The Atlantic: The biggest name in horror filmmaking is indisputably the producer Jason Blum. That’s a fact only reinforced by the staggering opening weekend of his newest movie, Halloween, which made $77.5 million in its first three days—a record for the 40-year-old franchise. Blum’s company, Blumhouse Productions, finances small-budget genre films and gives directors full creative control; it has been behind Oscar winners like Get Out and Whiplash, as well as extremely profitable franchises like The Conjuring, Insidious, and Paranormal Activity. Working with Blum can provide a solid path to mainstream success, which makes it particularly dispiriting that a female director has never made a theatrical horror film for Blumhouse.
2 comments:
"There just aren't women in the industry" is one of the most played out excuses and I am sick of it. There are plenty of women available to work these movies, and plenty of female directors who are interested in horror, but the systematic misogyny of the industry and the internalized misogyny of the people hiring for these films is what stops them. If the platform is being ripped out from under these women, they will never get the chance to show their worth. Claiming that they aren't experienced enough or that they just don't want to is just lazy, you just aren't paying attention. Female directors have displayed time and time again that they're capable of doing extraordinary things, between Sofia Coppola, Patty Jenkins, and the countless others who are capable of creating blockbuster movies and so much more. The excuses have to stop, it's time for the industry to have equality.
I completely agree with the author of this article. Jason Blum is not paying attention if he thinks there aren't female directors around. That said, the article does note the efforts he has made to work with women that have fallen through for a multitude of reasons. One thing I would like to know is why Jennifer Kent has turned him down several times. That may provide further insight into the issue, it may also be a coincidence. I also wonder how often he has attempted to work with women in comparison to men. It is not enough to reach out to women every once in awhile for variety's sake. It is necessary to reach out to women as often as men and to have no ulterior motive behind it. Hiring a woman to meet your own personal quota to be "woke" enough is in and of itself a discriminatory policy which contributes to the separation of men and women. Even though he apologized and has made efforts, the fact that his gut response was to say that female directors aren't interested in horror is indicative of a much more serious probably which goes back to years of misogyny and stereotypes.
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