on who I thought should win.  I discovered I had only seen one of the five nominated “Lead” performances and only two of the five “Supporting” performances.  And I remembered that I saw none of the leads last year and only two of the supporting performances before the awards were handed out.

I can’t really explain why I hadn’t seen the movies with these performances but I thought I should look a little deeper.  So I looked at the performances nominated in the 72-82 awards.  These were the movies that came out between 1999 and 2009 and I saw a lot of movies in that time.  I saw almost everything that came to the Town Hall Theater in Quincy and then moved to San Francisco where almost every movie released plays.  So I had the opportunity to see a lot of movies and great performances…but did I?

In those 11 years I only saw 12 of 55 nominated the lead actress performances (before the award ceremony).  That’s just 22%.  There were two years when I didn’t see any of them (2004 and the aforementioned 2009) but the other times I only saw one or two, never as many as three.

For supporting actress performances under the same rules I saw 24 of them for 44%.  And while In 2007 and 2008 I didn’t see any of the performances, in 2001 I saw all five of them and four of them in 2003 (sorry Julianne Moore!).

So how does that compare to the performances by actors?  I saw 26 (47%) of the 55 nominated Lead performances and 25 (45%) of the supporting performances.  So it’s pretty clear I see more of the note worthy male performances.  If you combine the lead and supporting performances, I saw 46% of the nominated male ones and only 33% of the female ones.

Am I just not seeing good movies?  I don’t think so.  I saw 39 of the 60 movies nominated (again, before the ceremonies, I’ve seen more since then) for 65%, so it’s not like I’m watching crap.  Could it be the problem is bigger than me?  It’s hard to tell, the box office numbers for the movies with the nominated performances seem to indicate an even amount of exposure for the two sides.

I think the real answer can be found in the number for the last of “the big categories”: achievement in directing.  I saw 32 (58%) of the 55 pictures whose directors were nominated.  And these are the people I follow around.  The finished product that reaches the screen has much more to do with the director than any of the actors/actresses (excepting those who are also producers of their films, e.g. Sandra Bullock).  Actors/actresses are much more mercenary about their projects than directors and are often hired for their ability to perform or their ability to pull in an audience.

While some people might have seen “Inglorious Basterds” for Brad Pitt, I saw it for Quentin Tarantino.  Just as when Darren Aronofsky finally made “The Fountain” and Brad Pitt wasn’t in it as originally planned, I still sought it out.

So maybe if my favorite directors are allowed to cast better, I’ll see more of the nominated performances by actresses?  I hope so.  I need to do better in my family Oscar pool.