Something that bears mentioning is that a slew of influential auteur-type filmmakers have longstanding collaborations with female editors.
Quentin Tarantino/Sally Menke
Martin Scorsese/Thelma Schoonmaker
David Lynch/Mary Sweeney
Uh, that's only three off the top of my head, but it's something, isn't it? Since Inglourious Basterds, The Departed and Mulholland Dr. have been routinely showing up in those "Best of the Naughts" lists, I think it's a notable achievement.
A co-worker and I were talking about this today. He's taking his daughters to see the new Disney princess movie, and he said he is curious to see how it does at the box office. We both hope it does well, because if it doesn't, the powers that be will use its failure to justify their pre-existing prejudices. ("See, we KNEW little girls didn't want to see black princesses! We totally called that shit.") Which is, not uncoincidentally, exactly what they do when it comes to movies directed by women.
I'm working on my doctorate in Victorian literature/theology, and I must say that as much as the Victorian era is viewed is misogynistic, women certainly had a huge voice in literature and created many popular works. You also had 'George Eliot' and 'Currier Belle', so it's not a perfect analogy.
I see today's film industry as having parallels in the popularity, type of voice in culture that popular Victorian literature did. Yet I see it as a couple steps backwards in the way that you can't hear a woman's voice in it that often.
My husband and I watch a lot of films and are kind of watching films throughout its history and I keep noticing that these movies are so obviously male written. It would be SO refreshing to hear something that spoke for women every once in a while (and even if they were written by a man...for example: I think Henrik Obsen definitely wrote using a woman's voice at times). Any suggestions? We're working on films from the 1960's right now.
Amy Pascal can't hire every single woman director.
That the "independents" are shutting down left and right is only going to make things worse for female directors or writers.
The studios are focused on tentpoles and/or comic book movies and women don't get hired for those movies.
Every time a commercial movie either starring a woman or directed by a woman does well, the men who run the town (and trust they run it) say it's a fluke.
The NY Times article is really interesting. The example about Michael Mann's career post flop vs. Katheryn Bigelow is very interesting.
Movies are made by huge, huge numbers of people, not just one.
Actually I'd be interested to know how this analysis would come out if you could identify, say, the twelve or fifteen most influential individuals per film, and then calculate the gender breakdown there. Would the casting director make the cut? Editor? How many producers? If you want to address this question, let's really get into it.
The process could take months, but if the question is as important as many folks here think, it would unquestionably be worth it.
@nyc-caribbean-ragazza: I agree that film is a director's medium (as opposed to t.v., where the writer is king), but the producer is the man behind the curtain. Unless you're talking about the handful of directors who get final cut, the producers/studio have the power at the end of the day.
I think @skahammer makes a really good point. I also think that what we see on the screen and at the box office is only one part of a director's success. The studio also cares about a director's ability to bring a movie in at or under budget, to manage the crew, and to handle/babysit actors. If you can't do that, it usually doesn't matter how much money your film makes (see, Catherine Hardwicke).
Also, never forget about the power of a pitbull agent. The career paths of Kathryn Bigelow and Michael Mann may be a result of representation as much as anything else.
When I started in the biz 11 years ago things were bad but they are actually getting worse.
The 80s was the last time producers had the power. Now it's directors. Studios bend over backwards to make the director happy. Not the producer unless he is one of the big four and/or the director is a newbie and not the star unless their name is Will Smith.
Other than Rudin, Grazer, Bruckheimer etc. the director is king. Note I said king not queen as there are not many of the latter.
@nyc-caribbean-ragazza: I use studio and producer interchangeably to account for films made outside of the majors (like Lionsgate, Summit, Relativity, etc). I don't mean individual people as producers. For example, apart from Tarantino's movies, name more than a handful of Weinstein produced films that don't have Bob and Harvey's fingerprints all over them. I'm genuinely surprised that, in your experience, directors are given so much deference by the studios.
And maybe Kathryn Bigelow is not an accurate example, but I think my larger point about agents still holds. There's a lot of inside baseball there that the mainstream media and general public aren't privy to.
So a little while back Lizzie Skurnick wrote this great thing about the PW "Best Books" controversy:
But that's the problem with sexism. It doesn't happen because people -- male or female -- think women suck. It happens for the same reason a sommelier always pours a little more in a man's wine glass (check it!), or that that big, hearty man in the suit seems like he'd be a better manager. It's not that women shouldn't be up for the big awards. It's just that when it comes down to the wire, we just kinda feel like men . . . I don't know . . . deserve them.
I would amend her remarks to say "It often doesn't happen," because there are definitely situations in which male and female people think "women suck." But with regard to people who don't think that? She is spot on. A lot of aesthetic standards - like that ambitious movies involve people being turned into blue Ferngullyesque cat-people rather than, you know, making something really well-crafted - are gendered. Men get an imaginative edge in this world, not because of innate ability, but because of socialization. And so we think they deserve awards and they make "better movies" when in reality there are more than a couple movies out there that are no better than romantic comedies (500 Days of Summer, Hannah Takes the Stairs) but are celebrated as masterpieces because they were, you know, written and conceived by men, who are more "serious" and "deep" about such things.
@PilgrimSoul: This really rings true. I think also that somehow people "expect" woman authors to delve into the emotions of characters, but when a man does this (instead of just, you know, writing about creepy monsters or cool futuristic technology or cookie-cutter femmebot characters) then everyone gets all "Wowwww amazing! What talent!"
Sounds like internalized misogyny is playing a role. If women who run studios don't back other women, then it could be their own social conditioning that says: everything associated with women is inferior and suspect. We all get smashed over the head with that message 20830384 times a day anyway. I've caught myself unconsciously assigning lower value to things made by women, and I'm always consciously horrified. But the social indoctrination on this is very very strong and constantly reinforced. Even female bosses tend to downgrade female applicants.
I remember reading that young women were the biggest demographic for going to see movies, followed by young men. But all the movies seem pitched towards the latter. Why? Do they spend more money? Seems unlikely, when I've seen lots of teenage girls going to see films they like over and over again in theatres. But maybe even the girls themselves have that unconscious aversion to anything associated with women.
And the films that ARE made for that young women demo, like Twilight, seem to be male-dominated and with really regressive roles for women.
So I think backlash politics has a lot to do with it too. And it seems like we're almost always in a backlash.
Alys Brangwin has a huge talent promoted this comment
Edited by Teh Indiciiia, professional flower whore at 12/11/09 11:57 AM
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Because the male expierence, the male gaze, the male story is considered the 'norm' and female driven work is 'genre'. Women will also go see 'masculine' movies -- action and horror and thrillers -- while men stay away from movies with strong female driven storylines.
Because this is what makes them money, there is no incentive for the studios to try and change this.
Well, IMHO the trickle-down effect doesn't really work. Not with equality, not with wealth.
I think to change something, you need an effort and an awareness of the problem as well as the will to change the situation.
I do not want to dismiss any sexism that is obviously rampant in Hollywood, but I think we should also discuss problems on the "back end" of things. Why are more girls/young women not interested or getting involved in this particular art form? Are there barriers that we are not addressing?
@Penny: I think a lack of role models is one problem. We're still waiting for a genuinely high profile female director to come a long - a Sheila Spielberg, so to speak.
@Penny: it's similar to why women don't go for construction jobs and most men don't go for nursing. these jobs are so gender focused. then add the ol' boy network that is hollywood and voila.
@pond-side-over: Penny Marshall was on a roll in the 80s/90s, but kinda just dropped off. Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers are both fairly well-known, but seem to work strictly within the rom-com genre. I think Kathryn Bigelow, Sofia Coppola and Jane Campion have the most potential to become high-profile directors. Some can argue that Bigelow is already a heavyweight.
@Penny: Are male directors more likely to want to mentor young men? Are young women encouraged to take up areas like costume design and casting instead of filmmaking? Are film schools dominated by one gender? Is it assumed that stories about men should be told by men? Do writers exhibit a preference for male directors over female directors?
I too would like to know those answers. I agree that it cannot be as simple as "There are no women directors," just as women in science, and women in all academia are known to be constrained by their gender for a multitude of reasons.
@Understater: I think off your list that Bigelow is the one who will be considered the heavy weight, if only because her films stray out of 'female' areas and have more 'broader' appeal. I put those things in quotes because I don't believe that myself, but I can see where the argument can be made. (Strange Days is one of my all time favorite films.)
@Penny: Like many other areas, there just isn't the encouragement for women to take on these roles. Women are pretty actresses and that's that. If they're lucky, they might get recognized as writers. Maybe. Possibly.
As someone who always wanted to work behind the scenes in the film industry, I felt extremely discourage from doing so. Fooling around with techie stuff (directing) was guy territory, but maybe I could do the make up if I wanted to.
Now, at 34, I feel like not pursuing that as a career -- and letting myself be chased out of it -- is my one major life regret.
@Alys Brangwin has a huge talent: From my brief experiences in Los Angeles, there is definitely still a view that women work for you, and men work for you to network and be promoted, which I think is part of the issue. Breaking in involves being an "assistant" in most production and writing jobs, and that sort of secretarial work is still gendered. On the other hand, you have a lot of female jobs like PAs, grips, editors, etc. which no one really cares about outside of Hollywood. There are a lot of women you would never hear about and they prefer that sort of job.
@Alys Brangwin has a huge talent: I'm in a unique position to actually find out statistical data on enrollment by race and gender at a documentary film school. You've inspired me to look into whether or not I would be allowed to analyze this data and use it for anything public, such as a research study.
@nyc-caribbean-ragazza: A quick look at USC's stats says that it's a 60/40 male split for undergrad and the opposite for grad. I would be curious, however, what disciplines the populations are focusing on, as we're talking specifically about directors.
@Alys Brangwin has a huge talent: Remember the Oscars last year where for each category they had several past winners present their category's award? The Best Director category, I think it was Clint Eastwood that had a speech about how Don Siegel had helped him break into directing and how Ron Howard was helped out by George Lucas who was in cahoots with FF Coppola who helped Scorsese get his name out there, etc. It was all about white dudes helping white dudes over generations. Everybody was supposed to be all aglow about this.
@nyc-caribbean-ragazza: When I started at NYU film, my class was pretty evenly split - and everyone had the aspiration of becoming a director of narrative films. EVERYONE. Then, as the years went by, some people fell in love with different aspects of production - photography, editing, etc. My senior year, I was amazed at the low number of girls who competed for allotments to direct a final film. (I'm ashamed to say I didn't either.) I've thought about it a lot since then and think there are two reasons why - 1) The majority of the faculty had no idea how to nurture young women, especially young women of color, whose stories are markedly different and who feel a burden to share the story of their whole community, not just their personal story and 2) We, the young women ourselves, just didn't have the confidence or bravado to put our stories out there. As opposed to the white boys who felt no hesitation and feared no rejection in sharing their "vision." Was it the chicken or the egg? Not sure, but I hope that NYU has improved in the years since.
That's my two cents. I have roughly 9,998 more . . .
@Bollywhaaa: As opposed to the white boys who felt no hesitation and feared no rejection in sharing their "vision."
Any possibility that this attempt to psychoanalyze "white boys" might not be 100% on target? And that those students actually felt plenty of hesitation and fear of rejection, but took the risks anyway?
As an exec I'd always get these calls from agents about the latest "boy wonder" film grad that I just had to meet.
The women? Far and few between even though I knew women were graduating from the top film programs.
Regarding women of color, the numbers are even worse. At least male directors of color are on the "lists" for a variety of different genres. Action, comedy, etc. not the women.
@skahammer: Of course, it was a generalization - I had "white boy" films school friends who were just as neurotic and self-doubting as my WOC friends. But I don't think it's crazy to say that some of my peers felt a sense of entitlement - and those were mostly white men -- that many of the rest of us who were minorities did not share. They had grown up in a world where their stories were "the norm," they had examples to follow . . .while the rest of us were left wondering if our stories were actually valid because we so rarely saw those stories receive validation. I certainly don't blame those guys, but I do think the dichotomy illustrates the challenge for women and other minority filmmakers.
@nyc-caribbean-ragazza: There are fairly even numbers of men and women in film school. However, they're not treated equally. Women are tracked into writing and producing, and given only a very small amount of directing resources. In fact, I was in a class with only one other girl (who was quickly relegated to casting), and so hated that I nearly had to drop the class. In the end, I fought to direct half of the scenes for our class production. This resulted in the male director getting seven days and the multi-camera studio. I got 12 hours and had to shoot single camera (still in the studio, but without enough time or resources or unlocked doors to run 3 cameras).
From the contests I've tracked in the film schools out here in LA and based on my time as an agency assistant, most of the big schools give resources to male directors over female ones, who are forced to finance their own productions. It's always supposedly fair, supposedly based on a writing a treatment that the professors like... but girls can't be statistically bad at writing treatments.
@paradisefound25: Curious how this "tracking" takes place in film school. I've been to grad school in two professional fields and despite my nontraditional background, found no influences that I would call "tracking." I guess film school is very different?
I pass the Hollywood sign every day on my way to work, and it never fails to make me smile. Knowing there are more women behind it (figuratively) is even better!
And what is the percentage of minorities/females in production or backstage crews? I've never worked in TV/film, but I worked at Lincoln Center some years ago, and at the time there were almost no women or minorities in those coveted (and sometimes lucrative) union positions.
I'm amazed that it's as high as 25% in those particular fields, honestly.
Women are catching up in producing and in executive producing pretty handily but shockingly few of the production-level people (directors, editors, etc) are female. I work for a media company (several popular cable networks) and we're like 60% female across the company and in most divisions, but when you get to productions that are in-house (most aren't, but some are) and into the broadcasting-tech end of things, BOOM! 80% male.
12/11/09
Quentin Tarantino/Sally Menke
Martin Scorsese/Thelma Schoonmaker
David Lynch/Mary Sweeney
Uh, that's only three off the top of my head, but it's something, isn't it? Since Inglourious Basterds, The Departed and Mulholland Dr. have been routinely showing up in those "Best of the Naughts" lists, I think it's a notable achievement.
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
I see today's film industry as having parallels in the popularity, type of voice in culture that popular Victorian literature did. Yet I see it as a couple steps backwards in the way that you can't hear a woman's voice in it that often.
My husband and I watch a lot of films and are kind of watching films throughout its history and I keep noticing that these movies are so obviously male written. It would be SO refreshing to hear something that spoke for women every once in a while (and even if they were written by a man...for example: I think Henrik Obsen definitely wrote using a woman's voice at times). Any suggestions? We're working on films from the 1960's right now.
12/11/09
12/11/09
That the "independents" are shutting down left and right is only going to make things worse for female directors or writers.
The studios are focused on tentpoles and/or comic book movies and women don't get hired for those movies.
Every time a commercial movie either starring a woman or directed by a woman does well, the men who run the town (and trust they run it) say it's a fluke.
The NY Times article is really interesting. The example about Michael Mann's career post flop vs. Katheryn Bigelow is very interesting.
12/11/09
Actually I'd be interested to know how this analysis would come out if you could identify, say, the twelve or fifteen most influential individuals per film, and then calculate the gender breakdown there. Would the casting director make the cut? Editor? How many producers? If you want to address this question, let's really get into it.
The process could take months, but if the question is as important as many folks here think, it would unquestionably be worth it.
12/11/09
Film is a directors medium, and they have the power. They hire the editors, casting, DP, etc. etc.
There are quite a few female editors and casting is dominated by women.
Producers, there are a few women. However, in the A-List ranks, you can count them on one hand.
12/11/09
I think @skahammer makes a really good point. I also think that what we see on the screen and at the box office is only one part of a director's success. The studio also cares about a director's ability to bring a movie in at or under budget, to manage the crew, and to handle/babysit actors. If you can't do that, it usually doesn't matter how much money your film makes (see, Catherine Hardwicke).
Also, never forget about the power of a pitbull agent. The career paths of Kathryn Bigelow and Michael Mann may be a result of representation as much as anything else.
12/11/09
12/11/09
Trust this is not about Bigelow's agent.
When I started in the biz 11 years ago things were bad but they are actually getting worse.
The 80s was the last time producers had the power. Now it's directors. Studios bend over backwards to make the director happy. Not the producer unless he is one of the big four and/or the director is a newbie and not the star unless their name is Will Smith.
Other than Rudin, Grazer, Bruckheimer etc. the director is king. Note I said king not queen as there are not many of the latter.
12/11/09
And maybe Kathryn Bigelow is not an accurate example, but I think my larger point about agents still holds. There's a lot of inside baseball there that the mainstream media and general public aren't privy to.
12/11/09
But that's the problem with sexism. It doesn't happen because people -- male or female -- think women suck. It happens for the same reason a sommelier always pours a little more in a man's wine glass (check it!), or that that big, hearty man in the suit seems like he'd be a better manager. It's not that women shouldn't be up for the big awards. It's just that when it comes down to the wire, we just kinda feel like men . . . I don't know . . . deserve them.
[www.politicsdaily.com]
I would amend her remarks to say "It often doesn't happen," because there are definitely situations in which male and female people think "women suck." But with regard to people who don't think that? She is spot on. A lot of aesthetic standards - like that ambitious movies involve people being turned into blue Ferngullyesque cat-people rather than, you know, making something really well-crafted - are gendered. Men get an imaginative edge in this world, not because of innate ability, but because of socialization. And so we think they deserve awards and they make "better movies" when in reality there are more than a couple movies out there that are no better than romantic comedies (500 Days of Summer, Hannah Takes the Stairs) but are celebrated as masterpieces because they were, you know, written and conceived by men, who are more "serious" and "deep" about such things.
12/11/09
12/11/09
Ahahahhaha. Lovely.
12/11/09
laughable
it is so sad that your comments are correct. sigh.
12/11/09
I remember reading that young women were the biggest demographic for going to see movies, followed by young men. But all the movies seem pitched towards the latter. Why? Do they spend more money? Seems unlikely, when I've seen lots of teenage girls going to see films they like over and over again in theatres. But maybe even the girls themselves have that unconscious aversion to anything associated with women.
And the films that ARE made for that young women demo, like Twilight, seem to be male-dominated and with really regressive roles for women.
So I think backlash politics has a lot to do with it too. And it seems like we're almost always in a backlash.
12/11/09
Because the male expierence, the male gaze, the male story is considered the 'norm' and female driven work is 'genre'. Women will also go see 'masculine' movies -- action and horror and thrillers -- while men stay away from movies with strong female driven storylines.
Because this is what makes them money, there is no incentive for the studios to try and change this.
12/11/09
12/11/09
This does remind me I'm shamefully lacking on anything but a cursery knowledge of Modleski's work and I should go request some books from the library.
12/11/09
I think to change something, you need an effort and an awareness of the problem as well as the will to change the situation.
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
I too would like to know those answers. I agree that it cannot be as simple as "There are no women directors," just as women in science, and women in all academia are known to be constrained by their gender for a multitude of reasons.
12/11/09
12/11/09
As someone who always wanted to work behind the scenes in the film industry, I felt extremely discourage from doing so. Fooling around with techie stuff (directing) was guy territory, but maybe I could do the make up if I wanted to.
Now, at 34, I feel like not pursuing that as a career -- and letting myself be chased out of it -- is my one major life regret.
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
There are just as many women in film school as men.
The low number of female directors working today in Hollywood is ridiculous.
12/11/09
12/11/09
From what I understand the most popular disciplines are directing, screenwriting, producing.
In all three areas women are grossly underrepresented.
Clearly something happens after people graduate and actually try to work in the industry.
12/11/09
Touched" video.
I definitely think she, while currently a major force on many levels, will continue an upward trajectory.
* I would have said "meteoric rise" but meteors fall, not rise.
12/11/09
12/11/09
That's my two cents. I have roughly 9,998 more . . .
12/11/09
Any possibility that this attempt to psychoanalyze "white boys" might not be 100% on target? And that those students actually felt plenty of hesitation and fear of rejection, but took the risks anyway?
12/11/09
As an exec I'd always get these calls from agents about the latest "boy wonder" film grad that I just had to meet.
The women? Far and few between even though I knew women were graduating from the top film programs.
Regarding women of color, the numbers are even worse. At least male directors of color are on the "lists" for a variety of different genres. Action, comedy, etc. not the women.
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
From the contests I've tracked in the film schools out here in LA and based on my time as an agency assistant, most of the big schools give resources to male directors over female ones, who are forced to finance their own productions. It's always supposedly fair, supposedly based on a writing a treatment that the professors like... but girls can't be statistically bad at writing treatments.
12/11/09
12/11/09
10/01/09
10/01/09
10/01/09
10/01/09
09/14/09
09/14/09
Women are catching up in producing and in executive producing pretty handily but shockingly few of the production-level people (directors, editors, etc) are female. I work for a media company (several popular cable networks) and we're like 60% female across the company and in most divisions, but when you get to productions that are in-house (most aren't, but some are) and into the broadcasting-tech end of things, BOOM! 80% male.
09/14/09
09/14/09