--- description: The Best Supporting Actress roles are depressingly obvious: mother, daughter, girlfriend or witch title: Oscars 2015: Best Supporting Actress Race is Pathetic, Revealing image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36d1ecce0f605768/6987775d06f2c172dc3331ac/meryl-streep-into-the-woods1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # The Best Supporting Actress Race at the Oscars Reveals an Uncomfortable Truth  by [Charlotte Alter](/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Senior Correspondent Feb 20, 2015 2:00 PM CUT  Meryl Streep stars as the Witch in Disney's Into the Woods Meryl Streep stars as the Witch in Disney's Into the WoodsPeter Mountain—Disney  by [Charlotte Alter](/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Senior Correspondent Feb 20, 2015 2:00 PM CUT The Best Supporting Actress race at the 2015 Oscars may be the biggest snooze of the night. Almost [every](http://variety.com/2015/film/news/oscar-predictions-2015-academy-awards-nominees-1201433564/ "undefined") [Oscar](http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2015/02/18/oscarharvard-side/a24fmMCYN0ot5pZ8ZwAyYP/story.html "undefined") [soothsayer ](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/awards/predictions/feinberg-picks/oscars2182015 "undefined")agrees that Patricia Arquette is almost a surefire win for her role on _Boyhood_, after her masterful transformation from desperate single mom to capable college professor over the course of Richard Linklater’s 12-year production. Game over. Arquette deserves the Oscar for her incredible performance, but she’s also a virtual lock because her competition is so weak. The only other nominee who even has a shot is Laura Dern for _Wild,_ but she’s in the movie so little that it seems unlikely she’d win. Emma Stone’s nomination for _Birdman_ seems improbable, considering Naomi Watts had a much bigger and more nuanced role in that movie; Keira Knightley played a pretty standard plucky love interest in _The Imitation Game._ Meryl Streep is nominated for _Into the Woods_ because, well, she’s Meryl Streep. **MORE** [Here’s Meryl Streep’s Spot-On Advice About Being a Woman](http://time.com/68255/meryl-streep-advice-women/ "undefined") Even though it’s one of the least exciting races this year, the Best Supporting Actress category is notable for the paucity of plausible winners—and that’s important. Looking at the list, it’s easy to think: _Really?_ This is the best they could do this year? Each of the roles nominated in the category can be boiled down to a basic female archetype: mother, daughter, girlfriend, or witch. When we talk about women in Hollywood, the conversation tends to focus on the necessity for more “strong female leads.” But that ignores the breadth of change that needs to happen to women’s roles in movies. It’s not just that more women need to be getting lead roles—there also need to be nuanced small roles for women, and more of them. Strong female support is just as important as a strong female stardom. Take, for example, BBC’s _The Fall,_ the second season of which recently began streaming on Netflix. (It’s a TV show, not a movie, but the point still applies.) It’s the story of a female detective (Gillian Anderson) tracking down a serial killer (Jamie Dornan,) but what really makes _The Fall_ stand out is the women who play strong characters down to the tiniest, one-line roles. Anderson’s character isn’t the only woman in the Belfast unit investigating the crimes—there are dozens of women interrogating witnesses, examining bodies, answering 911 calls, and even taking bullets in shoot-outs. Even nameless parts like “the cop who calls for backup” or “the hospital administrator who aids the police” are women. The multitude of tiny but important women’s roles helps build a world inhabited by many strong women, not just one. It’s not a surprise that the movies with Best Actress nominations have well-drawn female roles—movies like _Still Alice, Wild,_ and _Gone Girl_ are built around female characters, so they better be good. But the fact that the roles in the Best Supporting Actress category are so meager indicates that when she’s not the lead, female characters often don’t get much in the way of screen time and character development. And that creates an all-or-nothing environment for female characters that makes it hard for Hollywood to make any real progress. **MORE** [Can You Guess the Oscar Winner?](http://time.com/3715581/oscar-winner-guessing-game/ "undefined") Look at the Best Supporting Actors for a comparison. The material was great—from a volatile actor to a troubled father to a merciless drum instructor, the actors nominated in this category were playing characters written with much more depth and nuance than the roles given to the Best Supporting Actress nominees. Case in point: Keira Knightley’s biggest moment in _The Imitation Game_ was when she says that line you probably remember from the trailer: “Sometimes it’s the people no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.” Cute, but by the time she gets to say it, two male characters have already said the same line. So while it’s important to continue the demand for significant leads for women, it’s just as important that women are getting meaty secondary roles, meaty small roles—even meaty cameos. This Supporting Actress pool isn’t cutting it. _Read next:_ [_Here’s Why the Oscar Race for Best Picture Is Unusually Tricky This Year_](http://time.com/3713805/oscars-2015-boyhood-birdman-best-picture-gimmicks/?xid=time%5Freadnext "undefined") ### Academy Awards: Classic Film Stars With Their Oscars  Vivien Leigh places the Oscar she won for her role as Scarlett in Gone With The Wind on her mantlepiece at home, 1940. Peter Stackpole—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Luise Rainer, the first woman to win two Oscars, holds her Best Actress award for her performance in The Great Ziegfeld during the 1937 Academy Awards ceremony. Rex Hardy Jr.—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Joan Fontaine doing the household bookkeeping next to the Oscar she won for her role in Hitchcok's Suspicion, 1942. Bob Landry—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Elizabeth Taylor at a Hollywood party with the Oscar she won for her role in Butterfield, 1961. Allan Grant—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Grace Kelly with the Oscar she won for her role in The Country Girl, 1955\. William Holden, her co-star in the movie, stands behind her. George Silk—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Audrey Hepburn with the Oscar she won for Roman Holiday, 1954. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Joanne Woodward smiles radiantly while holding her Best Actress Oscar for her role in Three Faces of Eve, 1958. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Best Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress winners Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed (both for From Here to Eternity) and their Oscars, 1954. George Silk—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Bing Crosby (Going My Way), Ingrid Bergman (Gaslight) and Barry Fitzgerald (Going My Way) with their Oscars, 1945. Walter Sanders—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Gloria Grahame with her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Bad and the Beautiful, 1953. Loomis Dean—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Marlon Brando (right) with his Oscar for On the Waterfront, 1955. George Silk—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Onstage presenters seen from the wings during the 1950 Academy Awards. Ida Wyman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Jimmy Stewart, back from WWII, talks with the oldest employee of his family's hardware store in Pennsylvania, George Little; nearby is a table of various mementos, including Stewart's Best Actor Oscar for The Philadelphia Story. Peter Stackpole—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Joan Crawford with her Best Actress Oscar for Mildred Pierce, 1946. Martha Holmes—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3714366/oscars-2015-best-supporting-actress-patricia-arquette/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3714366/oscars-2015-best-supporting-actress-patricia-arquette/"},"headline":"The Best Supporting Actress Race at the Oscars Reveals an Uncomfortable Truth","datePublished":"2015-02-20T14:00:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:42:39.756Z","description":"The Best Supporting Actress roles are depressingly obvious: mother, daughter, girlfriend or witch","url":"https://time.com/3714366/oscars-2015-best-supporting-actress-patricia-arquette/","keywords":["movies","Living","meryl streep","Emma Stone","Boyhood","Patricia Arquette","birdman","the imitation game","oscars 2015"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36d1ecce0f605768/6987775d06f2c172dc3331ac/meryl-streep-into-the-woods1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36d1ecce0f605768/6987775d06f2c172dc3331ac/meryl-streep-into-the-woods1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"INTO THE WOODS","caption":"INTO THE WOODS","creditText":"Peter Mountain—Disney","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3714366/oscars-2015-best-supporting-actress-patricia-arquette/","name":"The Best Supporting Actress Race at the Oscars Reveals an Uncomfortable Truth"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Numbers Behind The Academy Awards","description":"From the number of Oscars awarded to the economic benefit of the ceremony, here are the big numbers around the Academy Awards.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/YMFb7rl9/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-02-19T23:05:54.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/YMFb7rl9.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3714366/oscars-2015-best-supporting-actress-patricia-arquette/","duration":"PT1M6S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3714366/oscars-2015-best-supporting-actress-patricia-arquette/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```