The importance of Ava DuVernay’s Golden Globe nomination

Ava DuVernay has become the first black woman to receive a Golden Globe nomination for best director. The announcement came this morning alongside all of the other Golden Globe nominations, including three others for the film DuVernay wrote and directed, Selma.She isn’t the first black woman to deserve a best director nomination, whatever “deserve” might mean when it comes to handing out awards, but she’s now etched into the history books because she is “the one.” And I couldn’t be happier.

Because a black woman being nominated for a best director Golden Globe is one of those inevitabilities in a society constantly trying to prove how not racist and sexist it is. Sure, it may have taken another 40 or 50 years, but someone would have got there. The question would be, for what kind of film?

I had an opportunity to see Selma last month at a screening DuVernay held here in New York City (a screening she dubbed the “really smart black people screening,” so don’t ask me how I got an invite). It’s an incredible film. It’s not a typical historical drama. Even if you know the story of fighting for voting rights in Selma, Alabama in 1965 from top to bottom, it’s still compelling, shocking, and heart-wrenching. I walked away from it feeling like had this film been made by anyone but DuVernay it wouldn’t have resonated nearly as powerfully.

That’s the importance of having more marginalized voices producing more highly visible art. Had any white male writer/director taken on this project, it would have likely ended up a tête-à-tête between Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Lyndon Johnson, with Johnson coming out on top as a hero. Had a black male writer/director taken on this project, it would have likely ended up a two-hour love fest of King’s brilliant mind, with some stumbling blocks in the road mostly caused by women in his life, and his ultimate triumph over all of that adversity. I don’t say that to disparage any white or black male writer/directors out there, but that’s what the pattern shows when they are handed (or fight for) these types of films.

Instead, DuVernay tells a story about the people of Selma. King is at the center, and actor David Oyelowo (also nominated for a Golden Globe) is brilliant in not just capturing the man but truly becoming him. But the genius DuVernay shows is in not allowing him to become the entire story. No one who surrounds King is a prop. They are all given a voice, they are all given their humanity, and that is crucial when so many of those characters are black women.

DuVernay may go on to become the first black woman nominated for a best director Oscar. She could possibly win some of these awards and add to her growing legend (she’s the first black woman to win the best director prize at Sundance), but it’s not the nominations themselves that are crucial. It’s not that the nominations come for the quality of her art, though that is surely important. What’s important is that DuVernay is being rewarded for making art that comes from the margins and penetrates the mainstream. She’s being rewarded for not compromising her vision. She’s being rewarded for art that challenges us all. So even if she’s the last black woman to be nominated for best director of anything for a long while (we do still live in a racist and sexist society), the art she has provided for the people who will study her moment of history making isn’t disposable.

It’s work of its time and timeless. It’s the call to duty we need. And it’s fresh to fucking death.