This Day in Pop Culture for March 7

2010: First Female Director Wins an Oscar

Up until this day in 2010, only three women had been nominated for a Best Director Oscar: Lina Wertmueller for 1975’s Seven Beauties, Jane Campion for 1993’s The Piano and Sofia Coppola for 2003’s Lost in Translation. However on this day, the fourth woman, Kathryn Bigelow, became the first female director to win an Academy Award. She won for the movie, The Hurt Locker during 82nd ceremony. Ironically, one of her competitors was James Cameron, who was up for Avatar and whom she was previously married to from 1989 to 1991! The movie also won for Best Picture, Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Original Screenplay.