Julie Delpy says being black in Hollywood is easier than being a woman at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Frustration over Hollywood’s diversity controversy is spreading over into the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, as actress and Hollywood writer Julie Delpy said she felt held down by the industry and added that there’s “nothing worse than being a woman in this business.”
Delpy, who was Oscar-nominated as a writer both for Before Midnight and Before Sunset, said that she said she raised the issue of how few women were members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and was shut down.
“Two years ago, I said something about the Academy being very white male, which is the reality, and I was slashed to pieces by the media,” she told TheWrap’s Jeff Sneider. “It’s funny — women can’t talk. I sometimes wish I were African American because people don’t bash them afterward.”
Delpy added: “It’s the hardest to be a woman. Feminists is something people hate above all. Nothing worse than being a woman in this business. I really believe that.”
Delpy is currently promoting her new movie with Danny DeVito and Kieran Culkin, Weiner Dog. And Danny DeVito reiterated Delpy’s feelings: “It’s unfortunate that we’re xenophobic, it’s unfortunate that women make 30 percent less than men in various times,” he said. “I just found out happens in the film business. women are hired for less money than men.”
But, Twitter users quickly bashed Delpy for her comments:
Someone tell Julie Delpy that it isn’t a contest, and that 10 women get nominated every year no matter what. https://t.co/OaVSgztw3D
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) January 22, 2016
Julie Delpy: I’d rather be black than a woman in Hollywood https://t.co/zrAoOEtYPQ :|:Folks don’t really know when to shut up, huh?
— Samuel F. Reynolds (@sfreynolds) January 23, 2016
Julie Delpy’s comments are the reason so many WOC feel alienated from feminism: the automatic assumption that womanhood is always white
— Pippa Adler (@PippaAdler) January 23, 2016
