Doing the (Acting) Jobs Americans Aren't Willing to (Act) Do

It was a sweep by European born actors during this year's Academy Awards. Almost inevitable that foreign actors were going to do well, given that out of the nine actresses nominated, only Laura Linney, Ruby Dee, and Amy Ryan were born in the United States (and two of them were born in NYC, so that hardly counts as the USA). It was a little trickier for the men, the only non-Americans nominated were the two winners, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Javier Bardem, along with English born (though frequently cast as a patrician New Englander type) Tom Wilkinson.

Perusing the list, there would seem to be a pretty consistent trend of more foreign born women being nominated most years compared to the men.

Let's breakdown the past ten ceremonies to see if there's a trend or not:

For Best Actor/Actress (foreign/total ratio, and yes for our purposes, Canada counts as foreign, but Puerto Rico counts as American) roles:

2007: (M)1/5 (F)4/5
2006: (M)1/5 (F)4/5
2005: (M)1/5 (F)3/5
2004: (M)0/5 (F)3/5
2003: (M)2/5 (F)4/5
2002: (M)2/5 (F)2/5
2001: (M)2/5 (F)2/5
2000: (M)3/5 (F)1/5
1999: (M)1/5 (F)1/5
1998: (M)1/5 (F)3/5

There's only one year where the number of foreign born men exceeded the number of foreign born women, and the cumulative total is (M)14 versus (F)27.

What about supporting actor/actress?

2007: (M)2/5 (F)3/5
2006: (M)1/5 (F)3/5
2005: (M)0/5 (F)1/5
2004: (M)1/5 (F)2/5
2003: (M)2/5 (F)1/5
2002: (M)0/5 (F)1/5
2001: (M)3/5 (F)3/5
2000: (M)1/5 (F)1/5
1999: (M)2/5 (F)1/5
1998: (M)1/5 (F)4/5

The trend continues on to supporting actors/actresses, only two years where the foreign born women exceed the foreign born men, and the cumulative totals are (M)13 (F)20.

The only conclusion one can draw, is that American actresses aren't very good.

(OK, maybe that's not the only conclusion . . ., also, women in period pieces tend to get honored more often than men in period pieces, and period piece=British actress getting the job usually, period costumes raise the appreciation of a woman's performance several notches for some reason)