It is difficult to criticize Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women.” It’s difficult anywhere. The critics have unanimously anointed it among the best films of the year, with some last minute film groups going all the way to giving it Best Picture. Many who have seen it absolutely love it. Many of those who loved the book love the movie. Many are pleased that there is a modern remake of a classic in theaters at Christmastime. Fans of the director or the actors are excited about this version. There is a lot of positive energy flowing “Little Women’s” way, so much so that you’d think this was a conventional crowdpleaser.

Both of the New York Times critics put it on their top ten. It will likely make $100 million as a Christmas movie aimed at not just women, but — well, let’s face it, white women. And Timothee Chalamet fans. It’s your typical “warm the cockles of the heart” Christmas Oscar movie. And it will do very well. But two stories have emerged in its wake which are bizarre. The first: when “Little Women” (or any other film directed by women this year) failed to get a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture, there was an uproar. Though there have been many films by women this year — and even women of color — most the outrage seemed to swirl around Gerwig’s movie, probably because of all of the films by women, hers was the Oscar-baity-est.

Two directors who were nominated for the first time two years ago returned to the awards conversation this year: Jordan Peele with “Us” (after “Get Out” was nominated for Best Picture and won Original Screenplay at the Oscars) and Gerwig’s “Little Women” (after Lady Bird was nominated and Gerwig was, along with Peele, nominated in Best Director). For his second feature film, Peele went in the opposite direction Gerwig did (though both are working somewhat in the realm of the experimental) by making a wildly original horror film starring Lupita Nyong’o that grossed $178 million domestically and remains the only film in the 2019 box office top 10 that is an original work. By contrast, Gerwig seemed to do a retreat, heading straight into familiar territory not just for women but for women writers and directors: ye auld “Little Women.” When I heard she was making this after “Lady Bird,” I thought: okay, perhaps she doesn’t want to be too confrontational or threatening — she will stick to familiar terrain so as to do a slow and steady career trajectory rather than go for something like “Lady Bird” again.

That’s all well and good. Both these films have been hit and miss with audiences. Some like them, some don’t. I’m not the only person who believes “Little Women” has a fairly rough first hour. It appears to be an experimental redux of the classic, albeit one that subverts the original, storywise. At its onset, Gerwig has chosen to chop up the story’s straightforward chronology and rearrange the familiar pieces in disjointed sequence. That may be easy to sort out for people who already know the story inside out, but is bound to be puzzling for the rest of us. What may be an intriguing juxtaposition for some risks appearing to be a shredding of time and space to others. Whether this post-modern posture succeeds or fails, viewers should be warned that it exists. Yet most critics have said nothing about it. A very small handful did but honestly, this aspect will throw a lot of people off even if most audiences will hang on while the unravel led threads get rewoven. But surely one reason to remake a classic for the umpteenth time is to introduce these beloved characters to a new generation of young girls. Shouldn’t they and their parents get a heads up that the first hour is deliberately disorienting? Isn’t it part of a critics job to address that? But instead, what we too often have is a hive mind that bends any dissent towards agreement and consensus, where individual voices are sacrificed for the sake of unity. This is what happens when we rely on a site that boils critics down to being seen as fresh or being branded as rotten.

Given this, it’s natural to assume it is inexplicable that the film didn’t earn a Golden Globe for Best Picture, Director, or Screenplay, or that it was shut out by the SAG Awards. The problem with the “no woman got nominated” part of the narrative was that it was squarely aimed at the HFPA (a group that did give the film acting nominations at least) and not at SAG (which didn’t). The HFPA have traditionally a much more inclusive record of nominating female directors, like Ava DuVernay for “Selma” (when the Academy and the DGA did not) and Kathryn Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty” (which the Academy did not). Now the narrative has switched away from that towards shaming men for not even wanting to see the film in the first place. It wouldn’t even be a story, but today, appearing on the New York Times Page One:

Men Are Dismissing ‘Little Women.’ What a Surprise.

These are the first few paragraphs:

“‘Little Women’ Has a Little Man Problem.”

So reads the headline for an article on Vanity Fair’s website this month about the latest screen adaptation of the beloved Louisa May Alcott novel. The film has been lauded by critics and ostensibly possesses many of the qualities awards voters look for: an A-list cast (including Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet and Meryl Streep); a respected actress-turned-director (Greta Gerwig); and beloved source material.

But so far it has been noticeably underrepresented during awards season — two Golden Globe nominations and zero Screen Actors Guild nods — and Vanity Fair described the audiences at early advance screenings as “overwhelmingly comprised of women.” One of its producers, Amy Pascal, told the magazine she believes many male voters have avoided it because of an “unconscious bias.”

Notice how the conversation is STILL around the HFPA — which is not male-dominated, mind you, but mixed, just as the SAG voting committee is mixed. So this is the reason? It couldn’t possibly be that others movies were better or that the editing in the first hour was a problem?  Why is this laid at the feet of men necessarily?

A few months ago, a friend of mine pitched an op-ed to the New York Times that would be written by me. I would have never pitched them myself, but he felt I should — surely they would be interested in publishing it.  Because, for the most part, film critics won’t tell you the truth anymore about anything, particularly not in this age of aspirational content, where most people are committed to reflecting a Utopian vision of what our world SHOULD be rather than what it is.

I’ll give it to you straight, in a way that probably no one writing on this subject would ever have a clue about: movies cost money. They cost a lot of money. Actual ticket buyers out there in the world don’t buy tickets to make Hollywood feel good about itself. They don’t buy tickets to boost careers of female directors. They don’t buy tickets to erase sexism or racism. They buy tickets to be entertained. Most people see the title “Little Women” and think: I’ve seen that movie.

The only people who would be motivated to go see it and pay money around Christmas time — other than Timothee Chalamet fans, of which there will be many — would be groups of women. Not just women but white women, Louisa May Alcott fans. There are a lot of them. I would bet whole Facebook groups would be down to see this with their daughters and their sisters and their mothers and gather around the fire to cuddle alongside one another and affirm their love and admiration for women. But why would anyone try to make this story about the men who didn’t want to see it?

I can think of one good reason: great publicity. And you know what? It wouldn’t be the first time a narrative manipulated how voters vote. It happens all of the time. There is nothing wrong with trying to use whatever you have to sell your movie. And honestly, it will probably work. Heck, if I was working on the movie I’d use it too. I do think, though, that missing in this whole conversation is the one about the film itself, and whether the film on its own succeeds or not.

Both the Globes and the SAG are among the most diverse memberships in the lead-up to the Oscars. So are we sure sexism is the way we want to go here? I can think of a lot of other reasons for the exclusion, but the top of the list is that there are just other movies that are better this year. Lots of them didn’t get into the SAG awards either, and a lot of movies by women also haven’t received the same “white glove” treatment “Little Women” has received.

I can’t see Greta Gerwig as a victim of sexism, no matter how hard I try. She is among the most lauded and celebrated female actors turned writer-directors I’ve ever seen blow through the Oscar race. She is beloved across the board, not just by female critics but by male critics, going back to her very first efforts. I don’t think she’s ever been involved in a film that didn’t get good reviews. There are a handful of women who enjoy that privilege, but a great many who do not.

The real problem is that women are often punished for trying to reach beyond the “Little Women” end goal. When the work is too challenging or threatening, women are not given the same trust in storytelling as men. Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” was roasted by the critics for its depiction of LBJ in one single scene. Kathyrn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” was taken to task for seeming to concede that torture yielded any leads for the CIA, and then her “Detroit” was lambasted as gratuitously violent “torture porn.” Sofia Coppola was all but shunned for leaving out the only black character in “The Beguiled.” And Sarah Gavron was dubbed a “white feminist” for her film about the vote for women with “Suffragette.” Gerwig, thus far, has escaped any criticism save for one column in The Daily Beast.

Either way, “Little Women” is going to do just fine.

Rather than shame men, I would instead celebrate the success of the many films directed by women that have done well at the box office this year, including “Captain Marvel” (co-directed, $426 mil), “Hustlers” ($100 mil), “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” ($50 mil), “Queen & Slim” ($40 mil), and “Harriet” ($40 mil). Little Women will make at least $100 million and probably get in for Best Picture. Eventually, there will be a conversation about the structure of it and the adaptation of it, and whether the choices made succeeded or not. Right now, that conversation is not being had. The cynical part of me thinks it’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” now more than ever where film critics are concerned, in their continual effort to right the wrongs of our culture. But another part of me thinks: maybe it was just me. Maybe others saw a cohesion that I didn’t.

I don’t think we’re going to get all Best Picture nominees directed by men. But if people really feel the need to force more women into the race, regardless of if their films were good enough or not, it is most definitely time to add a new category to the Oscars with five films directed by women. Or return the Best Picture lineup to ten nominations to allow voters to award films for reasons other than “best.”