Why Hollywood is dreading this year’s award season

Many Hollywood insiders are secretly dreading awards season, as the industry is continually rocked by daily sexual harassment and assault scandals in the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s fall.

“Just think of all those speeches, oh God,” one female rep says, imagining the onslaught of intense words from winners.

As far as the actual awards, predictions now skew toward films about — and made by — women, such as Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman and Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, with a turn away from more masculine fare such as Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.

Last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invited 683 new members to join in a push to diversify.

Says another industry vet of the wave of harassment revelations, “It was actually always here ... but [we believed it was committed] just by a few. Now it seems like it was literally 50 per cent of all men in Hollywood. That is starting to stir, and we will see the year of awards ‘retribution.’ ”

But a female exec points out, “It’s sad for women in some sense — that if this is ‘their year,’ it could be seen as backlash against the establishment rather than [as] deserving work. Bittersweet.” Either way, “It will be interesting to see the business post-purge in Hollywood.”

This story was originally published on the New York Post and is republished here with permission.