Merepeka Raukawa-Tait: Jane Campion's Serena and Venus Williams comment backfired

Jane Campion with her Best Director Oscar for the film Power of the Dog. Photo / AP

OPINION

It's not only kids that say the maddest things - adults do too.

But it can backfire.

When she won the 2022 Critics Award earlier this month, Jane Campion commented, when accepting, that Venus and Serena Williams who were in the audience, were "such marvels". She was right.

The champion tennis superstars were present at the ceremony to support the film King Richard, based on their father's life.

They are such marvels and Campion should have stopped there. But for some unfathomable reason she then added "However, you don't play against the guys, like I have to". Whatever possessed her to add that rider?

Because there is no comparison.

Campion has since apologised for her remark. She "had not intended to devalue these two legendary black women and world-class athletes".

Campion is undoubtedly at the top of her field as a film director.

She is the first woman to be nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Director - in 1994 for The Piano and this year for The Power of the Dog.

She was the only woman nominee in her category at this year's Critics' Choice.

She works on movies as a director with all the challenges and demands that entails.

I have no doubt the male-dominated industry would have been a major hurdle to overcome, and where few women have worked successfully in the past.

It would have been a hard slog up against men, who have crowded this space ever since the start of filmmaking.

She played against the guys and won because she is the best.

She deserves every success and this was topped off this week by winning this year's Academy Award for Best Director.

Serena Williams (left) and Venus Williams. Photo / AP

The Williams sisters, on the other hand, as African American women, won a completely different battle.

With racist laws still on the statutes in some states and ingrained white community hatred hidden, but not always, just below the surface, theirs was a fight from birth.

They became Grand Slam title winners and world No1 tennis players in the face of all that.

Their autobiographies and many biographies paint a picture of young girls when growing up, whose lives could have been very different had it not been for their parents, particularly their father.

He made them believe in their greatness. He taught them that winning on the tennis courts start first by winning in the mind.

Work on that and the knockbacks and setbacks can be overcome.

They must be overjoyed that the movie about their father's life, King Richard, played by Will Smith, won him the Oscar for Best Actor at this year's Academy Awards too.

I'm not sure what they would think of him smacking the comedian Chris Rock on stage when he told a joke at the expense of Will's wife.

I look forward to seeing the movie The Power of the Dog.

Watching the trailer and seeing the central Otago landscape in all its glory makes the movie feel personal.

We know where it was filmed and who directed it - an accomplished New Zealand film director, now the winner of this year's Best Director Academy Award.

No doubt the guys will be sitting up and taking notice. Another barrier toppled in yet another field.