Emma Stone’s Oscar comment proves she isn’t an intersectional feminist

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Award show season this year have been rife with political messages such as #TimesUp.

Female presenters have been standing up for the lack of equal gender representation in the gender neutral categories, such as best director.

At the 2018 Golden Globes, Natalie Portman used her opportunity presenting the best director award to call out the fact that Greta Gerwig wasn’t nominated, despite being deserving.

When announcing the nominees, she said, “and here are the all-male nominees.”

The Golden Globe best director nominees were Christopher Nolan, Guillermo del Toro, Martin McDonagh, Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg.

Four white men and one Latinx man. Emma Stone tried to do something similar at the Oscars, but instead, her point fell flat.

While presenting the best director nominees, she referred to them as, “four men and Greta Gerwig.”

The Academy Award best director nominees were Greta Gerwig, Jordan Peele, Guillermo del Toro, Christopher Nolan and

Paul Thomas Anderson. One white woman, one black man, one latinx man and two white men.

Natalie Portman’s statement called out the lack of female representation in the best director category, despite there being deserving female directors.

Emma Stone’s, in contrast, ignored the fact that two men of colour were nominated. White women tend to forget that men of colour are oppressed, just like women are.

If you look at the nominees from the Golden Globes and compare them to the Academy Awards, this becomes obvious.

If one is going to attempt to acknowledge the bias that the film world has against anyone who isn’t a white man, they need to focus on everyone who’s ignored, not just one minority.

It should celebrate important achievements of any minority. If your feminism isn’t intersectional, your feminism is exclusionary.

For Emma Stone to only say Greta Gerwig’s name, was essentially her ignoring that both Peele and del Toro’s nominations are just as important as Gerwig’s.

Peele, for example, is only the fifth black man to be recognized in the Best Original Screenplay category.

Stone has made a film with Woody Allen and played a white-washed character in a film, so her feminism not being intersectional doesn’t come as a surprise.

The issue with her feminism is that it ignores other oppressed minorities.

Frances McDormand’s acceptance speech can be used to contrast Stone’s brand of feminism. In her speech, she acknowledged all of her fellow female nominees in every category at the awards, then called for producers in the audience to back female creators and artists.

After this, McDormand left the audience with two words: “Inclusion Rider.”

An inclusion rider is a contract signed by an actor which requires their project to have a certain level of diversity.

The contract can refer to multiple underrepresented minorities, such as women, people of colour, and LGBTQ+ individuals.

McDormand went against  Stone’s brand of white feminism, acknowledging the importance of all minorities in the film world, instead of just white women.

The 2018 Oscars were not as bad as they could have been.

Best Animated feature was won by a film about Mexican culture, best director was a Latino male and best screenplay was won by a black man for the first time.

Feminism needs to be about more than celebrating the achievements of white women.

It should celebrate important achievements of any minority. If your feminism isn’t intersectional, your feminism is exclusionary.

Ensure that your feminism isn’t like Emma Stone’s, but instead like Frances McDormand’s.

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