theconversation.com: There’s an ongoing joke in our household. When I win at cards it’s luck. When my husband wins it’s skill. I often wonder if this is also how the industry perceives female film directors. And I always feel that when a male director makes a great film, he’s a great director – but when a female director does, it’s down to luck or a “team effort”.
4 comments:
It’s quite sad how articles like this come up every year and are still appearing. Although I truly appreciate the authors for speaking up about this, it’s just sad that little progress has been made. Everything Sam Firth said in this article is painfully true – female-identifying directors are stills severely underrepresented in the industry. The situation can only be worse for those who are disabled, BIPOC, poor or a combination of these. Frustrated as I am, Firth is also right about the limited funds and helps a single agency can provide. There aren’t many agencies can do unless the country sets out policies and quotas to protect its own independent, underprivileged filmmakers. As an audience member, it makes me wonder if there’s anything I can do to help. Obviously, I can always go watch films produced by independent filmmakers, but I wonder if that’s achievable when all the films playing in cinemas are made by male directors.
I like how the solution section in the article can be boiled down to “well the industry is vaguely working on it and basically we just need more movies to be made because that will increase the proportion of women directors.” Wow, big surprise. It’s sad that the number of directors who are women, nevertheless queer women and/or women of color, is scarce but it’s not surprising. Hollywood and the Academy Awards or any major awards ceremonies are as the article points out rooted in nepotism from families and communities dominated by mostly white people in power within the industry. The Academy Awards isn’t about handing out recognition to the most creative, innovative, artistic directors, designers, and actors, but rather it’s about awarding the best of the small group of people who have the privilege and connections to even break into the industry. The lack of women directors is an unshocking result of how directors of major films are actually chosen.
Firstly I love the way in which this article is written in terms of addressing the discrimination of women directors. I like how he gave us an overview over the problem because I for one knew that of course there is a lot of discrimination towards women within the film industry but I never really thought of directors. Even though I’ve seen multiple videos and articles discussing the difference between a film that is produced by women and how the portrayal of women within such films is shaped based on the difference between how they are perceived by men and women. Hey I felt that the section regarding if awards are meaningful/necessary was a great way to showcase how important being recognized and acknowledged for your work is as an artist. Because even though you and a plethora of others may believe that your work is stellar if you have nothing to show for it it takes a toll on you as an artist.Also I am glad to see that the article included a section of solutions that show even though solutions are being made they are simultaneously being cut down.
This article beautifully articulated so many problems that women still face within the film industry. I hadn't ever thought about skill versus luck but as I think back on my life I do notice a trend in what the work I have done is called. Of course, every movie is a team effort, that's why you have a team. Why do male directors get all the credit for movies while everyone else is left behind? That is not to say that the movies nominated this year don't deserve it because they are fantastic films but representation of the entire film industry is wildly important. It is a system that is broken that may never get fixed. This is due to, as mentioned in the article, a lack of funding. One could argue that this money could be used in different ways that help amplify other voices in the directing world but whether or not that is a priority to the Oscars team will remain to be seen.
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