The Shape Of Things To Come

The 2018 were the most inclusive ever, signaling that real change in Hollywood has begun.

- Sara Vilkomerson

ONE OF THE LAST LINES UTTERED AT THE 90TH Academy Awards seemed to sum up the spirit of the night. Guillermo del Toro, after winning for Best Director only minutes earlier, was back at the podium accepting the award for Best Picture for The Shape of Water. “Growing up in Mexico, I thought this could never happen. It happens. And I want to tell you, everyone who is dreaming of parable, of using genre fantasy to tell the things that are real in the world today, you can do this,” he said. “This is the door. Kick it open and come in.”

It wasn’t so long ago that this year’s Academy Award nominees would have been filed under fantasy, like the first-ever female Best Cinematography nominee (Rachel Morrison for Mudbound); the first transgender director to ever be nominated (Yance Ford, Strong Island); the fifth-ever female to join the directors’ club, Greta Gerwig, whose movie Lady Bird received five nominations in total; Dee Rees, the first African-American woman to get the Best Adapted Screenplay nod, for Mudbound; and Jordan Peele, one of only three people ever to be nominated for Oscar’s holy trinity of Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay for the box-office-busting Get Out. (He would ultimately win for his original screenplay, making him the first African-American to do so.)