We’re back!
Welcome to the fifth annual Matt, Ian, and Blake (or MIB) Awards! If you need a refresher on why we insist on doing this year after year, ask and you shall receive:
The awards never go to the right person. Why? Because there is no right person. This is important to remember as we approach the Academy Awards. There is no mathematical equation to determine the winners. Voters vote based on their own personal opinion. So why bother predicting the winners? You’re just guessing whose opinion is going to win out. Instead, I’ve teamed up with two other close friends and cinephiles — aspiring actor Ian Goldsmith and former Warner Bros. Studio tour guide Matt Bauerly — to name winners of our own.
You will undoubtedly notice we have a new category this year: Best Female Director. There are a few reasons that we felt this was a necessary addition to the MIB Awards:
- It’s certainly not because female directors are inferior to their male counterparts. It’s simply not a level playing field. Female directors accounted for just 4% of the 100 top-grossing films of 2018, and it’s not due to a lack of women interested in directing, I can promise you that. Working in a male-dominated field, it is more difficult for female directors to receive awards recognition. We feel it is important to elevate these women and their films and do our part to support their efforts toward achieving gender equality.
- We already distinguish between male and female performers for the acting categories, so it does not feel like an enormous leap to do the same for the directing category.
- The inclusion of this new category also encourages us — Matt, Ian, and Blake — to personally seek out female-directed films that we might not otherwise see.
