The nomination of Jane Campion for best director at the 2022 Academy Awards – her second, following her 1994 nomination for The Piano – is more noteworthy for what it says about the institution than for its validation of the 67-year-old director, absent from feature film-making for more than a decade.
To date, only two women – Kathryn Bigelow and Chloé Zhao – have ever won best director. If that sounds unreasonable, consider this: in 93 years, just seven women have even been nominated for the award – Lina Wertmüller in 1977 (for Seven Beauties), Campion in 1994, Sofia Coppola in 2003 (for Lost in Translation), Bigelow in 2010 (for The Hurt Locker), Greta Gerwig in 2018 (for Lady Bird), Emerald Fennell in 2021 (for Promising Young Woman) and Zhao that same year, victorious with Nomadland. For the first half-century of the awards, double-X chromosomes and the ability to successfully oversee a motion picture were apparently believed to be irreconcilable. (Something to consider the next time the rightwing media complains about Hollywood’s liberal bias.)
