Mark Harris for Grantland:

There’s a problem here, but it’s a problem with the Academy Awards only insofar as the Oscars reflect a self-perpetuating catastrophe within the movie business: The belief that men star in movies, but women star in “women’s movies.” Treated as an irksome niche by their own industry, actresses have to settle for lower budgets and shakier financing, which means that the films for which they get nominated are more likely to be underdeveloped performance showcases than richly conceived and produced movies with top-of-the-line talent in all creative and technical areas.

I disagree with Harris’s take on some of the films he’s talking about, but this piece contains some fine data points regarding women in movies before it unravels into general awards season punditry. He fails to conclude anything, but rather leaves the question open to the rest of us.