2025 Governors Awards Omit Woody Allen from Juliet Taylor’s bio

On June 12th, the Academy’s press release announced the recipients of this year’s Governors Awards. An esteemed list of names:

Quincy Jones and Juliet Taylor will receive Honorary Awards, while Richard Curtis will be presented with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli will be awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.

Here is President Janet Yang’s statement:

“The recipients of this year’s Governors Awards have set the bar incredibly high across their remarkable careers, and the Academy’s Board of Governors is thrilled to recognize them with Oscars,” said Academy President Janet Yang. “The selection of Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli is a testament to their success as producers of the fan-favorite Bond series and their contribution to the industry’s theatrical landscape. Richard Curtis is a brilliant comedic storyteller whose tremendous charitable efforts embody the meaning of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Quincy Jones’s artistic genius and relentless creativity have made him one of the most influential musical figures of all time. Juliet Taylor has cast iconic and beloved films and paved a new path for the field. Their profound love of cinema and indelible contribution to our art form make these five individuals truly deserving of these honors.”

And the paragraph for Juliet Taylor reads as follows:

As just one example of casting director Juliet Taylor’s casting choices, she is the person who gave Meryl Streep her first movie role. Her own first casting credit was for William Friedkin’s The Exorcistin 1973. In the decades since, Taylor has cast more than 100 films for numerous esteemed directors, including James L. Brooks, Nora Ephron, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Among others, Taylor is responsible for helping to introduce to the world future Oscar winners such as Joaquin Phoenix and Dianne Wiest.

There’s just one little problem. They omit Woody Allen, the director responsible for Juliet Taylor’s name recognition.

As in the same Woody Allen who has won FOUR OSCARS and been nominated 19 times? That guy? You know, the whole reason anyone even knows who Juliet Taylor is?

Cafe Society
Irrational Man
Magic in the Moonlight
Blue Jasmine (Best Actress)
To Rome with Love
Midnight in Paris (Screenplay)
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Whatever Works
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Supporting Actress)
Cassandra’s Dream
Scoop
Match Point
Melina and Melinda
Anything Else
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
Small Time Crooks
Sweet and Lowdown
Celebrity
Deconstructing Harry
Everyone Says I Love You
Mighty Aphrodite (Supporting Actress)
Don’t Drink the Water
Bullets Over Broadway (Supporting Actress)
Manhattan Murder Mystery
Husbands and Wives
Shadows and Fog
Alice
Crimes and Misdemeanors
New York Stories
Another Woman
September
Radio Days (Costumes)
Hannah and Her Sisters (Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Screenplay)
The Purple Rose of Cairo
Broadway Danny Rose
Zelig
A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy
Stardust Memories
Manhattan
Interiors
Annie Hall (Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Screenplay)
Love and Death

Why would they omit Woody Allen’s name from her bio? That would be like omitting Alfred Hitchcock’s name when honoring Grace Kelly. Or Frank Capra’s name when honoring Jimmy Stewart. You can’t do that and pretend any sort of validity in preserving, celebrating or honoring film history.

Who made the call? Was it the Academy or was it Juliet Taylor’s people? We’ll never know because these are questions no one is allowed to ask. Partly they’re afraid to ask why. And they’re afraid of the shitstorm eruption soon to follow in its wake. The last thing they seemed to be concerned about is whether or not they look ridiculous. My dudes, here’s the answer to that question, YES. With all due respect, YES.

Only a couple of people, as far as I can see, called it out and that was Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere, who writes:

The loathsome, flea-infested dogs who told the public relations staffers not to mention Allen’s Taylor-cast films need to be slapped around but good. Bitch-slapped, I mean. Remind those contemptible ayeholes who and what they are.

The other is Jordan Rummy at World of Reel:

The Academy has decided to pretend like Woody Allen’s films don’t exist.

What a difference eight years makes. Here is a video on the Academy’s own website with a Q&A with the lovely and talented Juliet Taylor talking specifically about Woody Allen.

But note the date, 2016 when Taylor’s career ended. Was she punished for working with Woody Allen after the Me Too implosion? And fits were thrown hither and thither, most notably by AO Scott at the New York Times?

The entire internet and film community lost their minds with one of the two major mass hysteria events that helped destroy Hollywood in the Trump era. That meant it was time to start unpersoning people, due process be damned. I know what it felt like to defend Woody Allen or Roman Polanski. You take a lot of incoming. We used to be able to ruminate on the artist vs. the art but after the Me Too event that was no longer the case. Not only that, it was once accused, forever guilty. It was complete madness and smart people recognize that. You do, however, have to put your reputation on the line to speak out about it.

I have been very clear – I will never ever ever ever EVER give up my love for Woody Allen’s movies. I can separate that from whatever may or may not have happened in his private life. To avoid an angry scold by young people, the safer path is to simply avoid ever bringing up Woody Allen’s name.

It recalls the quote from 1984, “who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past. Or:

Woody Allen movies have woven themselves throughout my life for my entire life. Part of that experience is the opening and closing credits. That is how most of us saw and know the name Juliet Taylor. She must, therefore, thank Woody Allen in her speech. And if anyone freaks out about it, so what. Get back to me when a single one of them can make movies as great as he made them. This was one of the best collaborations in film history. And should be remembered as such.