CMU School of Drama


Monday, October 24, 2016

‘Jessica Jones’ Hires All Women Directors for Season 2

Variety: All 13 episodes of the second season of “Marvel’s Jessica Jones” will be directed by women, according to executive producer and showrunner Melissa Rosenberg.

Rosenberg discussed the all-female directing roster during her panel at Transforming Hollywood 7: Diversifying Entertainment, a conference held Friday at University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

8 comments:

Sarah Battaglia said...

I watched the first season of Jessica Jones and I didn't love the plot or the acting very much but I did really enjoy what it was trying to do for female leads on TV. The main plot of the show is a woman who is trying to escape a man who has this fixation with her and has manipulated her and made her feel small. Yes, this man has powers in the show but it a commentary on the way that women are treated by men, and the power that society gives them. What I am starting to see these "female power" shows do is work more diligently to try and do what they are preaching in their shows instead of just preach it. Hiring all female directors is an amazing start, and hopefully more shows, whether they are about "female power" or not will start to hire more directors. I know that television direction is one of the more male dominated parts of our field and each small part of the industry we break into helps change the work that gets put out and the expectation of those entering the business now. When companies are successful in hiring women it is because they decide they are going to make a change, it is a conscious effort, often spearheaded by other women. I used to think that that was unfair and somehow cheating, but then I realized that man have only been hiring men for all of eternity so it's probably okay that we start to do it right now.

Kimberly McSweeney said...

I know this is a fantastic stepping-stone of progress for the industry as a whole – but I can immediately see some logic that the average person might have issues with, to be perfectly honest, it makes me a little uncomfortable as well. While I understand the importance of data tracking and making decisions based on previous ones, it feels a little unfair to pick people strictly based on the data that you haven’t picked people with those qualities before – in the most bassist sense, it feels like preferential hiring. And I know the logic actually makes perfect sense and that these decisions are being made to better the product and the industry as a whole, and I’m wicked excited that this progress is actually being made somewhere. I don’t watch Jessica Jones, but from what I’ve heard about it from my friends who do, it’s a lovely show full of action and adventure, and well-written to boot.

Brennan Felbinger said...

For one, I'm incredibly excited that the Jessica Jones series will be continuing into future seasons. It's very exciting to see a notoriously male-dominated corporation like Marvel having a TV drama with a female leading superhero character. Furthermore, its about time a major series was being directed entirely by women. I think the creative team on the show saw a definite opportunity in using an all-female directing team being that the series was praised for having such a strong female lead in the original season, and they really seized that opportunity in a positive manner. I look forward to a time when we don't necessarily write news articles praising a series for using an all-female directing team, and it's simply viewed in the same manner as using an all-male directing team, a setup that is all too common in TV today. I hope this series, as well as Marvel itself, continues to trail-blaze in the inclusion of women in male dominated entertainment.

Unknown said...

While I do think it's important that shows endorse the content that they are trying to promote through their business practices, I don't think hiring only women's directors will make it a better television show. Jessica Jones is a show about many things, but, above all, it's the story of a woman who is dealing with PTSD and having to confront the people that have wronged her to take back her mental health and her life. It's an important story to tell, but it was one that was initially told in a boring, wrap-around fashion that wasn't incredibly compelling to watch. The other point that the show made was to deconstruct the male/female relationship, but it's done in such a fashion where it beats you over the head with the fact that the lead character can do things on their own, but, to some end, this makes the plot suffer. For a show to promote it's messages, the story needs to be told intelligently, and use the fact that the main character is a woman to tell a story of triumph, not a story of stupidity and silly side-plots. By making all directors female, I hope that the male lens that colored some of the first season will be erased and the plotting will be cleaner and more efficient. I'm a sucker for these Marvel netflix series and look forward to seeing where this one goes.

Alexa James-Cardenas (ajamesca@andrew.cmu.edu) said...

The fact that they are making all the directors for Jessica Jones season 2 is interesting. I definitely can see where people can be overly enjoyed about this, and why some people might feel uncomfortable. As Kimberly McSweeney has pointed out, there is the worry that because they are specifically choosing directors with a specific trait, in this class all female, that they are being sort of unfair and bassist, and limiting their potential for something to come along. However, I don’t think that may be the case. I think that them looking for all female directors is a good thing, not just because power to females, but the fact that is they are giving women a chance to shine, where they might have been at a disadvantage because they are female. Yes, it may delete an opportunity for men, but gives a greater chance for women to prove their brilliance. How are we ever going to break the mold, if we don’t put a few kinks on it before head?

Sabrina Browne said...

I'm always excited to see women succeed in this field. I personally have not seen Jessica Jones, but I'm now considering it after reading this article and these previous comments. I can understand why people might feel uncomfortable or opposed to picking directors based off of a characteristic such as gender, but the same could be said about casting actors. The role of Jessica Jones was cast from a group of actresses for the part. The actresses too share the fact that they are all women. The show has many strong female characters and creators, and to me it makes sense (and is very exciting) for this show to select female directors.

Natalia Kian said...

The notion that it's "actually pretty simple" to diversify and expand the hiring process is something I wish I could tattoo on the backs of the eyelids of every producer, director, casting director, investor, and entertainment professional in Hollywood, New York, and basically everywhere else across the world. At least the ones who need it, anyway. What's important to note here is that this act, while not to be undercut or devalued, wasn't all that hard. It all started with an idea. The idea lead to a decision. And now that decision seems so revolutionary that it appears in articles on the internet. We tend to think of making strong choices as this crazy drawn-out process involving brainstorming and culling and cutting and starting all over again, which it can be. But it doesn't have to be romanticized or laborious. Sometimes all it takes is the resolve to make a simple thought a reality. That is what this article and this endeavor say to me. Sometimes you allow yourself to fail because you know it will lead to growth, and sometimes you follow your instinct and hold your ground. If you're lucky, people will ask themselves, "Why didn't I think of that?" and the answer will be something along the lines of "You did." or "Anyone could have." It's not always about originality. Sometimes it's about having the guts to do the simple but hard thing.

Unknown said...

"Track the data and pay attention to it." So simple, yet so difficult to achieve in modern society. Yet again, Marvel proves that it is on board for progress and advancing diversity intitiatives to move forward from a previously male-dominated part of the industry and that is one of the reasons that I actually like to watch their shows/movies consistently (besides the fact that they are generally good and funny). The thing about doing something like this and consciously hiring exclusively one gender/race/ethinicity for a job is that it helps remove the implicit bias in each us and makes it about intentional diversification. There are many talented people (male and female) in the industry, but men are more likely to get the jobs because men are the ones who do the hiring, and statistically speaking people hire people who look like them. When you put numbers to who can and cannot be hired, you force a group of hiring individuals to look past their own biases and place talented people in positions of power that they are perfectly capable of handling that might not have been hired otherwise. This does not mean that all hiring agents are awful people; this is just something that happens. Initiatives like the one Jessica Jones is taking forces the industry away from passivity.