Not only did Ruth E. Carter bring home Oscar gold for the Marvel Cinematic Universe tonight, but she also made Academy Award history. Carter, who now holds dual Oscars for her costuming work on Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, became the first black woman to win two Academy Awards in history tonight.
Carter has an extraordinary body of work, spanning back to the 1980s when she first met director, Spike Lee. Lee brought on Carter to costume his second film, 1988’s School Daze. Carter and Lee have had a long working relationship spanning several decades and she has designed costumes for his films Do the Right Thing, Crooklyn, Bamboozled, and Chi-Raq. Carter earned her first Oscar nomination for her work on Lee’s magnum opus Malcolm X.
Carter would later work with some of the biggest directors in Hollywood, earning a second Oscar nod for her work on Steven Spielberg’s Amistad. She has worked with several of the movie industry’s highest-regarded Black creators including John Singleton, Robert Townshend, and Ava DuVernay.
Carter has been recognized for her work by the Black Reel Awards, Critics’ Choice Awards, the Primetime Emmys, and the Costume Designers’ Guild. It is her recent work with Black Panther director Ryan Coogler that has earned her the two history-making Academy Awards. Her award-winning designs for Wakanda Forever‘s underwater kingdom of Talokan used a deep dive into the Mesoamerican culture in order to convincingly portray the new MCU set piece.
Carter seems to be sticking with the MCU for the time being her next onscreen costumes will appear in next years Blade reboot starring Mahershala Ali.
