Jezebel 
Enter your username and password.
New York, 1:58 AM
Thu Dec 17
63 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Anna Holmes
| Twitter
Deputy Editor:
Dodai Stewart
| Twitter
Senior Contributing Editor:
Tracie Egan
| Twitter
Contributing Editors:
Anna North
| Twitter
Sadie Stein
| Twitter
Reporter:
Irin Carmon
| Twitter
Editorial Assistant:
Margaret Hartmann
| Twitter
Contributors:
Rich Juzwiak
Email | Twitter
Latoya Peterson
Email
Jenna Sauers
Lizzie Skurnick
Interns:
Katy Kelleher
Twitter
Weekends/Commenter Moderator:
Hortense
| Twitter
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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