Vulture: Enough.
Enough with the studios like 20th Century Fox, Sony, Paramount, and the Weinstein Company, none of which put out even a single film this year that was directed by a woman.
Enough with the executives who would rather hand a lucrative blockbuster to a man who’s never made a movie before (like Seth Grahame-Smith, the novice director recently picked by Warner Bros. to direct a big-budget adaptation of The Flash) than a woman who has.
4 comments:
I'm glad I knew a good chunk of the female directors on this list, because it's been one of my hobbies to search out movies made by women and figure out why they aren't getting the recognition that they might deserve. It's odd how many women are in the indie movie making business -- or not odd, actually, seeing as Hollywood labels won't let them in so they have to make their craft on the borders of the money making industry. Why are the producing companies so scared of having a female director take control of a large project? Is it because a man's movie is 'universal', while a woman's movie is a 'chick flick' or a 'woman's film'? When are we going to get rid of those ridiculous stereotypes and allow the lines to blur? People shouldn't be so adverse to having a woman's touch to a film, either; we get so in our heads that to be male is to be the norm, to have a generally male perspective is to be neutral, and to have a woman's perspective is edgier, different, out of the norm. Men and women are split about evenly on this earth; a 'man's perspective' is only about half of the world. I'd love to spend my career working with wonderful women directors like these women and producing products that blast the roofs off Fox, Sony, and Paramount. Those big companies need to be put in their place.
That was a fabulous list to read. Despite being the the liberal-minded utopia that is Purnell, it is hard to be constantly bombarded with the fact that this is industry is overrun with men. Feminism and cultural awareness seems to be more popular than ever, and still movie after movie is made with only men at the helm. It is tiresome. A list like this gets rid of the weak excuse that "there simply aren't enough female directors who want the jobs." As the article said, the only thing hard about putting together a list of one hundred talented female directors was narrowing down to only one hundred. The artists exist. They are talented and they have resumes to prove it. So why are all the oscar nominated directors male? Why are women constantly passed over for jobs that they are more than qualified for? I am getting tired of the excuses.
Although this article does a great job of further annunciating the gross lack of female representation in the film industry, when I reflect on it personally I find it kind of embarrassing, that as someone who considers himself a film buff I recognize so few names on the list. Sure there are a decent number of of films I've seen/heard a lot about that have been directed by the female directors mentioned, but for almost all of them I had no idea they were directed by a woman. It's sad but when I think of modern female directors my mind almost solely goes to Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to win the oscar for best director in 2010. Yes that event was a huge achievement, but there are so many other great female directors out there whose work just hasn't been appreciated the same way it should be. As a audience member I'm going to try to do a much better part of paying attention to the director of any film I watch and do my best to acknowledge female and male directors alike, trying to dismiss the autopilot assumption in my head that a movie is directed by a male, which I too often do. Although the issue of unequal representation in the film industry is rooted in control from the rich white male executives at the film studios the only way to really bring change is for the audience to grow in awareness and change our tastes to force executives to push for equality, because they'll just follow where the money goes. In my mind its absolutely ridiculous that it took up until 2010 for a woman to win best director, and its perhaps even more concerning that still no African American has ever won the award. If we want change in the film industry it starts with conscious viewers who first see the inequality and then use their viewership to help advocate for change.
Theatre and film are some of the best platforms and mediums through which different perspectives can be developed, articulated, and presented. So when these areas fail - as evidenced by the sweeping list of studios that neglected to utilize any of the many capable women directors out there - a key voice is lost not only within the theatre and film community, but also within society and larger culture. It is frustrating that I only really heard about Ana Lily Amirpour's "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" through articles and sources that focused on women directors. When larger, less women-centric outlets eventually got around to talking about the film, it was positively received (nearly) across the board. But no one made a big deal about it. These works by women directors should be put forth into the collective societal mind, instead of requiring that people have an interest in seeing work by women directors specifically before finding these films. We are narrowing our minds, and eclipsing many insightful works. Featuring work by women directors should not be noteworthy. It should be standard. As standard as featuring the work of male directors is today.
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