This is a much more vibrant prospect for female directors than at the Oscars, where two women were never nominated for best female director in the same year.
Three women are nominated for Best Direction at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, to be presented on August 30: Taylor Swift for “The Man”, Billie Eilish for “xanny” and Hannah Lux Davis for Doja Cat’s “Say So” It is only the second time in the VMA’s 37-year history that three women have been nominated in this category in the same year, and it is the first time that it has happened that none of the directors had a male co-director.
The directors had three of the five nominees in this category in 2005, but only Floria Sigismondi She was nominated for a clip that she directed herself: “Blue Orchid” by The White Stripes. The other two nominees that year worked with male co-directors. Diane Martel was associated with Francis Lawrence to direct Jennifer Lopez’s “Get It Right”; Missy Elliott was associated with Dave Meyers to direct “Lose Control”.
Davis and Swift were also nominated in this category last year: Davis for directing “Thank U, Next” by Ariana Grande; Swift (along with co-nominee Drew Kirsch) for “You need to calm down.”
Here are five previous female milestones in this category that paved the way for this year’s breakthrough:
First woman to receive a nomination for best director: Mary Lambert, in 1985, the second year of the awards, for directing Chris Isaak’s “Dancin”. Note: This is a different Mary Lambert than the woman she co-wrote and appeared in “Same Love” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.
First woman to win in this category: Valerie Faris, along with her husband and fellow director Jonathan Dayton, for The Smashing Pumpkins ‘Tonight, Tonight’ (1996). The team won again four years later for “Californication” by Red Hot Chili Peppers.
First woman to be nominated for directing one of her own videos: Elliott, for “Work It” (2003) that he co-directed with Meyers. (The team was nominated again two years later for the aforementioned “Lose Control”).
First woman to win for directing one of her own videos: Erykah Badu for co-directing her 2008 clip “Honey” with Mr. roboto (Chris Robinson)
First woman to win this category on her own (without co-director): Melina Matsoukas, for Beyoncé’s “Training” (2016).
Faris is also the woman with the most nominations in this category: five, all with Dayton (and occasionally other couples as well). In addition to its two winners, its nominees were “The End Is the Beginning Is The End” by The Smashing Pumpkins (1997), “Freak on a Leash” (1999) by Korn and “By the Way” by Red Hot Chili Peppers ( 2002).
Three women are tied for most nominations by themselves (two each): Matsoukas, Sigismondi, and Davis. In addition to “Training”, Matsoukas was nominated for directing Bey’s “Pretty Hurts” (2014). In addition to “Blue Orchid”, Sigismondi was nominated for directing the Katy Perry / Kanye West collaboration “ET” (2011). Davis’ two nominations in this category are mentioned above.
Five women have received a nomination in this category on their own: Sophie Muller, who directed “You’ve Chilled My Heart” from Eurythmics (1988), Karena Evans, who directed Drake’s “God’s Plan” (2018), and the mentioned Lambert, Eilish and Swift.
Four other women have been nominated to co-direct: Paula Greif, for co-directing Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” (1987) with Peter Kagan; Candace Reckinger, for co-directing “Opposites Attract” (1990) by Paula Abdul with Michael Patterson; Christina Aguilera, for co-directing “Candyman” (2007) with Matthew Rolston; and Adria petty, for co-directing the Coldplay / Rihanna collaboration “Princess of China” (2012) with Alan Biddy.
This is a much more vibrant prospect for female directors than at the Oscars, where two women were never nominated for best director in the same year, and only five women were nominated. Those women are: Lina Wertmüller for Seven beauties (1976) Jane Campion for The piano (1993) Sofia Coppola for Lost in translation (2003) Kathryn Bigelow for The wounded wardrobe (2009) and Greta Gerwig for Lady bird (2017) Bigelow won the award.
