theankler.com: Last week, I had the whim to take a look and see where things stood for female directors in Hollywood. I went into the count believing that after #MeToo, there may have been ups and downs, but overall things were in a much better place than they had been a decade ago.
To my shock, when I looked at the numbers, I found that not only are things not significantly better, 2025 has been worse than any moment in recent times; worse, in fact, than pre-#MeToo.
4 comments:
This article was incredibly informative as to the current state of representation amongst directors in top films and goes to emphasize the current problem that exists within this landscape of stagnant representation despite efforts and promises to change the state of this. The question that follows is why is change hard to guarantee or even see year after year? A first guess is a changing political landscape that now actively opposes this change and may even be causing executives who hope to stay on the good side of an administration by going in the opposite direction of diverse choices for creative teams, including directors. A second guess is more time as more and more prolific artists need to be found to fill these spaces. But, it must be acknowledged that these people already exist and can fill these spaces and are being ignored - this guess is moreso to say that when a larger proportion exists in the coming years, hopefully even more change in the mean will take place. Further, that more time may be related moreso to certain individuals leaving the industry that have been at the heart of preventing those who are deserving of getting their chance. There are a myriad of reasons, but none justify this phenomena.
Unfortunately, I think leadership from well established older white people lead to predictable outcomes that do not take brave action and that is what we have. Movies over the past decade have taken a wild shift from producing for the movie theater and dvd now films are to be streamed and a little bit for the algorithm itself. The reliability of a changing media consumption I think has made these leaders to be cautious on their decisions of who to put in charge of their investments. I think that this is also the reason behind so many remakes and sequels. They are relying on proven media to entice people to spend money on something similar to continue the success that they had before. This is a real worry that the producers have when they are investing close to billion dollars in these productions. I hope that at least time fixes these disparities if not decisive action.
I really don't wanna sound like a snowflake, but I was immediately thrown off two paragraphs into this article when the author was surprised that the #metoo movement would help female and non white directors be more successful… Im a bit lost with the authors reasoning here, did he think the #metoo movement was the epitome of feminism or something? The #metoo movement covers a completely different vein of problems in the workplace. ANYWAYS, it was really really disappointing to see these numbers and statistics. I was aware that change wasn't really happening, but I wouldn't think that things would be this bad. But needless to say I'm really not shocked, with our current political climate. I think a big part of this is because executives feel like the public stopped caring. They didn't think there would be much criticism or that people would call them out for their failed efforts. It is just so sad to see, but if I'm being honest, the majority of the movies these people are directing are probably awful anyway… Here is another reason to support independent film.
I think that Hollywood's backslide is entirely due to fear. Whether it's economic uncertainty, or fear of change, fear of diverse perspectives, I think that the people who are financing these products are fearful to finance products that feature unique perspectives.I think that it's a bad move, because I think that the more specific an experience that you portray, the more universal that experience feels to your audience. It’s also important to consider the numbers that are sourced in this article, as it shows that there is not a lack of diverse creatives available, only a disconnect between these creatives and new opportunities. It is interesting to see that after all this talk about “cancel culture” or “diversity hires”, our industry has remained largely the same in terms of how much further we have to go in order to achieve equity and fair representation within film and entertainment spaces.
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