The director of Wonder Woman thought it was unfair that there weren’t any women nominated for best director this year at the
Academy Awards
. Patty Jenkins expressed dismay over all four nominees being men. She mentioned the
movie
organization’s push for
diversity
and added that more still needed to be done. According to Jenkins, women should have been included in award nominees lists, even if the judging body didn’t feel their work in a given year was on par with that of men.
“I give up, I give up,”
said Jenkins
during a pre-Oscars event. “I say that even with all of their push to have diversity. The numbers are just hugely imbalanced of who votes for these things. I sort of just stopped paying attention to it. It’s still going to take a long ways to go. It’s going to take a lot more to really see truly more diverse awards. I really appreciate the efforts that they’re making, but we have a long way to go.”
Jenkins represents everything wrong with this push for so-called diversity in
Hollywood
and, quite frankly, the country. It was supposed to be a way to enable all people, regardless of race or gender, to have equal opportunity. Instead, it has become mostly a path of entitlement, with allegedly marginalized groups crying foul every time they don’t get their way. Such is the case with Jenkins, women, and the best director category at the Oscars.
But quotas are not diversity — they are the embodiment of arrogance and entitlement. Could it be that the voters who nominate and choose the winners merely thought that the male directors’ films were superior? Yes, the selection process is subjective, but people are allowed to feel that movies directed by men are superior, so long as the directors being men isn’t the determining factor. Women don’t have a special right to be chosen for an award simply because they are women.
Competition makes things better. However, no one is guaranteed anything. This oft-repeated idea that if some group isn’t represented, it is a sign of discrimination is toxic. Sometimes, people of one group will produce better quality products than another, which has nothing to do with bias. If all the nominees for best directors were female, would Jenkins be whining about men not being represented? Of course not.
But let’s be honest. People like Jenkins are interested in something other than equal opportunity. They want equal results. They want to force society to give them things they didn’t necessarily earn or deserve. So-called “equity” is nothing but succumbing to the arrogance and neediness of those who claim they are part of a perpetually aggrieved class.
