io9.gizmodo.com: It’s been quite a few days for mega-producer Jason Blum. The man behind Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Split, Get Out, and many other horror hits is set to have the biggest opening of his career thanks to Halloween—but in an interview about the film, he made some bad remarks explaining why his Blumhouse Productions hasn’t worked with many female directors. He’s now walked back that statement.
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I was not expecting this story to be heartening, but I was pleasantly surprised. Blum’s comments were certainly less than helpful, but they seem based more in ignorance than malice. And maybe this was a well executed PR coverup, but as far as I can tell, his apology was not only sincere but seemed to be the result of a legitimate self reflection and rethinking on his part. This is one of the few stories of powerful entertainment industry men saying something stupid about women that has a positive conclusion. The common defense is that comments were taken “out of context” or that whoever said something stupid was joking or teasing. These explainations are unhelpful. Even if comments are taken out of context, they were still taken that way, and refusing to take responsibility served to normalize those comments, seemingly saying, “no big deal.” And even if the person was joking, not taking responsibility trivializes and dismisses the problem rather than addressing it. I hope more men will follow Blum’s lead in the future.
I’m glad to hear that Jason Blum apologized for what he said about female directors, particularly because I’m a fan of the films he produces and wasn’t really looking for a reason to hate him. I think he actually handled the situation pretty well, which I wasn’t expecting, we have seen situation like this taking a turn toward the defensive rather than the apologetic and I think he set a good example of gracefully admitting a mistake and trying to right a wrong.
That being said, the fact that his remark was so automatic and that that was what he came up with “without thinking” says a lot about what we accept as “normal” in the industry and in the world today. The thought of there being female directors interested in horror is so “out of the ordinary” (they are being so ignored) that Jason Blum just assumed they didn’t exist. That’s just wild.
I agree that the comment was pretty dumb. Obviously there are a lot of women directors. I get why Blum says what he said. He has mostly worked with male directors, he probably mostly knows male directors, those are the people that come to his mind, he never actively tried to find women to direct his productions, and so he said what he believed to be true. I think that most people have probably said something with that degree of sexism/ racism/ homophobia without really thinking it through or realizing what they are saying. The difference is that most people aren’t saying it in an interview that is going to be published. This doesn’t make what he said okay, though I think his apology does seem genuine and I feel like this particular mistake is a forgivable one (in isolation, if he keeps saying sexist things and apologizing after but doesn’t learn from the mistakes that is a different matter). However, I do think we should remember that we all say things without thinking the full implications of our statements through, and we should work on doing that less even though it doesn’t end up in the news when we say it.
First off I appreciate Mr. Bulm's apology. I do not so easily forgive him, but I agree with the previous commenters that his comment seemed to come from a place of pure ignorance not malice, but in reality if we are going to continue to wonder why comments like this continue to get made over and over, we are going to have to bring up Mr. Blum. Seemingly an educated and successful man Mr. Blum was simply ignorant. Equal opportunity education seems like a must in today’s world. I participated in numerous lessons on privilege, bias and other key related topics in high school, but educating on how to choose people to work with in order to increase opportunities to all was not a topic of conversation and It really should be. How else will these ideas be put into practice. Overall we should use Mr. Blum as a teaching tool rather than just brushing him off as an ignorant man.
This turned out much better than I had expected. Often in such cases the apologies seem dis-genuine and most part of a public relations recovery attempt on the behalf of their organizations to save face and business. Here though I would agree with others that much of these statements were full of ignorance rather than malice. I’m glad that he made a formal apology aNd is working to broaden his perspective and views on the world. This field is already so male dominated that we need more people to recognize the problems they are creating and find ways to instigate change for those who can’t make change themselves. I really hope that this has been eye opening enough that alum can begin not find ways to wrk with more women and help create a space for women in the industry.
When I first read this article’s headline I assumed that this would be another typical ‘please keep buying my stuff’ apology. You know, the one that doesn’t actually apologize, puts the blame on those hurt by the comments, and is generally fake. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that that was actually a pretty decent apology. Blum made a stupid comment, and he apologized for it, which is great. But the real test will be to see if he does anything about it. Will he think more carefully next time he’s asked about this subject? Will he work to bring in more diverse directors on his films? An apology implies action to make sure that situation doesn’t happen again, and that’s how you know someone meant it. Let’s see how Blumhouse Productions deals with this issue in the future. I can only hope they genuinely took this moment to learn and grow.
I agree with Emma that when I first read the headline I was expecting to get the "sorry that you felt like I hurt your feelings" response to blatant sexism which is what I am seeing constantly. Instead it seems like he made a mistake realized it was a mistake and said sorry. Now I think we have to forgive him. I am all for holding men accountable but as we start to hold them more accountable we will find that many of them, if not all of them have made mistakes or said or done things they are not proud of. Obviously there are levels to this and not everything can or should be forgiven but if we start to exile everyone or make them feel bad about something small that they have apologized for then there is no progress in that. We just continue to create divide. This is a perfect example of how to handle something when you misstep. Take a few days, say you're sorry, mean it, and then lay low for a while until the people around you, the women around you are ready to forgive. Let's hope that more companies and more men follow his lead.
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