‘All Women Are Superheroes’ Is Not The Message We Need Right Now

Let me begin by saying that these three women are among the best of us. Brie Larson, star of Captain Marvel, has been outspoken about the treatment of women in Hollywood (and her look of disdain in 2017 when she had to present the Best Actor Oscar to Casey Affleck - who had previously settled two sexual assault cases - was quite spectacular). Sigourney Weaver was championing gender equality, while kicking alien arses, back before many of the Twitter feminists were born. Meanwhile, Gal Gadot is literally Wonder Woman. So it was quite exciting to see these three take the stage together at the 2020 Oscars.

However, in a year in which no women were nominated in the Best Director category, despite there being plenty to choose from, their speech soon began to feel patronisingly tokenistic. Coming on to present the award for Best Original Score, they introduced Eimear Noone, the first woman conductor at the Oscars. An empowering moment, you might think, until you realise that Eimear was only wheeled on to lead the orchestra for that category, and then was whisked off to let a man take over for the rest of the ceremony. Also, should the Academy really be patting itself on the back for finally allowing in a woman conductor for the first time in 92 years? Shouldn't they be doing a bit better than that in 2020?

Sigourney's announcement that 'all women are superheroes' was clearly meant to be rousing, but it missed the point. None of us are superheroes. We simply want to be paid the same as a man for doing the same job, or be free to go through life without fear of sexual assault, or be able to speak up at work without being patronised or belittled, or maybe even have our achievements recognised by our peers at an annual award ceremony.

As for the Best Original Score award, it went to the only woman nominated: Hildur Guðnadóttir, for Joker. Thus making a hugely accomplished composer feel like her award is part of the 'you go gals!' section of the ceremony, rather than proper recognition for her incredible work (she also won the Emmy for the score of Chernobyl last year).

True equality will be when women are nominated across all the technical categories, including Best Director, and no one even thinks to mention it, because they are simply 'people doing a great job', rather than 'all superheroes'.

All the arrivals at the 2020 Oscars...