www.salon.com: Writer and director Nicole Holofcener has never been offered a "Star Wars" movie. She's never, on the strength of her Independent Spirit or Writers Guild of America award nominations, had a Marvel franchise thrown at her feet. Yet in more than 20 years of making small, smart movies including "Enough Said" and "Friends with Money," and working with actors like Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Frances McDormand and Toni Collette, she's proven herself exactly the kind of writer-director Hollywood typically loves. Her movies get glowing reviews and always turn a profit.
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People are often typecast according to their sex. Men are expected to play ambitious characters; women are to play homely characters. Men are expected to be entrepreneurs; women are expected to be homemakers. But what happens when this "line" is blurred by a few "powerful" people?
People end up recognizing them as a prodigy because of their sex.
That is the problem that Film maker Nicole Holofcener has with the people address her: a "female director". Are men called "male directors"? No! But then why women, although they have achieved enough to be recognized properly, without any categories.
Although Nicole is an accomplished film maker, been part of movies that have appreciated by all, she is not addressed as a "director"; rather she is addressed as "female-director" which gives the idea of how it is some sort of a miracle for hr to become one. Although that is not the case! And people need to change that outlook.
A few times a year, I find myself discussing something similar to the title of this article, trying to explain the impact that it has on women in the industry. Most of the time, I think it's with second-wave feminists, who see power in explicit declarations of womanhood. I was hoping to find a little more explicitly stated theory in this article to use as ammunition, but I think it's actually a further symptom of the “female___” problem. Holofcener discusses the characters she's created and the work she's done in detail, but she doesn't really go into much detail regarding her own career. She says that she doesn't always get the budget she wants, and she has to fight for what she gets, but none of that is revelatory. I imagine that she has to put a great deal of energy into keeping peace and playing politics in order to get what she does, and I would bet that going into greater detail regarding inequality would be a risky move.
I think it is incredibly important to recognize female talent because it is something that is usually over looked. We usually don't notice how white and male our world is. That said, I agree that referring to someone as a "female director" is counter-productive. The goal is to make diversity normal. It is so important that we integrate more to the point that putting labels in front of every single occupation seems ridiculous. Hopefully this article shows that we are getting there. We should still recognize achievements and milestones of diversity, but a director should only be called a “female director” when it is relevant. What Holofeener is referencing in this article is every time she is singled out for little reason. Yes, it is impressive that she has made it in the business as a woman because that didn’t use to happen so much, but there comes a time where that becomes normal and it is instead odd to think that women cannot make it in entertainment.
I’m not surprised that Holofcener is more interested in making movies about flawed characters. I personally find it more interesting to watch movies about characters who are not perfect. What I find the most interesting point that the article brings up is that technology makes it easier to create bad movies. Almost everyone has a camera on there phone, but the money is what allows directors their creative freedom. I also think it's interesting that she chose to put the movie on Netflix and have creative control versus have the movie in the theater, which is her preference. This could be why so make people are more interesting in Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming platforms as opposed to traditional movies. I wonder if traditional movies will start to give directors more creative freedom to compete. Overall, it's amazing that directors are getting more freedom to create the art that they want to make.
I love the insistence that Holofcner uses when she insists she’s just a director not a “female director.” Having those qualifiers is such a pain and makes it seem like a “female director” can’t make something as well as just a “director.” This applies as well to other qualifiers that we like to add “black” “Asian” “LGBT” or what have you. Beyond that this article is interesting in it’s scratching of the surface of the difference between straight to Netflix and theatrical movie releases. Skipping the theater and going straight to home video used to imply a certain sense of quality that movie would have, but streaming services are really changing that in a shocking way. It does make me curious on how that balances when you start to talk about “box office” numbers and recouping the money to make a show. When you purchase or rent a video, or go see it in the theaters, a cut of that goes to the production company. I wonder how Netflix works with streaming. I don’t actually know this and am going to go look it up, but is it like Spotify where for each listen the artist gets a kick back? Or is it a set rate determined by how long the movie is on Netflix? And what’s the difference with something created by Disney versus Netflix original content. How do you determine how many people have watched a thing and what the “profit” of that is? I’d love to see more on that subject.
This is so important. Female workers and artists are so often labeled as female first. Occupation second. Nobody says “David Nelson, a male director”, but often you will see “Female director Angela Lee” like, okay, we get it, you’re just reinforcing the patriarchy by subconsciously and quietly laying down that this job is typically not for women. Which is so untrue and frustrating. She is a doctor, not a “female doctor”. It is necessary and disregarding to label a woman’s job with her sex or gender first. I get it, for some of these positions, there are simply not many women in that area (which is another problem that is to be unpacked entirely) so sometimes it is big to say “female pilot” because maybe she was the first, or one of a few. But in most cases, this is not true. There are many female directors and doctors. They are just as qualified as their male counterparts.
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