Natalie Portman’s Oscar night cape, embroidered with the names of snubbed female directors, earned raves on Sunday’s red carpet—but not everyone was a fan. On Tuesday Rose McGowan railed against the garment on Facebook, saying that although Portman likes to talk the talk of a feminist activist, “I just want her and other actresses to walk the walk.”
Portman received widespread praise on Sunday for her cloak; it felt like a canny callback to the 2018 Golden Globes, where the actor first introduced the directing category by saying, “And here are the all-male nominees.” But McGowan was not so dazzled. Portman’s cape is the “kind of protest that gets rave reviews from the mainstream media for its bravery,” she wrote. “Brave? No, not by a long shot. More like an actress acting the part of someone who cares. As so many of them do.”
“I find Portman’s type of activism deeply offensive to those of us who actually do the work,” McGowan continued. “I’m not writing this out of bitterness, I am writing out of disgust.”
McGowan claims in her post that Portman has only worked with two female directors during her career, including herself. As The Hollywood Reporter points out, Portman has actually worked with three female directors on feature films, not including herself—although two of those projects, THR notes, were anthology films that included multiple directors. McGowan also echoed another critique some leveled against Portman since Sunday: Her production company, Handsomecharlie Films, has only hired one female director (Portman) across eight projects. As Twitter user @ON_Morgan put it, “Amazing gesture! If only the production company she owns and runs would hire female directors other than *Natalie Portman*, then it might not be seen as quite so performative.”
“What is it with actresses of your ilk?” McGowan wrote. “You ‘A-listers’ (🤮) could change the world if you’d take a stand instead of being the problem. Yes, you, Natalie. You are the problem. Lip service is the problem. Fake support of other women is the problem.”
“There is no law that says you need to hire women, work with women, or support women,” McGowan added. “By all means, you do you. But I am saying stop pretending you’re some kind of champion for anything other than yourself. ... Until you and your fellow actresses get real, do us all a favor and hang up your embroidered activist cloak, it doesn’t hang right.”
Portman responded to McGowan’s Facebook post Wednesday in a statement. “I agree with Ms. McGowan that it is inaccurate to call me ‘brave’ for wearing a garment with women’s names on it,” she wrote. “Brave is a term I more strongly associate with actions like those of the women who have been testifying against Harvey Weinstein the last few weeks, under incredible pressure.”
“It is true I’ve only made a few films with women,” Portman continued. “In my long career, I’ve only gotten the chance to work with female directors a few times—I’ve made shorts, commercials, music videos and features with Marya Cohen, Mira Nair, Rebecca Zlotowski, Anna Rose Holmer, Sofia Coppola, Shirin Neshat and myself. Unfortunately, the unmade films I have tried to make are a ghost history.”
“I have had the experience a few times of helping get female directors hired on projects which they were then forced out of because of the conditions they faced at work,” Portman added. “So I want to say, I have tried, and I will keep trying. While I have not yet been successful, I am hopeful that we are stepping into a new day.”
