Barbra Streisand says she has been a victim of Hollywood sexism, which created obstacles to her success as a director and cost her Oscar nominations. Variety reports that Streisand talked about it Saturday at the Tribeca Film Festival, where she was interviewed by Robert Rodriguez.
Streisand reportedly said sexism was to blame for her not being nominated for Oscars for directing “Yentl” and “The Prince of Tides.” The latter film was nominated for Best Picture in 1992.
Streisand, who has won an Oscar for Best Actress, for “Funny Girl” in 1969, and one for Best Original Song for “A Star Is Born,” shared with Paul Williams, in 1977, said it wasn’t just men who were less than OK with a woman directing a major movie.
“There were a lot of older people,” Streisand said during the interview. “They don’t want to see a woman director.”
She then added: “I don’t know how many women wanted to see a woman director.”
“Streisand said that jealousy and competitiveness are partly to blame for women turning on one of their own gender,” Variety reports. “As evidence, she claimed that female critics were harsher than their male counterparts to ‘Yentl.’”
Streisand said the Oscar snub for “Yentl” had a lasting impact on her. “I must have been more hurt than I thought, because I didn’t want to direct for years,” she said.
Wow, so awards really are that important! And here I thought it was about telling a story you were passionate about, awards be damned.
Babs is such a hypocrite. And playing the “I’m a victim” card all these years later at her age is really quite pitiful. Hey Babs, where was your courage and conviction “back in the day” ????
Most people have trouble feeling pity for multi-millionaires. If I read the article correctly, she feels men, women and older people all have discriminated against her. As far a her opinion on how great a job she did on Yentl, perhaps she might want to consider that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t as wonderful as she thought and other people did an even better job on their works.
The real question is why now? Most people under 40 haven’t even heard of Yentl. Why wasn’t she so outspoken then when it would have made a difference. And why didn’t she direct some independent films? With her resources and friends it wouldn’t have been terribly difficult with some good ideas and scripts.