Rose McGowan slams Natalie Portman’s Oscars tribute to female filmmakers as ‘deeply offensive’
Natalie Portman (Steve Granitz/WireImage) and Rose McGowan (Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Casa Reale)
Charmed actor Rose McGowan has labelled Natalie Portman a “fraud” after she wore a cape to the Oscars that featured names of overlooked female directors embroidered into the fabric.
Portman turned heads at Sunday night’s Academy Awards when she turned up in the outfit, which featured the names of filmmakers such as Greta Gerwig and Lulu Wang. The cape was created to draw attention to the dearth of women nominated for high profile directing awards.
But McGowan, who is non-binary, accused Portman of “acting the part of someone who cares”, the Guardian reports.
“I find Portman’s type of activism deeply offensive to those of us who actually do the work,” McGowan wrote on Facebook.
Rose McGowan tells Natalie Portman: ‘You are the problem.’
The actor slammed the Black Swan star and accused her of failing to support female directors in her own work. She claimed that the actress has only worked with female directors twice, including one film where she was directed by herself.
However, the Guardian reports that Portman has worked with Mira Nair on the short film compilation New York, I Love You, as well as on the Rebecca Zlotowski-directed Planetarium.
I find Portman’s type of activism deeply offensive to those of us who actually do the work.
McGowan also criticised Portman for not hiring female directors through her own production company, Handsomecharlie Film. Of seven films made by the company, just one was female-directed.
In her Facebook post, McGowan wrote of Portman: “You are the problem.”
Portman turned heads with her Oscars outfit, which drew attention to the lack of female directors nominated for the big award.
Rose McGowan continued: “Lip service is the problem … I am singling you out because you are the latest in a long line of actresses who are acting the part of a woman who cares about other women. Actresses who supposedly stand for women, but in reality do not do much at all.”
Portman had a viral moment when she turned up to the Oscars wearing the female-filmmaker themed cape on February 9.
The black and gold Dior Haute Couture outfit featured the last names of women who were not nominated for their films: Scafaria, Wang, Gerwig, Diop, Heller, Matsoukas, Har’el and Sciamma.
