Women and Hollywood: In 1998, "Deep Impact" left a serious impression at the box office, earning nearly $350 million dollars on an estimated $80 million budget. But we haven't seen much of its director Mimi Leder's work in theaters since. In a new interview with The New York Times, Leder gives a frank account of what happened to her career after her follow-up to the blockbuster disaster film, "Pay It Forward," was a critical and commercial failure. "I went to movie jail for quite a long time," Leder explained.
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This entire dynamic reminds me of a study that was once done in an accredited university between males and females applying for the same job. The resumes they handed in for the job were completely identical-- the credentials and everything. The only difference however was that one resume had a traditional female name on it and the other had a traditional male name on it. Time and time again, the female resume were called back for the job less times compared to the male one. There is this bias that still runs deep between the genders in jobs and the industry. The fact that only 7% of the 250 top grossing films of 2014 and 16% of 2014-2015 television season episodes were female directors is astounding and really goes to show that there is much more pressure on being a woman in the industry.
We like hearing about successful women in male-dominated fields, but rarely do we hear about unsuccessful women in male-dominated fields. This may seem obvious, but Mimi Leder's quot on the subject is certainly telling.
"Why are women clawing to be directors when there are male directors who have made two or three $200 million failures and get to make another one? That doesn’t happen with women. Never."
Ultimately, in this particular case, failure is just as important of an indicator as success, in terms of slowly changing Hollywood gender parity. Rarely do we think of what needs to be done to come back from failure, especially in creative industries such as film. Unlike other places, where a lost sale can be made up by other customers, artistic failure is a much more fickle thing to erase. A certain amount of faith and willingness to forgive, a certain trust, is necessary. Produces must have this trust to go out on a limb and fund another potentially disastrous project. It says far to much about the state of equality in Hollywood that this trust is something female directors are rarely, if ever, privy to.
I love how this article tries to portray women directing 16% of television episodes as a good thing, because it's more than a measly 7%. That's sad. In this world, men are handed opportunities that women and other oppressed groups fight their entire lives for. Women have to work twice as hard for half as much as what her male coworker gets on a daily basis, not just in directing, but in every field, even female dominated ones. Male teachers and nurses, for example, are on average paid more than their female counterparts, despite being predominantly female. So the chances or a woman breaking into such an expensive and male field are slim. I hope as our expectations of equality are heightened, Hollywood will follow suit.
This quote really gets the issue in one concise statement. There need to be more women in positions of power. This is the most efficient way to equalize the number of women who work in the industry. I thought that it was really interesting how true it is how men are allowed to mess up more than women are, which really isn’t right. It is extremely unfair, as well as telling of the entertainment industry culture, that women aren’t allowed to get a second chance. If they are imperfect once, they can never be perfect again.
These kind of articles always confuse me and make me sad. I would like to think that the reason behind all the female vs male in job hiring and salary making, especially when it comes to the entertainment industry is because of so many more factors than just if you are a man or a women. But, looking at the facts they provided, and the personal anecdote it really is silly of me to think differently. When people do the same amount of work, they should get paid the same amount, right? Well, thats not true in endless amounts of cases. I find it interesting that this article is highlighting the fact that a women is failing in her spot of the movie making world, and they compare it to men, because the norm is to find a women who made it far despite any set backs she may have encountered.
Although I don't think that men hiring is the only issue, I think that it definitely plays some sort of a role in the lack of female directors. Like the author said, "Why are women clawing to be directors when there are male directors who have made two or three $200 million failures and get to make another one?". People like M. Night Shyamalan and Adam Sandler continuously make crappy movies and are always asked to make more, while female directors have to fight their way to the top. Recently women have had more access to directing jobs, but still not nearly as many as men. I think that we are working towards equality in this issue, but real change will take awhile. Fifty years ago it was unheard of for a woman to make a successful movie, but now they are actively working in the industry. I'm really happy my class has an equal number of male and female directors, and I'm optimistic that this trend will continue.
This is, of course, always a disappointing topic to talk about. Yes, there is the concern of when women are getting the opportunities, they aren't getting paid the same as their male counterparts, but what about the situations when they aren't even allowed the same opportunities? It is difficult to strike this down as a totally immoral thing that men are imposing on women, because the way it is put in the article, "It's mostly males hiring, and they mostly hire males." It sounds totally outrageous, but it makes sense that those already established in the business would hire people like themselves. The part that is, I believe, the sketchy part of all of this is that the men already in the business aren't really giving women a chance. Like Leder says, it only takes one bad film to destroy a woman's career, likely because men believe we only get one shot to prove ourselves. It almost seems as though we're being done a favor by getting to do this one thing, and if we screw it up then we were never any good to begin with. Back to the male director.
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