Oscar's complicated history with the "complicated woman"
Saturday, April 3, 2021 at 2:20PM by Matt St Clair
Remember when Maggie Gyllenhaal won a Golden Globe for her starring role in the miniseries The Honorable Woman? During her acceptance speech she spoke about not just the wealth of strong roles for women on television, but roles as complicated women, saying, “when I look around the room at the women who are in here and I think about the performances that I’ve watched this year, what I see actually are women who are sometimes powerful and sometimes not. Sometimes sexy, sometimes not. Sometimes honorable, sometimes not.” Complicated female characters on TV still receive more proper acknowledgement than those in the movies.
While Carey Mulligan earned a recent Best Actress nomination for her role as the duplicitous avenging angel Cassie Thomas in Promising Young Woman, the Oscars have a historically spotty track record when it comes to acknowledging actresses for playing complicated, and sometimes calculating, women....
For example, back in 1995, Nicole Kidman was on track to earn her first Oscar nomination for To Die For where she plays the cunning newswoman Suzanne Stone-Maretto. Having earned a Critics Choice Award, the Golden Globe Award for Actress-Musical or Comedy, and a BAFTA nomination, the stars seemed to align for Kidman before she was left out in the cold.
Granted, that category was a competitive one, but the Best Actress lineup still consisted of actresses playing more accessible roles; Susan Sarandon as a real-life nun, Elisabeth Shue as a hooker with a heart of gold, and Emma Thompson as a Jane Austen heroine. Nominating Meryl Streep for playing an adulterous housewife in The Bridges of Madison County was a much easier ask than citing Kidman for portraying a fame-hungry journalist plotting her husband’s murder.
Then you have someone like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, a film that was a box office smash and earned two Oscar nominations. Yet, neither of those nods was for Stone’s performance as Catherine Tramell, a guileful novelist who uses her sexuality as an asset to toy with those around her. To day that's a more iconic performance than those that were nominated. To further the point, Michelle Pfeiffer’s interpretation of Catwoman in Batman Returns from that very same year has stood the test of time more than her nominated performance in Love Field.
It’s easier for men to win awards for playing mobsters, schemers, and misanthropes while women have a harder time garnering such trophies for playing antiheroine roles, sparking a clear double standard. For instance, the aforementioned Michelle Pfeiffer barely entered the Oscar convo despite rave reviews for playing the femme fatale Catwoman while Joaquin Phoenix was able to glide his way to victory for playing a Batman villain. It’s also telling that The Wolf of Wall Street, a picture on sleazy male stockbrokers, was able to earn five Oscar nominations while a film like Hustlers, a Scorsese homage about the 2007-08 Wall Street crisis that enjoyed similar box office success, couldn’t even earn an Oscar nomination for Jennifer Lopez’s performance as anti-heroine Ramona Vega. Meanwhile, a crime drama like Mystic River can cruise its way to awards acclaim while Widows gets questioned over whether it’s an “Oscar movie” even if like Mystic River, it exists within a similar genre realm, received rapturous critical acclaim, and was made by a filmmaker with his own Oscar cache.
Rosamund Pike did manage to earn a Best Actress nomination for playing the multi-faceted 'Amazing Amy' in Gone Girl, yet she was still the film’s only representation as AMPAS voters greeted it with a shrug during an awards screening that took place on its opening weekend. It failed to even earn a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for Gillian Flynn despite being a sure bet to possibly win the award. Its Best Picture snub is what also led to a testosterone-driven lineup where the only film with a central female protagonist, The Theory of Everything, involved her role as the wife and caretaker for her ill husband.
As a 2018 Harper’s Bazaar article called “The Rise of the Antiheroine” points out, whenever women become scheming or messy, people question why these characters are challenging the status quo. When men play antiheroes, such characters are hailed as complex antihero roles but when antiheroines are introduced, there’s hasty questions over why they aren’t being proper or why they’re serving as more than just the role of a man’s wife or mother.
Interestingly enough, this brings me back to when Carey Mulligan was promoting Wildlife at the 2018 New York Film Festival. During a Q&A, a male spectator criticized the protagonist Jeannette for being “completely reprehensible” and “unsympathetic.” Mulligan simply responded by saying, “We’re all too used to seeing women behaving really well [in movies.] When we see them out of control or struggling it doesn’t ring true because of everything we’ve been brought up to understand that women are always perfect and can do anything.”
This is what makes seeing a movie like The Favourite earning ten Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, rather refreshing. A movie depicting three women involved in scheming for political and sexual power that says to hell with honorability and completely rejects the male gaze. Although characters like Abigail Masham and Sarah Churchill are hardly beacons of positive female representation, they abandon the tired notion that women must always play role models or figures of sainthood.
Because of that, I say let the rise of the antiheroine continue. Let us see more complicated women. It would be a way of, as Mulligan said, revealing the flaws and contradictions that women show in real life. Break all the double standards involving which roles actresses can or cannot play or earn awards praise for.
Reader Comments (28)
Oscar seems to prefer all out female villains over antiheroes. Kathy Bates and Tilda Seinton are good examples, but Oscar really likes the monster mom- Piper Laurie, Gladys Cooper, Angela Lansbury, Monique, etc.
I don't know, in recent years we've gotten nods and wins for complex, often unscrupulous female antiheroes including Charlize Theron (MONSTER), Judi Dench (NOTES ON A SCANDAL), Anne Hathaway (RACHEL GETTING MARRIED), Natalie Portman (BLACK SWAN), Amy Adams (AMERICAN HUSTLE), Isabelle Huppert (ELLE), Frances McDormand (THREE BILLBOARDS), and Melissa McCarthy (CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?).
The societal attitude is definitely persistent, but I don't think Oscar has been particularly resistant to these types of roles.
Why did you ignore Kathy Bates in Misery and Faye Dunaway in Network? Heck even Mo'Nique in Precious. BTW -- Rebecca DeMornay was more deserving of awards recognition for The Hand That Rocks the Cradle than Stone did for Basic Instinct.
I think Stone was a glaring miss and Pfeiffer nominated for the wrong role but that's genre bias for you.
The Academy was more amenable to complicated women during the Golden Age. Only two of Bette Davis’ eleven nominations were for “nice” heroines.
While I agree their reputation is hit and miss with these types of roles, they definitely have recognized many of them too, as others have mentioned. There are also other reasons for some of these being ignored.
Hustlers is simply not as good as Wolf of Wall Street, and Oscar typically doesn't recognize "movie star" performances where somebody like JLO isn't exactly stretching.
Basic Instinct and To Die For? Considered trashy/erotic thrillers, a genre they don't recognize.
Unfortunately, Widows was a box office disappointment whereas Mystic River was a big hit. Wildlife was a directorial debut whose buzz never took off the way it needed to, and besides, period domestic dramas have been mostly out of vogue with the Academy since Revolutionary Road.
Isabelle Huppert was nominated for Elle. Is that complicated enough?
Other complicated women:
Rosalind Rusell in Mourning becomes Electra
Bette Davis in All about Eve
Elizabeth Taylor in who's afraid of V. W.?
Meryl Streep in Devil wears Prada
Isabell Huppert in Elle
Happy Birthday, Marsha Mason!
Would also 2nd Faye Dunaway in Network- great acting in a multi-dimensional role
I think they've definitely gotten better, as others here have noticed. Isabelle Huppert in Elle being a strong example.
Also, Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom, Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are a few others that come to mind.
J.Lo missed last year because of Academy snobbery. I think they have the perception that she's not a "serious" actor and therefore snubbed her. Ditto Adam Sandler last year as well and also Jennifer Aniston in Cake a couple years ago.
If Stone and Pfeiffer had been nominated in 1993 for Basic Instinct & Batman Returns, it would've been a hell of a memorable line up with Sarandon-Thompson and Deneuve. 1996 was a very strong year, Stone was the winner in my book and the nominees would be Stone-Shue-Streep-Kidman-Bates.
I guess the Academy has a problem with Sharon, just can't believe she has a solo nod for Casino when she was worthy so many other times: Basic Instinct is a modern classic and she's iconic in it, then her Supporting work on the likes of The Mighty (1998, totally playing against type), Simpatico (1999, she's impressive in this Sam Shepard's play adaptation) and Bobby (2006) were all overlooked. Plus, very early in her career she deserved some love for Irreconcilable Differences (1984).
Well, as Tony Ruggio mentioned above, I don't think you can compare Hustlers to The Wolf of Wall Street. While I'm not a fan of either of those films, The Wolf of Wall Street is arguably a better film.
Also, the comparison of Joaquin Phoenix's performance in Joker and Michelle Peifffer's in Batman Begins is an out-of-context situation. Pffeiffer's performance (though works very well for the film) is nothing but a flat comedic turn (and a great one), whereas Phoenix's performances (and the film itself) is more of a character study (and a great one). What I'm trying to say, is that Phoenix's work was a bit more challenging. (But you can't really compare female and male performances, not to mention that one is a leading role in a character study of the villain's origin, while the other is a supporting villain turn in an otherwise mediocore superhero film. And I also think you should take into account the release date of those films. Times were different back then.)
I agree that Gone Girl deserved much more recognition from the Academy, but the success of the film relies on that particular performance and it WAS nominated (Pike is my personal win in that particular year - so is Fincher, Flynn and Baxter.). Just like many other 'strong female performances' throughout the recent history:
Olivia Colman - The Favourite (won)
Frances McDormand - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (won)
Margot Robbie - I, Tonya
Isabelle Huppert - Elle
Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl
Meryl Streep - August: Osage County
Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine (won)
Rooney Mara - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Natalie Portman - Black Swan (won)
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose (won)
Meryl Streep - The Devil Wears Prada
Charlize Theron - North Country
Charlize Theron - Monster (won)
And to be fair, I'd like to compare it to the number of male leading nominated performances of this kind (the criteria is - a complicated character being kinda 'badass')
Joaquin Phoenix - Joker (won)
Michael Fassbender - Steve Jobs
Michael Keaton - Birdman (and I'm not sure, if he belongs here)
Christian Bale - Vice
Leonardo DiCaprio - The Wolf of Wall Street (while technically - it's not a complicated character)
Christian Bale - American Hustle
Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network
Jeff Bridges - True Grit
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd
Johnny Depp - Pirates of the Caribbean
Well, I think it's pretty equivalent, if you ask me. The Academy does lots of mistakes and there are plenty of things one can criticize it for. But this is not the thing...
Some of these examples don't work. Sharon Stone would never be nominated for Basic Instinct. Ditto Michelle in Batman Returns. Those movie genre roles (femme fatale in a thriller or the villain in a comic book film) rarely receive Oscar nominations. And Kidman may have been number 6 on the list in a very good year for actresses. I don't think it was bias against her.
There is more bias (IMHO) around youth. Actresses often get nominated when they are young, but male actors (under 30) rarely get nominated for best actor.
I would add Sissy Spacek's Ruth Fowler in 'In the Bedroom,' a strong contender to win in 2001, as another instance of AMPAS recognizing a complex, morally ambiguous female lead.
The writing, direction, and Spacek's performance convey Ruth's more unflattering qualities without ever caricaturing her; she is allowed to be relentless, cold, and vengeful, but also loving and gracious (such as in her superb scene with Celia Weston). She's not a hero or a villain, but a complicated, thoroughly human character who leaves you wondering about her actions long after the credits roll.
Rosamund Pike should have WON for Gone Girl🗣🗣🗣
@Tom Ford
The list of young, good looking actors snubbed by the Academy is pretty long, ditto the youth bias in the other direction in Best Actress. I think the most egregious/obvious example of this was in 2010, when Michelle Williams was nominated for Blue Valentine but her equally great co-star Ryan Gosling wasn't nominated in Best Actor.
The absence of Glenn Close here is like a dagger in me.
Rosamund Pike deservedly did NOT win for Gone Girl. So glad they didn't give her a nom for Gone Girl Pt. 2 (I Care a Lot).
One of my favorite examples of them recognizing the "Complicated Woman" is Gene Tierney's Best Actress nomination for Leave Her to Heaven. I definitely think they have a problem accepting women in these types of roles, especially when/if their film isn't punishing them. I shudder to think about whether they would nominated Glenn Close for Fatale Attraction or Dangerous Liaisons without those endings. People love seeing men behave badly, less so with women, but I'm glad to see that attitude shifting.
I also think there's a huge difference between complicated female characters like Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married and Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl. Lumping them together is missing the point.
I think Meryl Streep has actually gotten better and better over the years, finally deserving the praise she got from the very beginning. (As Katherine Hepburn said of early Streep, you could always see the gears spinning and clicking away in her head as she acted, in films including THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN, SOPHIE'S CHOICE, PLENTY, and A CRY IN THE DARK). With that in mind, her 1993 nomination for THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY seems fully deserved. Really nuanced work. Eastwood as a director is often hit (UNFORGIVEN, FLAG OF OUR FATHERS) miss (ABSOLUTE POWER, J. EDGAR) but he, too, knocked it out of the park with that film. It's a small scale masterpiece.
Yes, there were a lot of complicated women characters portrayed onscreen and some that didn't gain traction may have something to do with the cultural (il)logic of the time. Thanks for sharing that quote from Carey Mulligan for Wildlife. That sums it up quite well. Some of these women truly deliver indelibly memorable performances for playing complex women:
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Josephine Siao, Summer Snow
Anjelica Huston, The Grifters
Kimberly Elise, Woman Thou Art Loosed
Crissy Rock, Ladybird, Ladybird
Gena Rowlands, A Woman Under the Influence
Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake
Fernanda Montenegro, Central Station
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Glenn Close, Dangerous Liaisons
Kim Hye-ja, Madeo
Gina Pareño, The Bet Collector
Meryl Streep, A Cry in the Dark
There was a time I read somewhere that the Academy favors 'complicated' women more than virtuous women onscreen. He was citing Juliette Binoche's nomination in Chocolat as a basically good person. That piece of info just stuck with me for some reason. I hope it's not meant to say that Binoche as Vianne was not without nuance.
Yeah, sorry but this is bullshit; you just want to perpetuate a men vs. women narrative.
While your argument only deals with the last 30 years of the Academy Awards, I don't think it applies to the entire history of the awards:
Bette Davis in Jezebel, The Letter and The Little Foxes
Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind
Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey (if looked through a different lens many of the screwball heroines were precursors of the noir heroines of the following decade)
Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity
Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven
Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones
Anne Bancroft in The Graduate
Faye Dunaway in Network
Merde.
Can't find my name in this little paper.
Oh wow.
I think Mr. St. Clair has his heart in the right place, but aims at the wrong target. The issue isn't Best Actress, but instead Best Picture.
Meryl Streep in a widely quoted speech identified the failure of movies about women could be attributed to the preponderance of male film critics. Streep pointed out that too often male critics failed to understand/identify with the stories about women. That inequity influences the nominees for Best Picture.
Let's look at the statistics for multiple acting nominations in the same category and the juxtaposition with Best Picture nominees.
For male acting categories, two actors have been nominated in the same category 30 times. Only once did AMPAS snub a film receiving two nominations in the same acting category for men for a Best Picture nomination
1. 1972 Sleuth
For female acting categories, two actresses have been nominated in the same category 41 times. AMPAS snubbed the corresponding film for a Best Picture nomination a whooping 14 times:
1. 1948 I Remember Mama
2. 1949 Pinky
3. 1949 Come to the Stable
4. 1954 The High and the Mighty
5. 1956 The Bad Seed
6. 1959 Suddenly, Last Summer
7. 1959 Imitation of Life
8. 1965 Othello
9. 1973 Paper Moon
10. 1989 Enemies, A Love Story
11. 1991 Thelma & Louise
12. 1994 Bullets over Broadway
13. 2000 Almost Famous
14. 2008 Doubt
Since 2000, a Best Picture nominee or winner has featured the performance that won Best Actor a total of 17 times.
Since 2000, a Best Picture nominee or winner has featured the performance that won Best Actress a total of 12 times.
The issue isn't if female characters are complicated women. Meryl is correct. The issue is motivating the majority of AMPAS voters to develop interest in films about women.