Oscar-nominated women make Black Panther and Avengers look fierce

Super hero Black Panther has a lot to boast about. It's a pleasure for critics and fans, has crossed the $ 1 billion at the box office, become the first movie based on a cartoon for net Oscar best picture and won Hannah Beachler the first Oscar nomination for an African-American in production design.

This is also the first Wonder film to get a Oscar nomination for costumes.

Those who saw the film and its Get-up afrofuturistic infused will probably not be surprised. Dora Milaje's special forces roam warrior boots and finely detailed tunics in red and gold leather with matching gauntlets. Killmonger looks intimidating (and so buffy) in camo pants topped with a fitted blue shirt and fierce weave. And T & # 39; Challa's wide range of suits and shirts may be black, but each one has wonderfully distinct colors.

Thanks to costume designer Ruth E. Carter for making Lupita Nyong, Chadwick Boseman and Danai Gurira are even badier than usual by dressing them in formal outfits for a night out at a Busan casino. Carter has already been an Oscar nominee twice before for his work in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992) and Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997).

Before going to Wakanda, Carter consulted Marvel's frequent collaborator, Judianna Makovsky, as well as other designers who worked with the studio.

"They've all said to me," It's a little different from your normal superhero movie, "" http://www.cnet.com/, "says Carter on the phone from New York. " In fact, I'm really happy to have I did not really know the language of the other superhero movies when I was working on Black Panther, so that I could approach it from my own point of view and only not be influenced by what it should look like. "

The black panther could have given us Queen Ramonda of Angela Bbadett wearing a Zulu-inspired headdress as she alone could do or a shirtless Killmonger of Michael B. Jordan in a long black hooded cardigan. But period pieces are the films that generally govern costume design at the Oscars, followed by fantastic films and adaptations of children's books. We have to go back to 1990 (Dick Tracy) to find a nominated title based on a comic strip.

"Those who get the rewards are usually those [where] you're creating everything, that the designer is really designing, "Los Angeles-based Makovsky, a three-time Academy Award nominee and costume designer, told Los Angeles. a lot of attention and love in this regard. And I think it's ridiculous because that's where the costume design goes. It's technical. It's craft. It takes a lot of artisans to make them, and I think [that’s] misunderstood."

Makovsky knows his superhero movies. She worked closely with Marvel as a costume designer in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Avengers: Infinity War and the next Avengers: Endgame.

When she began working at Marvel, Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, of Scarlett Johansson's character wore high heels. "By the time I'm done, [female characters] are in combat boots. "Before she made sure that the Avengers' shoes were appropriate to save the world, she had designed clothes for Hunger Games and Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone, which earned her an Oscar nomination.

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Even though Carter does not come home with a shining statue on sunday, the nomination is a new celebration of Lupita Nyong's Nakia's o coated with different shades of green throughout the movie or Laetitia Wright's Shuri and her approach to a clbady scientific-princess style and comfortable. The designer was honored on February 19th with an award of excellence from her peers in the Costume Designers Guild. This award recognizes leaders who have made a lasting impact in the field of costume design.

But the trip was not easy.

"I had the great chance of entering this industry with Spike Lee and Keenen Ivory Wayans and Robert Townsend at the time when black cinema was emerging again," he said. said Carter. "It's not everyone who has this opportunity, because you have to fight to be seen and be heard as a designer if you are African American, if you are Asian-American, if you are Indian- I am not celebrated immediately and sometimes never, I am 30 years old and I am famous today, but I have 40 movies behind me. "

Representation counts

The numbers tend to be catastrophic with regard to the female representation behind the scenes in Hollywood. According to a study by the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, from 2007 to 2018, only 4% of the directors of the 1,200 most profitable films broadcast in the country were women. The same study shows that, for the 265 best films from 2016 to 2018, women accounted for only 15.5% of editors, 3% of directors of photography and 2.3% of composers.

But it is likely that the costume designer of your favorite movies 2016-2018 was a woman. Women led 84.4% of costume design departments. The costume designers guild has 1,050 members, about 80% of whom are women.

To illustrate what they would like to see go forward, Makovsky and Carter propose a definition of inclusivity that goes beyond the genre.

"Who knows what are the possibilities when inclusion creates another aspect of the art?" Carter asks. "Thus, Americans of Indian and Asian descent, [the African-American] become the famous costume designer and bring their makeup to the canvas. We'll start seeing something new and new, and that's what it should be. "

Demystifying the Hollywood way of life

And while it may seem like a life of pure glamor, being acclaimed, treading the Oscars red carpet, working with the hottest celebrities and being recognized by peers, Carter and Makovsky do not hesitate to tell how Hollywood can be brutal.

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"We work 16 hours a day, seven days a week, pre-production can be quite civilized, but once you've turned, you're out of life," laughs Makovsky. Certainly, you do it for a while and you can have some free time. But the fact remains that people need to work, get their health insurance and make money. "

Carter is even more outspoken when she ponders the compromises she's made for her pbadion. Widow, she has more than once considered having children, but has never done it.

"We do not have a normal life," she says. "We give this life to the narrative medium of filmmaking, we love it so much that we are ready to make sacrifices."