AFTER THE SHOW
Movies, TV, Culture and Society
Number 492, March 28, 2010
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HOLLYWOOD SEXISM RUNS DEEP,
BIGELOW'S OSCAR OR NOT
movies has barely changed in 25 years
By John Greenwald
This is the second of two columns about Hollywood sexism.
In 1998, Steven Spielberg, working as a producer, picked Mimi Leder to direct an apocalypse thriller (the Earth's going to be hit by a comet), "Deep Impact" (1998). Leder had been working on NBC's "E.R." as a producer and director, but this was only her second movie. "Deep Impact" was an expensive, complicated production, with lots of special effects and some big name stars (Robert Duvall, Elijah Wood, Morgan Freeman).
Her next feature was the poorly reviewed, small-budget heist film, "The Code" 1999), followed a year later by "Pay it Forward," which barely broke even. Since then, Leder has returned to producing and directing hour-long TV shows.
Despite being anointed by Steven Spielberg and directing a highly successful, male-oriented action film, Leder's movie career has foundered for the last decade. Yes, it's that difficult for a woman director to succeed in Hollywood.
"How could a community that prides itself on its liberalism and progressivism fail so miserably?", asked Melissa Silverstein of the Women's Media Center. "Gender disparity runs rampant," she wrote in 2006. Today, little had changed -- except Kathryn Bigelow won a best director Oscar, the first for a woman.
Otherwise, the numbers for women in Hollywood are chilling.
In 2009, women made up 16% of all senior people making the industry's top 250 highest grossing movies: directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers and editors, according to Prof. Martha M. Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State.
That's a drop of 3 percentage points from 2001, and equals 2008's numbers.
Of directors, women were just 7%, in 2009, Lauzen reported, a drop of 2 percentage points from 2008. The 2009 percentage of women directors was the same way back in 1987.
The proportion the 250 top films directed by women has been roughly the same for 25 years, 7 to 9%, Lauzen said. "We're running in place. There's been no progress since 1987."
These numbers reveal some harsh truths about the picture business: The overall majority of movies are made for males in their teens and 20s. Action, gross-out comedies, thrillers, horror, cops, war and superheroes. That market also determines who directs the movies.
Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" is a war film that focuses exclusively on men. Indeed, all of her films have been actioners of one kind or another, including her excellent cop thriller, "Blue Steel" (1989), which starred Jamie Lee Curtis. That's why many in Hollywood think she's an outsider, wrote Rachel Abramowitz in the Los Angeles Times. A woman doing a man's job.
The industry's sexism even includes speaking parts. Actresses were cast in only 29.9% of 4,379 roles in the 100 top-grossing films of 2007, reports Stacy L. Smith, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communications & Journalism.
When women were directors, female characters rose to as high as 44.6%, compared with 29.3% when the director was a man. Still, the percentage of women characters "hasn't changed since the 1940s. It's disheartening at best," Smith told the L.A. Times. She also discovered that women tended to be "eye-candy," more likely to be wearing scanty clothing (27% vs. 4.6% for men), or displaying mild nudity, such as cleavage or thighs (21.8% vs. 6.6% for men).
Behind these awful numbers are equally depressing stories of what women must put up with in the supposedly liberal film industry.
Catherine Hardwicke, who launched the launch the successful "Twilight" franchise ($385 million worldwide), has had trouble getting her next film going, she told the Times. "One producer was candid enough to say 'We want to go to a guy,'" she said. "Other times you just feel it by the questions they ask you. ... A lot of people think that women can't do [special] effects. That was my first job when I came to Hollywood, working in an effects house!"
Women directors have sidestepped Hollywood sexism by making "women" pictures. "Most female directors have risen to power by directing (and often writing) films that appeal to women, whether or not that's their natural inclination," the Times' Abramowitz wrote.
In recent years, women audiences have made "women" pictures hits at the box office, witness "It's Complicated" (2009), written and directed by Nancy Meyers; "Julie & Julia," (2009), written and directed by Nora Ephron; and Anne Fletcher, director of "27 Dresses" (2008) and "The Proposal" (2009).
Still, women have much to overcome.
Martha Coolidge, director of "Rambling Rose" (1991) and the first woman president of the Directors Guild of America, told Britian's Guardian newspaper of the female president of a major studio who said, "no woman over 40 could possibly have the stamina to direct a feature film. ... [Films are] too big, too tough for a female director."
"The worst," Coolidge said, "was when my agent sent another woman director in for an interview, and afterwards the guy called up and said, 'Never send anyone again who I wouldn't want to [obscenity deleted].'"
Jane Campion (1993's "The Piano") told the Guardian that women directors must develop a thick skin. "My suspicion is that women aren't used to that. They must put on their coats of armor and get going."
Readers can e-mail John Greenwald at johnedit@comcast.net.
-- 30 --Copyright 2010 by John Greenwald. All rights reserved
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