Five men were nominated for Best Director at the 2020 Academy Awards, a fact which Natalie Portman protested by wearing a Dior cape with the names of female directors embroidered along the sides. That cape was one of the most talked-about moments from the Oscars red carpet, but not everyone was impressed. Actress Rose McGowan, who has been one of the more outspoken critics of Harvey Weinstein, slammed Portman’s wardrobe, calling her attempts at activism “deeply offensive to those of us who actually do the work.”
McGowan’s issue is less about the meaning behind the embroidery than its source. In a long Facebook post, she called Portman “an actress acting the part of someone who cares,” and criticized the A-lister’s career choices. “Natalie, you have worked with two female directors in your very long career- one of them was you. You have a production company that has hired exactly one female director- you.”
This claim is mostly true, depending on how finely you want to split hairs. Portman directed herself in A Tale of Love and Darkness and appeared in Planetarium directed by Rebecca Zlotowski. She also worked on the 2009 anthology film New York, I Love You, in which she both got behind the camera herself and starred in a segment from Mira Nair. As Exclaim points out, Portman hired Lynne Ramsay for Jane Got a Gun, but she was replaced by Gavin O’Connor after Lynne skipped the first three days of shooting in a power struggle with producers.
McGowan also accused Portman of being all-talk, no action.
“I was at a Women in Film event that you spoke at once, Natalie. You reeled off depressing statistics and then we all went back to our salads. I quickly realized you and the other women speakers (and that joke of an organization) are just… frauds. You say nothing, you do nothing.”
That last sentence is more debatable. Portman has said quite a bit more than nothing, and often when the eyes of the world were watching. At the 2018 Golden Globes, she introduced the Best Director category with the line, “Here are the all-male nominees.” She was one of the founding members of the Time’s Up organization, which has raised over $22 million for women across all industries, and which supported Christine Blasey Ford after she accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Even still, check out McGowan’s full Facebook post below.
McGowan has been an active presence on social media recently, sometimes in ways she seems to regret. Last week, in a since-deleted series of tweets, McGowan said that she is a Republican who doesn’t like Trump but can’t bring herself to vote for a Democrat. “I’m a registered Republican in California. I loathe the Clintons. I hate Trump. I will not vote Republican, but I cannot vote Democrat. I’d rather know what evil I’m getting, so I’ll go Republican.” Afterwards, she was criticized by the left, the right, and pretty much everyone who read it.
But she remains a deeply moving writer, especially on the subject of her experiences with sexual assault. Last October, Weinstein gave an interview casting himself as a feminist hero, and complaining that his accomplishments had been “forgotten.” McGowan slammed him on Twitter, writing “I didn’t forget you, Harvey. My body didn’t forget you. I wish it could. I refused to sign an NDA after it happened because I knew I would come for you. And I did. This is about stopping a prolific rapist. You.”
Natalie Portman embroidered her Dior cape with all of the female directors who weren't nominated for #Oscars. Check out her explanation here. pic.twitter.com/kyyo2wVMZf
— Amy Kaufman (@AmyKinLA) February 10, 2020
Rose McGowan Slams Natalie Portman’s “Deeply Offensive” Oscar Outfit
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