Jessica Chastain calls out Academy Awards for snubbing Viola Davis's stellar turn in 'Woman King'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: The 2022 release 'Woman King', featuring Viola Davis, was a historical drama about the Agojie, an all-female warrior unit that safeguarded the West African kingdom of Dahomey during the 17-19th centuries. Following the film's release, it received positive reviews from viewers and critics, with applause for Davis, who plays the general in the film and trains the next generation of warriors to fight. The movie is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood .
Davis won the NAACP Image Award 2023 for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture, as well as nominations for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Female Movie Star of 2022, and Action Movie Star of 2022 at the People's Choice Awards. But what came as rude shock for everybody was how the Academy Awards snubbed the film regardless of its widespread critical acclaim and commercial success.
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'Viola’s fingerprints all over it'
Viola Davis recently received the coveted Chaplin Award at the 48th annual Chaplin Gala, which honored her career as an actress and producer at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York City. Davis' co-star and friend, actress Jessica Chastain, was one of the presenters for the actress, and took a chance to criticize the Academy for not considering a film like 'Woman King' for nominations.
Chastain said, “When I see a movie like ‘The Woman King,’ it has Viola’s fingerprints all over it. A movie like that with a female director and a cast of powerful Black female leads can get made in Hollywood today because of Viola’s lifelong advocacy for women of color. Maybe one day a movie like that can get nominated for an Oscar.”
During a conversation with Indie Wire, Chastain added, “Someone had to say it. I mean, come on. Not a single Oscar nomination for that movie? There had to be some Academy members in that room, right?”
Davis has four Academy Award nominations to her name - Best Supporting Actress for 2008’s ‘Doubt’, Best Actress for 2012’s ‘The Help’ and Best Actress for 2020’s ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’, and went on to win the award for Best Supporting Actress for ‘Fences’ in 2017. Chastain has been nominated three times - for Best Supporting Actress in 2012 for ‘The Help’, Best Actress in 2013 for ‘Zero Dark Thirty and finally won Best Actress for ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ in 2022.
Meryl Streep, who co-starred with Davis in 2008's 'Doubt,' attended the event and remembered how director John Patrick Shanley kept asking for retakes of a scene in which Davis, as the mom of a child at a Catholic school who may have experienced abuse by its priest, brings back allegations made by Streep's nun.
Streep said she confronted the director and told him that he was killing the actor, adding she recognized an Oscar performance when she sees one. Streep shared with Indie Wire, “The greatest artists have a gift for conveying what it is to be human. It’s just undeniable and it can’t be stopped by lack of opportunity.”
It's exciting to see how influential and established women like Streep and Chastain have no hesitation in calling out the Academy Awards when required. This indicates how secure these women are with their work, their opinions, and their desire to enhance the position of women in society starting with their place of work.
'The Academy made a very loud statement for me to stay quiet'
‘Woman King’ director Gina Prince-Bythewood in an editorial for THR, wrote, “I’ve gotten so many texts and emails from people in the industry outraged by the Oscar nominations. Of course, I’m disappointed. Who wouldn’t be? Especially because there was so much love for our film. And we can never forget that we already won. Not only does The Woman King exist in the world, but it’s a success in the world.” She further said, “The Academy made a very loud statement, and for me to stay quiet is to accept that statement. So I agreed to speak up, on behalf of Black women whose work has been dismissed in the past, is dismissed now like Alice Diop’s ‘Saint Omer’, Chinonye Chukwu’s ‘Till’ — and for those who haven’t even stepped on a set yet.”
Gina in her editorial went ahead to explain how ‘Woman King’ not getting a single nomination was even more galling. The director mentioned, “It’s a reflection of where the Academy stands and the consistent chasm between Black excellence and recognition. And, sadly, this is not just an issue in Hollywood but in every industry. I’m going to use a Dr King quote because it is so apropos, in that he spoke on the “lie of [our] inferiority accepted as truth in the society dominating us.”
During a conversation with People magazine, Gina mentioned, "I'll never get over it, because what happened was egregious and ... it speaks to such a bigger issue in our industry. But [it also speaks to] who I am, the people around me, these actors. We will never take our foot off the gas. We're ready to do something next. We're ready to do something as big, we're ready to do something together. So we always keep that energy no matter what happens."
Viola Davis will be seen next in Matt Damon and Ben Affleck starrer 'Air'.