tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/women-in-film-28262/articles
Women in film – The Conversation
2023-04-19T05:48:20Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/203930
2023-04-19T05:48:20Z
2023-04-19T05:48:20Z
ACMI’s Goddess asks us rethink our gaze – and the bias it contains – when we look upon women on the screen
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521765/original/file-20230419-19-zlj6co.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4493%2C2984&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">ACMI's Goddess: Power, Glamour, Rebellion. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eugene Hyland Photography</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The most fascinating aspect of screen museum ACMI’s new exhibition <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/goddess/">Goddess: Power, Glamour, Rebellion</a>, and the major contribution it makes, is the way it generates fresh understandings of women on screen, including in relation to Australia. </p>
<p>Goddess has been in planning for five years, celebrating 120 years of women and the moving image. Curated in Australia by Bethan Johnson for ACMI, the museum will eventually travel it globally. </p>
<p>Geena Davis and her institute on <a href="https://seejane.org">Gender in the Media</a> are the perfect partners for the new show; not only because Davis is a screen goddess herself, but because of her leadership. Gender in the Media is a research and advocacy organisation which looks at the representation of gender and sexuality, race, disability, age and body types on screen.</p>
<p>“You cannot be what you cannot see” frames not just the mission of Davis’ institute, but points to the key message of the show: the power and significance of representation. </p>
<p>The exhibition features cinematic moments, iconic costumes, sketches, posters, photographs, magazines and interactive experiences. You can even make a goddess image of yourself to take home.</p>
<p>Stars we ordinarily think of as goddesses are showcased, such as Marilyn Monroe, Pam Grier and Davis in clips and costumes of their iconic roles. </p>
<p>But the show also asks audiences to rethink what a “goddess” might be understood to be, do and mean.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-are-the-women-scientists-tech-gurus-and-engineers-in-our-films-70032">Where are the women scientists, tech gurus and engineers in our films?</a>
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<h2>Aussie goddesses</h2>
<p>Curators draw their inspiration and vision from the culture within which they operate. The exhibition, therefore, has something to say about – or from – this country and its talent.</p>
<p>The Australian lens shaping the selection, presentation and commentary about characters, stories and experiences is initially invoked by the soundscapes created by Melbourne-based composer, DJ and musician Chiara Kickdrum. </p>
<p>This continues further inside, in a darkened room where audiences see a montage of clips of stars speaking at awards and events about industry ageism, sexism, racism, advocacy for women and female courage. First Nations filmmaker Leah Purcell, in full regalia at the AACTA awards, says: </p>
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<p>It’s truth telling that this country needs to hear [so] we can move to the future with better understanding of who we are as a nation. </p>
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<p>Elsewhere, the exhibition features “Fearless Nadia” (Mary Ann Evans), an Australian actor who became Bollywood’s leading stunt woman in the 1930s, swinging from chandeliers, leaping from speeding trains and taming lions. She was one of the earliest female leads of Hindi cinema.</p>
<p>Australian Hollywood costume designer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orry-Kelly">Orry-Kelly</a> won three Academy Awards and the show includes the iconic costume he created for Marilyn Monroe for Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959). </p>
<p>In the book that accompanies the exhibition, a quote from Monroe gives an insight into being typecast by her body: </p>
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<p>I am tired of the same old sex roles. I want to do better things. People have scope, you know. </p>
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<h2>The body of the goddess</h2>
<p>A key element of this exhibition is the spectacular display of the body of the screen goddess – from classical Hollywood to contemporary popular culture.</p>
<p>ACMI is framing the goddess not just by the tired “starlet” and “bombshell” tropes, but as a woman who pushes boundaries, questions norms and stereotypes.</p>
<p>At the beginning of the exhibition we encounter fashion model Winnie Harlow in Monroe’s iconic pink dress from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfsnebJd-BI">Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend</a>, a performance in the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.</p>
<p>The beautiful Harlow is a spokesperson for the skin condition vitiligo (where her skin has lost colour in parts). Her gaze is confident: she invites our gaze in return, challenging notions of perfection. Her flesh becomes costume, and I think of the idea “it is not what you wear, but how you wear it” — a kind of mantra for individualism (although what she wears also has its own meanings and legacy). We are all unique, but her skin conveys this idea. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521763/original/file-20230419-16-gvtlwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521763/original/file-20230419-16-gvtlwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521763/original/file-20230419-16-gvtlwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521763/original/file-20230419-16-gvtlwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521763/original/file-20230419-16-gvtlwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521763/original/file-20230419-16-gvtlwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521763/original/file-20230419-16-gvtlwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521763/original/file-20230419-16-gvtlwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Winnie Harlow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Albert Sanchez</span></span>
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<p>In clips we see the pressure on female actors to achieve an impossible standard of beauty. </p>
<p>Olivia Colman argues for the messy, imperfect body: </p>
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<p>I’m an actor, not a model and I think you should be able to look horrendous […] that’s what I love doing. </p>
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<p>A young Helen Mirren asks a journalist whether he means “serious actors cannot have big bosoms?” </p>
<p>Speaking across the decades Audrey Hepburn, Kate Winslet, Michelle Yeoh and Ellen DeGeneres all offer commentaries about how their ageing bodies have influenced their selfhood and careers. </p>
<p>A youthful Jane Fonda alludes to her experience of being a body and not a mind: </p>
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<p>people seem to think that if you’re a girl, you have to behave in a way that is not militant or political, especially if you’re an actress […] how dare an actress think or be political!</p>
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<p>Gender fluidity, women of colour, queer women, culturally diverse goddesses, and high-kicking action heroines all have something to say about the myriad of ways that we can understand a goddess in 2023. </p>
<p>As this exhibition has it, the goddess can be anything she wants to: not just swing from chandeliers, leap from speeding trains or the backs of lions (while being drop dead gorgeous). </p>
<p>In the battle to be represented, she has been seen, she has offered a female gaze — one where they are individuals rather than ideals or icons. Goddess asks us to rethink our own gaze, and the bias it contains, to see the ways in which identities are constructed in media, according to the belief systems of the culture that created them. In this, the exhibition admirably succeeds.</p>
<p><em>Goddess: Power, Glamour, Rebellion is at ACMI, Melbourne, until October 1.</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/changing-the-portrayal-of-women-in-film-means-getting-more-women-behind-the-lens-60021">Changing the portrayal of women in film means getting more women behind the lens</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa French was a guest speaker for ACMI's Public Program aligned to the Goddess exhibition: 'Being Seen on Screen: The Importance of Representation'.
RMIT University, ACMI’s Major Research Partner.</span></em></p>
Stars we ordinarily think of as goddesses are showcased, but the show also asks audiences to rethink what a ‘goddess’ might be.
Lisa French, Professor & Dean, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/200475
2023-03-07T21:19:18Z
2023-03-07T21:19:18Z
No Oscar nominations again for female directors: how the industry can better support diverse filmmakers
<p>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”.</p>
<p>There has again been much <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/oscars-2023-best-director-no-women-nominees-1235307595/">criticism</a> of the Academy Awards in 2023 for <a href="https://variety.com/2023/awards/awards/no-women-directors-nominated-oscars-1235496819/">its lack of diverse representation</a> among nominees. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64557717">Danielle Deadwyler</a> and Viola Davis are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-01-24/oscar-nominations-2023-oscarssowhite-again-black-actors">noticeably absent</a> from best actress nominations and despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/women-talking-a-radical-film-that-reimagines-how-cinema-can-be-made-199535">Sarah’s Polley’s Women Talking</a> being nominated for best picture, there are <a href="https://www.varsity.co.uk/film-and-tv/18562">no women nominated for best director</a>. Gina Prince-Blythewood and Chinonye Chukwu, the directors of Woman King and Till, <a href="https://variety.com/2023/awards/awards/no-women-directors-nominated-oscars-1235496819/">could also easily have been considered</a>.</p>
<p>It’s not just the Oscars. There is a lack of recognition <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180508-the-data-that-reveals-the-film-industrys-woman-problem">across the film industry</a>, including in the UK. Only two women have ever won a best directing Bafta, though <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIia0voUKzw">Charlotte Wells</a> picked up the outstanding debut award for her direction of Aftersun at this year’s ceremony.</p>
<p>There are barriers at every stage for award nominations, starting with how many films are directed by women. In the UK, only <a href="https://www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/2021-review/">19% of releases</a> in 2022 were directed by women, up from just 11% in 2017. This is a <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/news/number-of-female-made-films-dropped-6-in-the-uk-in-2022/5177701.article">constant battle</a>. And, in fact, the number of films directed by women from ethnic minorities has actually dropped <a href="https://www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/2021-review/">in recent years</a>.</p>
<p>According to a 2016 <a href="https://directors.uk.com/news/cut-out-of-the-picture#the-causes">study by Directors UK</a>, the reasons for this bias are complex and exist even when the gatekeepers are women. The <a href="https://d3gujhbyl1boep.cloudfront.net/uploads%2F1461940382406-gnb2r9f35gxugf12-afb0cfebbe88a829a082dc0b70cc5e7b%2FCut+Out+of+The+Picture+-+Campaign+Brochure+%5B2016%5D.pdf">same study</a> found persistent ingrained misogyny and stereotypes of women as less capable. Hiring in the film industry is often last minute, ad hoc and reliant on “word of mouth”, leading to poor HR practices and entrenched nepotism. New entrants are often expected to work for free and <a href="https://www.raisingfilms.com/research/">conditions for parents and carers are poor</a>.</p>
<p>Even when a film has been made, the awards selection process entails more prejudice. Distribution executives decide which films to <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/2/21/18229512/oscar-campaigns-for-your-consideration-events-narratives-weinstein">promote</a> based on what has been successful before. Bafta and Oscar members are drawn from an industry <a href="https://www.bafta.org/media-centre/press-releases/membership-survey-results-commitment-targets-2025">lacking in diversity</a> and it has been questioned whether they even <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/01/oscars-stephen-king-carey-mulligan-watch-the-movies">watch all of the films</a>. With limited time they are likely to select the films they perceive as contenders.</p>
<h2>Do awards really make a difference?</h2>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2001.tb00046.x">Studies show</a> that Oscar nominations encourage more people to see a film. Audiences may not know the name of a director, but they are more likely to get another shot from funders if they’ve had previous success. Funders and distributors see each film as gamble – anything that improves a director’s odds helps in their eyes.</p>
<p>Consequently, a major award such as an Oscar is more significant the earlier it happens in a director’s career. Andrea Arnold was already in production for Red Road when her short film Wasp won an Oscar in 2004, but (along with her Jury Prize at Cannes for Fishtank) it undoubtedly helped propel her career.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Andrea Arnold accepts her Oscar for Wasp in 2005.</span></figcaption>
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<p>It doesn’t always work. Harry Wootliff’s debut short film Nits was nominated for a Bafta in 2003 but it was ten years before she directed her first feature, Only You. Having won accolades for Ratcatcher (1999), Lynne Ramsay had an almost ten-year hiatus between Morvern Caller (2002) and We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011).</p>
<p>Awards aren’t just about improving chances in the eyes of funders. Women are already behind men in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-confidence-gap/359815/">self-confidence and self-esteem</a>, which are hard to maintain without recognition when you are continually disadvantaged and face sexism on and off set. And things don’t necessarily get easier as careers progress. With increased caring responsibilities and pressure to earn, film directing is a high risk and expensive occupation. Female directors often make huge sacrifices to get their films made.</p>
<p>The recognition of an award can mean the difference between stopping and continuing. I’ve been making short films since 2009 which have won a few awards at film festivals. Being recognised by people in the industry I hold in high esteem has spurred me on at times when I have almost given up.</p>
<p>In 2022 I was awarded the inaugural <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/news/tilda-swinton-winners-bfi-chanel-filmmaker-awards">BFI Chanel Filmmaker Award</a> for my first feature film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15464706/">The Wolf Suit</a>. Actress Tilda Swinton, who was chair of the jury, took my hands in hers and told me to never stop making films. This small act will always stay with me.</p>
<p>If you are a female director who is also black or queer, deaf or disabled, the challenges are even greater as different prejudices intersect (<a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/inclusion-film-industry/diversity-inclusion-how-were-doing">deaf and disabled filmmakers</a> are particularly underrepresented). Class is also an important factor, with a disproportionate number of <a href="https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/film-and-tv/42-bafta-winners-privately-educated-reveals-study-1482122">privately educated people in the industry</a>.</p>
<h2>What is the solution?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/inclusion-film-industry/bfi-diversity-standards">Public funding agencies are prioritising films</a> by ethnically diverse, queer and female filmmakers and are starting to also look at socioeconomic background. However, the BFI’s budget was cut by 10% this year and with an ever-decreasing pot their efforts <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/feb/05/terrifying-funding-killing-creativity-warns-multi-oscar-winner">are limited</a>.</p>
<p>There is too much pressure on these agencies to fund films that turn profit rather than funding new voices. In Scandinavia, funding commissioners are on short, fixed-term contracts to ensure there is a continual <a href="https://www.dfi.dk/files/docs/2018-02/artofindividual.pdf">rotation in decision makers</a>. This is something the UK could consider.</p>
<p>More British films in cinemas would also help. From the 1930s until 1960 the <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/cinema.htm#:%7E:text=In%201927%2C%20the%20Cinematograph%20Films,effects%20were%20hard%20to%20measure.">British Cinematograph Act</a>, which ensured a proportion of films were made in the UK, produced a boom in UK cinema production that could compete with the US. Now, quotas could be reintroduced or applied to streaming giants to bring in new voices. </p>
<p>The only hope for a properly representative cinema in the UK – and therefore representative award ceremonies – is if enough independent UK productions are being made.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Firth has previously received funding from the British Film Institute. </span></em></p>
Awards aren’t just about improving chances in the eyes of funders – the recognition of an award can mean the difference between stopping and continuing.
Sam Firth, Lecturer School of Business and Creative Industries, filmmaker, University of the West of Scotland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199535
2023-02-09T15:50:28Z
2023-02-09T15:50:28Z
Women Talking – a radical film that reimagines how cinema can be made
<p>Words matter. They give expression to our experiences, allow us to tell our stories and make sense of our place within the world. With language comes the ability to speak: to speak for, and to speak out. To name injustices and imagine alternative futures. The radical feminist Audre Lorde tells us that <a href="https://silverpress.org/products/your-silence-will-not-protect-you-by-audre-lorde">our silence will not protect us</a>, that we must turn our silence into words, and those words into action.</p>
<p>The director Sarah Polley’s Women Talking follows a group of women as they find the language to talk about their experiences of violence and collectively imagine a future that might bring an end to the harms they have endured at the hands of men. Based on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/10/women-talking-miriam-toews-review">Miriam Toews 2018</a> novel of the same name, both the film and the book are an imagined response to a series of real-life sexual attacks on a group of women in a Mennonite community in Bolivia.</p>
<p>The film is set almost exclusively in a barn in which the women of the colony hold a secret meeting to determine whether to stay or leave following the attacks. Crucially, the women are unable to take the minutes of their meeting, as they can’t read and write, reminding viewers of language’s power to exclude; that language is man-made and so serves those who created it.</p>
<p>Cinema, like the written word, has long been the province of men. Since the days of the studio system (around 1917-1960) women have been systematically excluded from <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/feminist-film-studies/9781904764038">significant creative roles</a> and continue to remain a minority when it comes to <a href="https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2022-celluloid-ceiling-report.pdf">directing and producing</a>. Women Talking is therefore a remarkable film in that it is both written, directed and produced by women.</p>
<h2>Rewriting the rules</h2>
<p>As is so often the case in filmmaking, the gruelling shooting schedule, often on location miles from home, prevents many – typically female – caregivers from assuming the role of director. </p>
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<p>A mother of three young children, Polley expected only to write the film and <a href="https://johnaugust.com/2023/the-one-with-sarah-polley">hand the project over</a>. However, producers Frances McDormand and Dede Gardner were keen to have Polley at the helm. To facilitate this, a radical shift in established creative practices was required.</p>
<p>Together, McDormand, Gardner and Polley rewrote the masculine rules of filmmaking.</p>
<p>A feminist ethics of care was placed at the centre of their process. Polley ensured that they kept to ten-hour working days to allow cast and crew appropriate rest times. This also ensured that those with caring responsibilities could take breaks whenever needed. They also hired a therapist who remained on set throughout filming. The result, <a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a42787088/women-talking-jessie-buckley-claire-foy/">according to cast and crew</a> was a nurturing and safe set.</p>
<p>Polley extends the same level of care to her audience. The film does not linger on the brutality of the attacks. Instead, the focus is on the myriad responses to such an ordeal – and completely without judgement.</p>
<p><a href="https://johnaugust.com/2023/the-one-with-sarah-polley">Polley reportedly</a> made the conscious decision to make the film “placeless”. She refuses to orient her audience by naming a location in which these attacks take place – though crucially we are given a time, 2010. The aim was to force all contemporary patriarchal societies and systems to recognise their complicity in violence again women and girls, rather than dismiss the horrific attacks as the product of a specific national, cultural or religious context. </p>
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<img alt="A director talks to the cast." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509165/original/file-20230209-26-k77w1n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509165/original/file-20230209-26-k77w1n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509165/original/file-20230209-26-k77w1n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509165/original/file-20230209-26-k77w1n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509165/original/file-20230209-26-k77w1n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509165/original/file-20230209-26-k77w1n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509165/original/file-20230209-26-k77w1n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Director Sarah Polley talks to the cast of Women Talking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.upimedia.com/libraries/2/titles/1077/assets">Orion Releasing LLC</a></span>
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<p>The #metoo movement made clear that gender-based violence holds no boundaries and exposed the film industry itself as a hotbed of abuse. In <a href="https://theunspeakablepodcast.libsyn.com/sarah-polleys-hollywood-debut-a-candid-conversation-with-the-canadian-star">a recent interview</a> with Meghan Daum, Polley reflects on the movement, which she believes has “stalled”. She says that while it illuminated the scale of the problem, it is important not to “get stuck” in the “helplessness and rage” but imagine “what a future might look like”. </p>
<p>Women Talking is an exploration of the possibilities and difficulties of imagining a future free from violence, both on and off screen. It captures the messiness of collective action and the beauty of solidarity in such a way that leaves the audience hopeful for what might be possible, while under no illusion of the struggle and sacrifice it will take to achieve it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199535/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Warner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Women Talking is a meditation on how we tell stories of rape and a thoughtful exploration of how films can be made.
Helen Warner, Lecturer in Cultural Politics, Communication and Media Studies, University of East Anglia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/180518
2022-04-06T09:31:02Z
2022-04-06T09:31:02Z
Will Smith: how films perpetuate the idea that women need saving
<p>Two days after actor <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/movies/will-smith-chris-rock-oscars.html">Will Smith hit comedian Chris Rock</a> in response to a joke about his wife, I gave a taster lecture to a group of year 12 students. I asked them if they agreed with Smith’s actions and 58% of them agreed that he was right to slap Rock. A man protecting a woman is, to some, benevolent. </p>
<p>His violent response to the situation was shocking and unexpected to many, including him. Smith’s aggression may be partly explained in terms of the culture of honour – a set of rules some men adhere to which dictate how to respond to a subjectively perceived threat. <a href="https://www.simine.com/240/readings/Cohen_et_al_(2).pdf">An insult</a> to one’s family or spouse may be a stimulus powerful enough to inspire behaviour otherwise considered irrational. </p>
<p>Although men defending a woman’s dignity may appear as an appealing romantic concept, it also assumes certain weaknesses in women. Perceiving women as weaker and more vulnerable is a form of protective paternalism that leads to <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.70.3.491">“benevolent” sexism</a>. This counterpart to hostile sexism relates to the behaviour of men who think of women as somewhat helpless, and thus in need of defending.</p>
<p>The debate about the incident has been deeply divided with some saying <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/28/celebrities-react-will-smith-hitting-chris-rock-the-oscars">he was wrong</a> but many, like my students, saying he was right. Films are full of heroes saving damsels in distress, including many of Smith’s. If pistols are drawn at dawn in films to protect the honour of insulted ladies and that is seen as a gallant and good thing, it is not surprising then that people would feel the same about real-life instances of benevolent sexism and the violence it inspires. </p>
<h2>Outdated gender roles</h2>
<p>The screen has its stereotypical heartthrobs, from the bad boys who punch up a guy for ragging on his girl or the gentleman who duels for the heart of a lady. By presenting a simplified and outdated image of men – as strong defenders – and women – as weaker and dependent – TV and cinema have been perpetuating traditional images of gender. The resulting, pervasive stereotypes serve as powerful cues impacting our social behaviour. Research has shown that some women are so attracted to the idea of being cherished and protected that they don’t see men exhibiting such brash behaviour as <a href="https://idp.springer.com/authorize/casa?redirect_uri=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1018814924402&casa_token=-y2ztJK8t8kAAAAA:BMoNBlIWoS9sVGuoTK9G2Zz0VM-0vODNPQM345wATO4YOfWLKkqdXjs0Ng-lrdr02JTqwX_2PdtGQ5zA8g">sexists at all</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The original cinema damsel in distress tied to a train track waiting to be saved.</span></figcaption>
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<p><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-34128-001">One influential study</a> explains this process in detail, arguing that observing how other people behave contributes to the formation of gender stereotypes. Especially among young viewers, it creates expectations about how men and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/107769900808500109?casa_token=Fsj6m3kfgNYAAAAA:JqLUzIFSGL2Md1EDXld_BR_Q5_EGICkk2EBJcaEFk6X8FzP9CjqvxJXSKY3sCBCnrBZ0KAZDgwZylQ">women should behave</a>. </p>
<p>Critically, celebrities have been said to influence not only, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/16/3/310/1818800">what clothes to wear or what to eat</a>, but <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0190272511398208">how to behave</a>. Will Smith may be considered a role model for many people, especially the young.</p>
<h2>A new 007</h2>
<p>Standards of male behaviour have changed and the concept of masculinity in film has evolved. Perhaps one of the best litmus tests of male representation in cinema, as well as in popular culture, is the evolution of James Bond. </p>
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<p>Looking at Sean Connery’s 007 compared to Daniel Craig’s manifests a considerable change in the definition of how cinema projects masculinity. In the first instalment, the act of killing was trivialised – often going unnoticed and sometimes even ridiculed. Also, female characters only provided visually pleasing background dressing in Bond’s story and were almost always portrayed as less intelligent and searching for male protectors. </p>
<p>Craig’s Casino Royal shows a different kind of masculinity. His Bond is emotional and vulnerable and the women are more fleshed out and real. The ladies in his life are not just romantic counterparts but have action scenes and drive the narrative. In No Time to Die, for the first time in history, although briefly, the 007 code was assigned to a woman. Not only do women no longer need protection, but now they protect others in one of the most hyper and historically toxic masculine franchises in cinema history.</p>
<h2>Words, not violence</h2>
<p>It seems that the movie industry is becoming more aware of various gender-related issues. Male characters are allowed more vulnerability and women can embody more authentic female characters. </p>
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<p>A different norm of male behaviour is being laid out in film and other media. Take London mayor Sadiq Khan’s <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/content/have-a-word">#Haveaword</a> campaign aimed at tackling violent male behaviour against women. The campaign encourages men to have conversations with their friends and other men and to call out bad behaviour wherever they might see it. The onus here is on words though and not on violence to diffuse situations. </p>
<p>Will Smith has given an unconditional <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CbqmaY1p7Pz/">apology to Chris Rock</a> and five days after the incident resigned <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/01/entertainment/will-smith-resigns-from-academy/index.html">from the Academy</a>. He did not look for excuses but instead tried to identify what might have caused his aggression. Being Will Smith has also one big advantage. He has the power and resources to make a positive impact on the younger generation – as a role model and actor making conscious character choices. Surely, he has also the wisdom to see his wife as able to defend herself, if she feels insulted and wishes to respond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michal Chmiel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Women in films are often damsels in distress. Psychology shows such representations can impact how people feel about violence and gender roles in real life.
Michal Chmiel, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/168012
2021-09-24T13:35:57Z
2021-09-24T13:35:57Z
Invisible lives: where are all the older women in film and TV?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423108/original/file-20210924-13-pfqiwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=90%2C27%2C5955%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alamy.com/original-film-title-grace-and-frankie-english-title-grace-and-frankie-film-director-dean-parisot-year-2015-stars-jane-fonda-lily-tomlin-credit-netflix-album-image209361045.html?pv=1&stamp=2&imageid=A802E47F-C9E9-4F2C-94F6-CC3E1FA7D243&p=697459&n=26&orientation=0&pn=1&searchtype=0&IsFromSearch=1&srch=foo%3Dbar%26st%3D0%26sortby%3D2%26qt%3Dgrace%2520and%2520frankie%26qt_raw%3Dgrace%2520and%2520frankie%26qn%3D%26lic%3D3%26edrf%3D0%26mr%3D0%26pr%3D0%26aoa%3D1%26creative%3D%26videos%3D%26nu%3D%26ccc%3D%26bespoke%3D%26apalib%3D%26ag%3D0%26hc%3D0%26et%3D0x000000000000000000000%26vp%3D0%26loc%3D0%26ot%3D0%26imgt%3D0%26dtfr%3D%26dtto%3D%26size%3D0xFF%26blackwhite%3D%26cutout%3D%26archive%3D1%26name%3D%26groupid%3D%26pseudoid%3D1324175%26userid%3D%26id%3D%26a%3D%26xstx%3D0%26cbstore%3D1%26resultview%3DsortbyPopular%26lightbox%3D%26gname%3D%26gtype%3D%26apalic%3D%26tbar%3D1%26pc%3D%26simid%3D%26cap%3D1%26customgeoip%3DGB%26vd%3D0%26cid%3D%26pe%3D%26so%3D%26lb%3D%26pl%3D0%26plno%3D%26fi%3D0%26langcode%3Den%26upl%3D0%26cufr%3D%26cuto%3D%26howler%3D%26cvrem%3D0%26cvtype%3D0%26cvloc%3D0%26cl%3D0%26upfr%3D%26upto%3D%26primcat%3D%26seccat%3D%26cvcategory%3D*%26restriction%3D%26random%3D%26ispremium%3D1%26flip%3D0%26contributorqt%3D%26plgalleryno%3D%26plpublic%3D0%26viewaspublic%3D0%26isplcurate%3D0%26imageurl%3D%26saveQry%3D%26editorial%3D%26t%3D0%26filters%3D0">Alamy</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a female actor in my mid 50s I’ve never felt more invisible, neither have I felt angrier. There are few parts out there for women my age and as much as there are some decent roles for the big guns – think <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-oscars-finally-made-it-less-lonely-for-women-at-the-top-of-their-game-157240">Frances McDormand in Nomadland</a>, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2019-09-18/catherine-ohara-schitts-creek-emmy-awards">Catherine O'Hara in Schitt’s Creek</a> or <a href="https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80017537">Jane Fonda in Grace and Frankie</a> – there simply aren’t enough to go around. It’s thoroughly depressing and it feels like it’s <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/women-film-representation-female-protagonists-2018-mans-celluloid-world-study-a8786616.html">getting worse</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://seejane.org/research-informs-empowers/the-ageless-test/">Research</a> from 2019 found that older women are often relegated to supporting roles in films – or are consistently portrayed as grumpy, frumpy or senile. </p>
<p><a href="https://seejane.org/wp-content/uploads/frail-frumpy-and-forgotten-report.pdf">The study</a> analysed representations of older adults, in the top-grossing films of 2019 in Germany, France, the UK and the US – with a specific focus on women aged 50 and over. The study found there weren’t any women over 50 cast in leading roles in 2019’s top films, while two men over 50 were featured as leads. And when older women did appear, they were cast stereotypically.</p>
<p>Another <a href="https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2018_Its_a_Mans_Celluloid_World_Report.pdf">study from 2018</a> found that only 35% of the top-grossing films from that year featured 10 or more female speaking characters. Compare this to the 82% that had 10 or more male characters in speaking roles.</p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/women-in-film-what-does-the-data-say/">an analysis</a> of over 10,000 films made in the UK between 1911 and 2017 found the gender mix in UK film casts has not improved since the end of the second world war. Female actors have also tended to make fewer films and have had shorter careers than male actors. </p>
<p>The analysis also found that unnamed characters who work in high-skilled occupations, such as a doctor, are also much more likely to be portrayed by men. </p>
<p>Caroline Noakes MP, the chair of the women and inequalities committee, has highlighted this <a href="https://youtu.be/GkFkRxU525k">issue on Twitter</a> saying she has written to Ofcom to ask for a meeting about the <a href="https://www.noon.org.uk/age-is-the-box-no-one-ticks-when-it-comes-to-diversity/">under representation of women</a> aged over 45 by UK broadcasters. </p>
<h2>Written out</h2>
<p>What’s perhaps most disturbing is the impact this is having on women and girls of all ages. It’s a painful irony that a multi-billion pound industry, purporting to mirror real life is essentially erasing women’s stories from our screens. </p>
<p>And when older women are shown, TV and film casting often favours women who have bodies that are the shapes and sizes of younger women. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262575877_The_Influence_of_Television_and_Film_Viewing_on_Midlife_Women's_Body_Image_Disordered_Eating_and_Food_Choice">Research from the US</a> has linked this to eating disorders and negative body image in older women.</p>
<p>The same goes for women <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20191129-why-arent-there-more-women-film-directors">behind the camera</a>. In the US, for example, women comprised just 8% of directors working on the top 250 US domestic grossing films in 2018.</p>
<p>Victoria Mapplebeck, professor in digital arts at Royal Holloway University of London has recently <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-won-a-bafta-with-my-iphone-after-struggling-to-re-enter-the-industry-as-a-mother-167560">written about</a> how she was unable to continue working as a film director after she had a child. She writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had to give up my career as a director overnight, realising that the insecurity of a freelancer didn’t mesh with being a single parent. Flexible working wasn’t on the table 17 years ago. Back then you were expected to work long hours and weekends. I knew this would be impossible while raising my son alone.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unable to get funding, she took matters into her own hands and used to iPhone to make a new documentary. She won a Bafta for her smartphone short <a href="https://victoriamapplebeck.com/films/missed-call/">Missed Call</a>.</p>
<h2>Women off-screen</h2>
<p>In my work as an actor and writer, I’ve witnessed how the industry treats older women – if I send a script to a producer, for example, I’m inclined to include only my initials.</p>
<p>I have recently written and performed a spoken word piece to raise awareness of this issue, in support of the <a href="https://instagram.com/actingyouragecampaign?utm_medium=copy_link%22">Acting your Age</a> campaign, which calls for equal career trajectory for men and women in the entertainment industry.</p>
<p>My piece talks to the Silver Foxes – the men of the industry: “bossing stage and screen, being seen while his female counterparts gather dust…tentatively wondering if surgery is an option”.</p>
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<p>The campaign, started by actor and campaigner, Nicky Clarke, has been supported by the likes of David Tennant, Julie Graham, John Simm, Amanda Abbingdon, Ray Winstone and Juliet Stevenson. </p>
<p>Hugh Quarshie, a Ghanaian-born British actor, who has also backed the campaign, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/CS1hl1mDIU7/?utm_medium=copy_link">likened the invisibility</a> of older women on screen to past black representations in TV and film. He says serious pressure must be put on the producers and broadcasters to provoke rapid change and deal with the problem of invisibility.</p>
<p>As part of her <a href="http://www.mrsnickyclark.com/-acting-your-age--campaign.html">research for the campaign</a>, Clarke found that only 9% of UK viewers can recognise more than 15 women over the age of 45 on our screens compared to 48% of viewers who can easily identify more than 15 men of that age on screen. </p>
<p>While 50/50 gender split in roles and more older women cast in TV and film will help matters, what we really need is more women behind the camera and in the writing studios telling stories that women of all ages want to hear. </p>
<p>In the age of multiple streaming services, this should be possible. Particularly so given that women <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/269943/daily-tv-viewing-time-in-the-uk-by-gender/">watch and stream more TV</a> shows than men. Women’s viewership needs to be valued, indeed, as the end of my poem states: “Beware, Beware, Beware…she ain’t going nowhere”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168012/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It’s a painful irony that a multi-billion pound industry, purporting to mirror real life is essentially erasing women’s stories from our screens.
Lisa Moore, Lecturer in comedy and performance, University of Salford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/167560
2021-09-10T10:47:26Z
2021-09-10T10:47:26Z
I won a Bafta with my iPhone after struggling to re-enter the industry as a mother
<p>I’m just back from The Venice Film Festival. When I was last there, pre-pandemic in 2019, I had a virtual reality project, <a href="https://victoriamapplebeck.com/films/the-waiting-room-vr/">The Waiting Room</a> in competition. When I posed on the red carpet with my fellow VR directors, the lineup was refreshingly inclusive with lots of women directors. It felt good.</p>
<p>The VR programmers, <a href="https://mediamorfosis.net/en/perfil/liz-rosenthal/">Liz Rosenthal</a> and <a href="https://cineuropa.org/en/dossierinterview/3108/382302/">Michel Reilhac</a> have always gone to great lengths to create a programme of works that is as diverse as their audience. Sadly this is not the case with the film festival as a whole. That year there were only two women in competition in the feature film programme.</p>
<p>Fast forward to 2021 and things have barely improved. Only five of the 21 films in competition this year are directed or co-directed by women. One of those women directors is Jane Campion who has just made <a href="https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2021/lineup/venezia-78-competition/power-dog">Power of the Dog</a> for Netflix.</p>
<p>Her advice to women directors during an interview in 2013, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jul/06/jane-campion-this-much-i-know">Please do not play the ‘lady card’</a>. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Just do your work and let someone else deal with the politics.”
During a recent press conference, Campion was asked the inevitable question about the lack of women directors in competition. She responded, “<a href="https://deadline.com/2021/09/jane-campion-benedict-cumberbatch-power-dog-venice-film-festival-women-directors-1234826168/">The girls are doing very well</a> … all I can say is since the #MeToo movement happened it’s like the Berlin Wall coming down.”</p>
<p>Comparing the #MeToo movement to the Berlin Wall falling seems like the triumph of hope over experience. Campion still can’t get beyond one hand when counting the women directors who have won an Oscar for best director – just two. Kathryn Bigelow in 2010 and a decade later Chloé Zhao for the brilliant Nomadland. </p>
<h2>Motherhood</h2>
<p>Earlier this summer, I had lunch with two women whom I’d taught over a decade ago. Both are brilliant filmmakers. Both now have small children and were struggling to combine motherhood with the long hours and high-pressure environments of film and TV. One of these women was so disillusioned, she was considering leaving the industry altogether. I hope that I dissuaded her. I understood only too well her sense of being a misfit in an industry that still works so much better for men than women.</p>
<p>Perhaps Campion would accuse me of playing “the lady card”, but <a href="https://variety.com/2018/artisans/production/moms-in-film-helps-industry-parents-1202725725/">like many women directors</a> my career also went off a cliff when I had my son. At 38, after a decade or more of earning a living making documentaries for British TV, I found myself single, pregnant and broke. </p>
<p>I had to give up my career as a director overnight, realising that the insecurity of a freelancer didn’t mesh with being a single parent. Flexible working wasn’t on the table 17 years ago. Back then you were expected to work long hours and weekends. I knew this would be impossible while raising my son alone.</p>
<p>My lifeline was academia. I got a job running the <a href="https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/postgraduate/media-arts/digital-documentary/">MA in Digital Documentary</a> at Royal Holloway. It was another decade before I would get back to making my own films again, but being around so many other great directors meant that I kept learning about the art of filmmaking. </p>
<p>Decades later women are still woefully underrepresented in many of the key production roles in film and TV. <a href="https://womenandhollywood.com/resources/statistics/">Women in Hollywood</a> recently reported that out of the top 100 grossing films of 2019, 19.4% of the writers and only 10.7% of the directors were women. </p>
<p>My son was ten before I felt able to get back into the industry and chase production finance again. Without my old film and TV contacts, it was back to square one. I spent five years pitching an interactive documentary project, <a href="https://victoriamapplebeck.com/exhibitions/">Text Me</a>, at all the major film festivals and finance forums. </p>
<p>I finally got lucky with a promise of £70,000 from European public service channel ARTE. However, that didn’t work out. Burnt out and ready to give up, I decided to shoot the film I wanted to make with the camera I had to hand: my smartphone. It was liberating. I no longer needed to wait around for the gatekeepers to flick the green light. I could flick it myself. </p>
<h2>Small is beautiful</h2>
<p>In 2019, I won a Bafta for my smartphone short <a href="https://victoriamapplebeck.com/films/missed-call/">Missed Call</a>. Winning meant the world to me that year. I was 12 months past a breast cancer diagnosis and a decade out of the film and TV industry. A year earlier, in the middle of chemo, I had watched the Baftas from my couch feeling that it was a world I would never be part of.</p>
<p>Just days before the Baftas, my producer and I managed to secure a meeting with a streaming platform commissioner to discuss a smartphone feature film we were developing. A few minutes into my pitch he told me with an air of disdain that my films were “small, personal and intimate”. For his platform, he wanted, “Big stories about true crime and space. Epic journeys.”</p>
<p>I replied, “Raising my son alone, him meeting his dad for the first time and how we both survived my cancer diagnosis put us both on a pretty epic journey.” “Sorry”, he concluded, “It’s a no.”</p>
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<p>Later when my son Jim handed me my Bafta, I held up my smartphone and said, “I shot this film on this phone … I think it’s proof that small really is beautiful.”</p>
<p>Why are stories which explore how women navigate the world, at all stages of life, described as “small”? Why do they constantly get overshadowed and drowned out by stories about men, told by male directors?</p>
<p>I have more hope for women directors and writers in TV where there’s a growing appetite for unfiltered, unromanticised portraits of family life – especially the joy and pain of being a middle-aged mum. </p>
<p>I’ve burnt through Sharon Horgan’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/oct/12/sharon-horgan-on-mean-mums-and-motherland-season-two">Motherland</a>, Pamela Adlon’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/jul/14/pamela-adlon-better-things-is-about-hope-and-love-amid-the-darkness">Better Things</a> and more recently Amanda Peet’s brilliant Netflix series <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/aug/20/the-chair-review-sandra-oh-netflix-university-satire-comedy">The Chair</a>. All “must-see TV” written and directed by women, exploring everyday “small” but epic dramas that define our lives. </p>
<p>Three years ago the brilliant Frances McDormand said in her <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gU6CpQk6BE">Oscar acceptance speech</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’d like all the female nominees in every category to stand with me tonight … we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed … Invite us into your office in a couple of days and we’ll tell you all about them. I have two words to leave with you tonight … “inclusion, wider”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s a speech that makes me cry each time I watch it. </p>
<p>This year I set up <a href="https://smartfilmfest.net/">SMart, The London International Smartphone Film Festival</a>, which I co-founded and co-curated with director and former Channel 4 commissioner <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamgeeuk/?originalSubdomain=uk">Adam Gee</a>. Our mission is to celebrate the innovation, intimacy and diversity of smartphone filmmaking. Many of my current students at Royal Holloway submitted their smartphone shorts, shot during lockdown. We had 50% women directors in <a href="https://smartfilmfest.net/official-selection/%C2%A0">our official selection</a>. </p>
<p>Making sure we achieve this kind of balance and diversity in future film festivals and awards ceremonies is a work in progress. So, thank you, Frances McDormand, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/chloe-zhao-oscars-asian-women-hollywood/index.html">Chloe Zhao</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odusP8gmqsg">Michaela Coel</a> and all the women actors and directors who have proudly played the “lady card” and shouted over the wall, “inclusion, wider”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167560/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Mapplebeck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Many women struggle to maintain a career in film after having children. But there are creative avenues to be explored to circumvent the gatekeepers, as filmmaker Victoria Mapplebeck discovered.
Victoria Mapplebeck, Professor in Digital Arts, Royal Holloway University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164911
2021-07-28T10:50:30Z
2021-07-28T10:50:30Z
The complicated history of women at Cannes film festival
<p>The glitz and glamour of Cannes was back in full force this year after being cancelled by the pandemic in 2020. It was nice to see some things change as this time more <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/cannes-signs-pledge-gender-equality-1201964189/">women won awards and gender parity was improved</a> across the festival. </p>
<p>There were more films by female directors in competition and the sidebars than ever before. The festival’s main award, the Golden Palm, went to French director <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2021/07/titane-review-julia-ducournau-1234650972/">Julia Ducournau for <em>Titane</em></a>. The award in <a href="https://www.quinzaine-realisateurs.com/"><em>Quinzaine des Réalisateurs</em></a> (Director’s Fortnight) went to Croatian director <a href="https://variety.com/2021/film/global/antoneta-kusijanovic-murina-1235010558/">Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic for Murina</a>. And the award in the avant-garde section <em>Un Certain Regard</em>, awarded to a film with unusual style and story, went to Russian director <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/un-certain-regard-2021-winners-list-cannes-1234983323/">Kira Kovalenko for Unclenching the Fists</a>. </p>
<p>The number of women winning is increasing. However, while things may be changing, there are still entrenched ideas about women who make films – in the larger industry but particularly among those who decide who wins at Cannes. In my <a href="https://theconversation.com/cannes-is-not-a-film-festival-its-a-club-for-insiders-96651">research</a>, I investigate the history of the festival seeking clues as to why the work of female directors has been overlooked over the years and what factors may help in changing the picture.</p>
<h2>Overlooked women directors</h2>
<p>The women who won this year join a precious few others who have done so throughout Cannes’ history. The win for Ducournau is only the second time that the Golden Palm has gone to a woman – the other was nearly three decades ago when New Zealander Jane Campion won for <a href="https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/films/the-piano">The Piano in 1992</a>. Likewise, the best director award has gone to women only twice – in 1961 to <a href="https://mubi.com/films/chronicle-of-flaming-years">Yulia Solntseva for Chronicle of Flaming Years</a> and then, 71 years later, to <a href="https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/films/the-beguiled">Sofia Coppola for The Beguiled</a> in 2017. </p>
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<img alt="Black and white picture of a woman in a fur coat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413323/original/file-20210727-26-1gnyecx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413323/original/file-20210727-26-1gnyecx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413323/original/file-20210727-26-1gnyecx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413323/original/file-20210727-26-1gnyecx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413323/original/file-20210727-26-1gnyecx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413323/original/file-20210727-26-1gnyecx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413323/original/file-20210727-26-1gnyecx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Bodil Ipsen was one of the first women to win at Cannes but is often left out of film history.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodil_Ipsen#/media/File:Bodil_Ipsen.png">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>One of the very first winners at the inaugural Cannes festival in 1946 was <a href="https://www.nordicwomeninfilm.com/person/bodil-ipsen/?lang=en">Bodil Ipsen</a>, a Danish actress who became a director with ten films to her name. The men who won in that year included David Lean, Billy Wilder and Roberto Rossellini. Unlike Bodil Ipsen, their names are still widely known today. This is just a testament to how women’s achievements are gradually obliterated because of a certain tendency in film criticism and festival history writing to not mention the wins of women as often as men’s.</p>
<p>Looking at Cannes’ record, the festival has hardly ever included female directors in the running for awards. This includes those who are considered some of France’s finest directors generally. </p>
<p>Agnes Varda (1928-2019) is a legendary figure in the history of cinema. Often referred to as “<a href="https://www.awardsdaily.com/2019/03/29/hollywood-remembers-agnes-varda-godmother-of-french-new-wave-film/">the godmother of the French New Wave</a>” she was prolific. However, she only competed at Cannes once in 1962 for <a href="https://www.criterion.com/films/244-cl-o-from-5-to-7">Cléo from 5 to 7</a>. Only men won awards that year. </p>
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<p>Claire Denis is one of the most famous French directors living. Her only film to compete at Cannes was <a href="https://mubi.com/films/chocolat-1988"><em>Chocolat</em></a> (1988). Denis’ most well-known film is [<em>Beau Travail</em>], which is a meditation on male identity in crisis. It is widely recognised as one of the <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/beau-travail-1998-claire-denis-greatest-films-poll">greatest films of all time</a> but, despite its critical success, it was not selected for Cannes. </p>
<p>Catherine Breillat’s films focus on women’s sexual desire. She is celebrated for work that casts an honest look at adolescent sexuality, like <a href="https://www.tvguide.com/movies/une-vraie-jeune-fille/review/2000075743/">A Real Young Girl</a> (1976) and <a href="https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/cteq/36_fillette/"><em>36 Fillette</em></a> (1988). Her film <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/nov/23/filmcensorship.artsfeatures">Romance</a> (1999) is a daring exploration of conflicted intimacy. In France, however, she was initially treated as a <a href="https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/the-gaze-of-shame-a-conversation-with-catherine-breillat">pornographer and often censored</a>. </p>
<p>It is only in recent years that her work has come to be respected and celebrated for <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/global/locarno-film-festival-catherine-breillat-1203297674/">challenging conventional depictions of femininity</a>. Breillat has been making films since the 1970s, yet the only time her film was entered in competition at Cannes was in 2007 for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/apr/11/worldcinema.drama">The Last Mistress</a>.</p>
<h2>Plenty of women with distinctive style</h2>
<p>One of the frequently used excuses for the absence of women’s work at the big festivals is that there simply aren’t enough films made by women to consider, so the problems are at the production level. However, this is not really the case. </p>
<p>Women’s film festivals like the one in <a href="https://filmsdefemmes.com/">Creteil</a> (a suburb of Paris) have been running since the 1970s, showing more than 100 films directed by women each year. In the past 20 years, more than 50 dedicated women’s festivals have emerged around the world, from <a href="https://ellestournent-damesdraaien.org/home-en-2/">Belgium</a> to <a href="http://aiwff.org/home/en/">Egypt</a>. Still, the films that show at these festivals are often labelled “women’s films”, implying that they lack a universal appeal. </p>
<p>Even where the female directors are acknowledged, they have rarely been treated as “auteurs”. This term is given to directors who have a recognisable and unique style and worldview that is visible across their films. Director François Truffaut developed the concept in his 1954 essay <em><a href="https://francearchives.fr/fr/commemo/recueil-2004/38842">Une certaine tendance du cinéma français</a></em> (A certain trend in French cinema).</p>
<p>This idea of “autership” is important at Cannes, which is known for celebrating such directors (there is even a category for them, “Cannes regulars”). It is clear that Cannes’ idea of the “auteur” remains painfully male. A <a href="https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/pr/2003-v31-n2-pr756/008750ar">French study</a> scrutinised the work of the special commission charged with nominating French films for participation at the festival over a 54-year-long period (1946-2001). It found that out of the 180 nominations only six have been for films directed by women. </p>
<p>So, with the conclusion of Cannes 2021, I am looking to the next step. It’s great that so many women won this year and did so in the top categories but how many cinemas around the world will show their films? How often will these films be mentioned by critics? How many will enter the annals of film history? We must make sure that these women, unlike Ipsen, Varda, Denis and Breillat, continue to be celebrated – and that they keep getting selected for awards.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164911/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dina Iordanova 's work on international film festivals has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust, the RSE, and the Caledonian Foundation.
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More women won than ever this year but work must be done to make sure they are not forgotten or left out again.
Dina Iordanova, Emeritus Professor of Global CInema and Creative Cultures, University of St Andrews
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/159697
2021-04-26T06:19:33Z
2021-04-26T06:19:33Z
Oscars 2021: 5 experts on the wins, the words, the wearable art and a big year for women
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396988/original/file-20210426-13-erpqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C7%2C5034%2C3652&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Chris Pizzello</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Chloé Zhao has made history at the <a href="https://www.oscars.org/oscars">93rd Academy Awards</a> as the first Asian-American woman and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-oscars-2021/2021/04/25/988816124/chloe-zhao-is-the-first-woman-of-color-to-win-oscar-for-best-director">first woman of colour</a> to win Best Director. She won for <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9770150/">Nomadland</a>, which Zhao also edited, produced, and adapted as a screenplay (from the book by Jessica Bruder). </p>
<p>Only one other woman has ever won Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow for <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9770150/">The Hurt Locker</a> in 2008. Zhao and fellow nominee Emerald Fennell (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9620292/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Promising Young Woman</a>) were just the sixth and seventh women to receive nominations.</p>
<p>This was one of a trifecta of above-the-line prizes that went to women. Fennell won Best Original Screenplay for Promising Young Woman and Zhao for Best Picture. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396987/original/file-20210426-13-2f8yg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396987/original/file-20210426-13-2f8yg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396987/original/file-20210426-13-2f8yg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396987/original/file-20210426-13-2f8yg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396987/original/file-20210426-13-2f8yg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396987/original/file-20210426-13-2f8yg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396987/original/file-20210426-13-2f8yg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396987/original/file-20210426-13-2f8yg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Emerald Fennell, winner of the award for best original screenplay for Promising Young Woman, enters the press room.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Chris Pizzello</span></span>
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<p>These three awards put women in the spotlight as never before. But filmmaking is a collective art. Women were also celebrated in technical areas where <a href="https://theconversation.com/reel-action-on-gender-screen-australia-sets-minimum-targets-for-female-led-projects-51894">sexism and gender disparity</a> are even more entrenched.</p>
<p>Michelle Couttolenc won an award for Best Sound (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5363618/?ref_=nm_knf_t1">Sound of Metal</a>) and Jan Pascale for Best Set Decoration (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10618286/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Mank</a>). Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson made history as the first African-American winners in the category of makeup and hairstyling (with Sergio Lopez-Rivera) for their contributions to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10514222/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom</a>.</p>
<p>Women also accepted awards as film producers: Dana Murray won Best Animated Feature with Pete Docter (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2948372/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Soul</a>), Alice Doyard won Best Documentary Short with Anthony Giacchino (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11643154/?ref_=nm_knf_i1">Collette</a>) and Pippa Ehrlich won Best Documentary Feature with James Reed (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12888462/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">My Octopus Teacher</a>).</p>
<p>This year, with shrinking audiences and pandemic restrictions, there was a bitter irony in the fact women won more Oscars, across new and highly visible categories, than ever before.</p>
<p><strong>- Julia Erhart</strong></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-oscars-finally-made-it-less-lonely-for-women-at-the-top-of-their-game-157240">How the Oscars finally made it less lonely for women at the top of their game</a>
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<h2>Best Picture</h2>
<p>It’s no surprise Nomadland won Best Picture — it’s good, compelling stuff, and manages (like most Oscar contenders) to be formulaic to its core without appearing as such. In classic Hollywood fashion, beautiful images accompanied by derivative but affecting music reinscribe social and political history in the mode of melodramatic and intimate personal reflection.</p>
<p>Following “salt of the earth” Fern (Frances McDormand) on her journey through the American West, we experience her ups and downs, recognising the emotional impact the devastation of precarious employment has had on her. The brutal 21st century reality of disempowered (non-unionised) workers becomes fodder for a narrative focusing on an individual’s personal growth — including happily working for Amazon no less (it’s “good pay,” Fern says).</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396996/original/file-20210426-23-v40hpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396996/original/file-20210426-23-v40hpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396996/original/file-20210426-23-v40hpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396996/original/file-20210426-23-v40hpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396996/original/file-20210426-23-v40hpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396996/original/file-20210426-23-v40hpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396996/original/file-20210426-23-v40hpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396996/original/file-20210426-23-v40hpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Frances McDormand in a scene from Nomadland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Searchlight Pictures via AP</span></span>
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<p>Still, it definitely works as a film, painting a starkly drawn but nuanced portrait of life in post-industrial America. It’s poetically charged in its understatement, and features excellent performances by McDormand and David Strathairn as her love interest. </p>
<p>It’s also better than most of its contenders, including the sophomoric Promising Young Woman and the irrepressibly dull <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10618286/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Mank</a>. The only exception is <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9784798/">Judas and the Black Messiah</a>: the best film nominated for an Oscar this year (if not the best film of the year). </p>
<p><strong>-Ari Mattes</strong></p>
<h2>Acceptance speeches</h2>
<p>To keep making and distributing movies over the past year has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/picture-this-3-possible-endings-for-cinema-as-covid-pushes-it-to-the-brink-146917">an achievement in itself</a>. Many speakers acknowledged colleagues who persisted in believing in film projects against a backdrop of ongoing adversity. </p>
<p>The movies nominated were a politically charged bunch. While presenters acknowledged the issues, winners largely allowed the movies to speak for their own politics. </p>
<p>There was mention of gun violence and slayings by police. H.E.R. (<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/h-e-r-_-wins-oscars-best-original-song-judas-and-the-black-messiah">Best Original Song</a>) proclaimed her role to “fight for my people”. Daniel Kaluuya (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/movies/daniel-kaluuya-oscars-best-supporting-actor.html">Best Supporting Actor</a>) highlighted the spirituality and politics of the Black Panthers and said the work still to do was “on everyone in this room”. <a href="https://deadline.com/2021/04/mikkel-e-g-nielsen-wins-2021-oscars-best-film-editing-1234743086/">Mikkel Nielsen (Best Editing)</a> did his bit for arts funding, praising the Danish Film School as his award vindicated support for it. </p>
<p>Best director Zhao praised those looking for the good in others, while Best Documentary winner Ehrlich credited courageous women “joining hands and fighting for justice”. </p>
<p>Generally, though, the acceptance speeches did not indulge in politicking. There was no direct mention of America’s 2020 election results, no Biden and nothing like the <a href="https://abc7.com/brad-pitt-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-leonardo-dicaprio-john-bolton/5916383/">Trump mentions last year</a> — just the art at hand. </p>
<p><strong>-Tom Clark</strong></p>
<h2>Fashion</h2>
<p>The intimate Oscars ceremony (with only 170 VIP guests at LA’s Union Station) meant a reduced red carpet. However, attendees made up for the lack of numbers by bringing colour, glamour and scale in what they wore. </p>
<p>The dress code asked for “a fusion of Inspirational and Aspirational”. After spending 2020 in our most comfortable garments, this return to in-person awards called for spectacle. </p>
<p>The majority of guests followed the directive. Sure, winning director Zhao opted for sneakers, but she wore them with her pale Hermès sweater dress and French braids and looked effortlessly cool. Musical director Questlove <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/larryfitzmaurice/questlove-gold-crocs-oscars-red-carpet">dressed up his rubber Crocs</a> by making them gold. </p>
<p>Early arrivals at the event included some of the best dressed men of the night, including <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9510501/Oscars-2021-Colman-Domingo-stands-hot-pink-Versace-suit-red-carpet.html">Coleman Domingo in shocking, delicious pink Atelier Versace</a>; <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/photos/2021/04/oscars-2021-the-1970s-red-carpet">LaKeith Stanfield in custom Saint Laurent 70s jumpsuit</a> by Anthony Vaccarello; and the adorable young Alan S. Kim in Thom Browne short suit, bow tie and four-bar socks. </p>
<p>Perhaps the strongest trend was volume: in skirts, sleeves and bows. <a href="https://wwd.com/eye/people/maria-oscars-gown-louis-vuitton1234809677-1234809677/">Maria Bakalova’s white tulle Louis Vuitton</a> seemed directly related to Bjork’s iconic swan dress of 20 years ago, as did <a href="https://www.instyle.com/celebrity/laura-dern/laura-dern-oscars-2021-dress">Laura Dern’s marabou feather Oscar de la Renta</a>. </p>
<p>Regina King was resplendent in a custom <a href="https://footwearnews.com/2021/fashion/awards/regina-king-gown-blue-louis-vuitton-dress-oscars-2021-1203134600/">Louis Vuitton powder-blue butterfly dress</a>, with huge, bejewelled winged shoulders. Sleeves were also exaggerated in <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/angela-bassett-oscars-2021-002634188.html">Angela Bassett’s red Alberta Ferretti</a> and <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/stylish/pictures/oscars-2021-red-carpet-fashion-dresses/marlee-matlin/">Marlee Matlin’s sparkling yet sustainably made Vivienne Westwood</a>. </p>
<p>Carey Mulligan’s gold Valentino two-piece, Nicolette Robinson’s black taffeta Zuhair Murad and Amanda Seyfried’s red tulle Armani Privé all came with skirts made for social distancing. </p>
<p>The most aspirational? Surely Zendaya in a canary yellow, Cher-inspired <a href="https://people.com/style/zendaya-outfit-details-oscars-2021/">strapless Valentino with over US$6 million (A$7.7 million) of yellow Bulgari diamonds</a>. </p>
<p>And the most inspirational: <a href="https://hollywoodlife.com/feature/who-is-yuh-jung-youn-minari-4394520/">73-year old Youn Yuh-jung</a> making history as the first Korean woman to win an Academy Award for acting, wearing a navy gown by Egyptian designer Marmar Halim with Chopard jewels. Perfect. </p>
<p><strong>-Harriette Richards</strong></p>
<h2>Best Acting</h2>
<p>Anthony Hopkins won for <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10272386/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Father</a>, and Frances McDormand for Nomadland. Fair enough. Both are stellar actors who bring a quiet intensity to their performances in these films. </p>
<p>Both have carved out a niche for themselves within the Hollywood machine playing these kinds of characters, with Hopkins becoming synonymous in the 21st century with the broken patriarch and McDormand with the quirky baby boomer.</p>
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<p>Each could have played their role in their sleep, one suspects, with neither seeming particularly challenged from a craft perspective. But if there’s one thing you can depend upon when it comes to the Oscars, it is middlebrow polite predictability, and these are both obvious choices. </p>
<p>In contrast, Riz Ahmed offers a less polished but stranger and more interesting performance in Sound of Metal, as does Andra Day, who overacts in the lead role but nonetheless masters our attention in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8521718/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The United States vs. Billie Holiday</a>. </p>
<p><strong>-Ari Mattes</strong></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-asked-two-experts-to-watch-the-father-and-supernova-these-new-films-show-the-fear-and-loss-that-come-with-dementia-156131">We asked two experts to watch The Father and Supernova. These new films show the fear and loss that come with dementia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Best Original Score</h2>
<p><a href="https://pitchfork.com/news/trent-reznor-atticus-ross-and-jon-batiste-win-best-original-score-atandnbsposcars-2021/">Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste’s</a> win for their music for Soul in the Best Original Score category is unusual in at least three ways. First, Soul is an animated film, (the first to win as a soundtrack since <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_(film_score)">Michael Giacchino’s Up</a> in 2009). </p>
<p>Then there’s the fact that Soul is dominated not just by jazz music, but by jazz music played on screen — a genre rarely rewarded by the academy today. You’d have to go back to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_Midnight_(soundtrack)">Round Midnight and Herbie Hancock</a> in 1986 for something genuinely comparable.</p>
<p>Strangest of all, there’s a touch of category weirdness here. The academy rules state multiple composers on a single film are eligible only when they work closely together. That makes sense for Reznor and Ross, whose soundtrack careers can’t be meaningfully separated. But Batiste made markedly different music for Soul.</p>
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<p>His is the film’s lively and virtuosic jazz often played on-screen by the film’s characters, while Reznor and Ross made ethereal, synth-heavy underscore for scenes set in the afterlife. In the end credits, Batiste — whose music does most of the heavy lifting in the film — isn’t even listed as composer. Instead, Pixar chose to list him with a “jazz compositions and arrangements by” credit.</p>
<p>Common sense prevailed this year, however, and perhaps it is time to rethink the Best Score eligibility rules. Of the other nominees, Terence Blanchard would have to feel hard done by after his wonderful music for a Spike Lee film (Da 5 Bloods) was overlooked again, while Emile Mosseri would be happy as a first time nominee despite his score for <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10633456/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Minari</a> arguably being the strongest of the bunch.</p>
<p><strong>-Dan Golding</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
This year, with shrinking audiences and pandemic restrictions, there was a bitter irony in the fact women won more Oscars, across new and highly visible categories, than ever before.
Julia Erhart, Associate Professor, Screen and Media, Flinders University, Flinders University
Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
Dan Golding, Associate professor, Swinburne University of Technology
Harriette Richards, Lecturer, Fashion Enterprise, RMIT University
Tom Clark, Chair of Academic Board, Victoria University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/148870
2020-10-27T15:32:14Z
2020-10-27T15:32:14Z
‘Gothic’ TV: high-quality modern horror series providing powerful roles for Hollywood’s older women
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365770/original/file-20201027-17-1rlb2ce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=533%2C123%2C2861%2C1762&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2020</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Meryl Streep <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/19/these-charts-reveal-how-bad-the-film-industrys-sexism-is/">once commented</a> that when a woman in Hollywood turns 50, the only roles left for them to play are “gorgons or dragons or in some way grotesque”. That may well be true, but – as Sharon Stone is demonstrating as Lenore Osgood in the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-says-ratched-is-top-new-original-series-of-year-2020-10?r=US&IR=T#:%7E:text=Netflix%20says%20'Ratched'%20is%20its%20top%20new%20series%20of%20the,hit%20for%20the%20streaming%20giant&text=Netflix%20said%20on%20Friday%20that,first%20season%20of%20the%20year.">hit Netflix series Ratched</a> – these “invisible” older women are coming to the fore in a range of “Gothic” roles.</p>
<p>Ratched is the <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/19/ratched-smashes-netflix-record-as-most-watched-new-series-in-2020-13444993/#:%7E:text=Gory%20drama%20Ratched%20has%20broken,28%20days%20after%20its%20launch.">most-watched series on Netflix in 2020</a>. It’s essentially an origin story for the 1975 film <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-1975">One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest</a>, directed by Milos Forman and based on the 1962 novel by Ken Kesey. In the movie, Mildred Ratched is a sadistic nurse at a mental institution who mistreats her patients. The Netflix series tells the story of her developing sadism over years.</p>
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<p>In the series, Sharon Stone plays the glamorous Lenore Osgood, a former showgirl (according to Stone’s <a href="https://tv.avclub.com/sharon-stone-on-camp-eccentricity-and-acting-opposite-1845131802">back story for the character</a>) characterised <a href="https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/sarah-paulson-sharon-stone-ratched-one-flew-over-the-cuckoo-nest-ryan-murphy-netflix-647579">in one review</a> as “a Norma Desmond-like eccentric heiress out for revenge”. This reference to Norma Desmond is no coincidence. Her role is a self-aware homage to the faded star that was seared into the popular imagination by Gloria Swanson’s performance as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043014/">Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard</a> (1950). </p>
<p>So the character of Osgood is the latest in a rich seam of roles that can be traced back via the likes of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056687/">What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?</a> That of talented and versatile actresses past what would normally be considered to be Hollywood’s “use-by” date, finding success by playing “faded star” roles.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Gloria Swanson and William Holden in a publicity still from Sunset Boulevard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365773/original/file-20201027-15-1djbv77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365773/original/file-20201027-15-1djbv77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365773/original/file-20201027-15-1djbv77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365773/original/file-20201027-15-1djbv77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365773/original/file-20201027-15-1djbv77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365773/original/file-20201027-15-1djbv77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365773/original/file-20201027-15-1djbv77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Femme fatale: Gloria Swanson and William Holden in a publicity still from Sunset Boulevard.</span>
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<p>The series American Horror Story has also been a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/38279223/The_Evil_Aging_Women_of_American_Horror_Story_">fertile source of roles</a> for Hollywood stars of a similar vintage to Stone. Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett have played leading roles in various episodes, demonstrating the continued visibility of ageing women on screen in roles that showcase their talent and experience.</p>
<p>Hollywood’s fixation with youth and beauty (in its women, of course) is a well-established field of study. According to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-actress/screen-actress-from-silence-to-sound/9D904F0E5840762401486B8FD25B0044">UK film scholar Christine Gledhill</a>, this is rooted in the rise of the showgirl-turned-movie star in the 1920s and the subsequent preference for young, beautiful women on screen. So, for example, both Davis and Crawford dominated romantic drama and noir with Oscar-winning performances in the 1930s and 1940s. Davis won Best Actress for her roles in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026261/">Dangerous</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030287/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Jezebel</a>, while Crawford won for her role in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037913/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Mildred Pierce</a>. </p>
<p>In her study of ageing and stardom, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254249495_'Women_rule_Hollywood'_Ageing_and_freelance_stardom_in_the_studio_system">US film scholar Emily Carman notes</a> that after world war two, with the return of servicemen en masse to US cinemas, producers saw the appeal of younger female stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly who began to push their older colleagues into the sidelines.</p>
<h2>Gothic glory</h2>
<p>Through familiar conventions of Gothic literature including decaying mansions, madness and doppelgängers, the faded star film originated by Sunset Boulevard made the ageing actress into an explicitly Gothic figure. This role has given actresses from Swanson to Stone the platform to interrogate Hollywood’s ageist misogyny by satirically reclaiming their own “faded” status. The Gothic’s unsettling nature and celebration of the monstrous outsider plays a crucial role in enabling the ageing actress to break such boundaries.</p>
<p>These films are often regarded as inaugurating the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/18/hagsploitation-horrors-obsession-with-older-women-returns">hagsploitation</a>” genre, an insensitive brand of horror centred around deranged older women. This misleading term oversimplifies the purpose of these films and neglects the agency of the actresses. Far from being an empty horror trope or a misogynistic caricature, the faded star is a feminist reclamation of the ageing female body.</p>
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<img alt="Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in a still from the 1962 movie Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365772/original/file-20201027-23-1mjm0in.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365772/original/file-20201027-23-1mjm0in.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365772/original/file-20201027-23-1mjm0in.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365772/original/file-20201027-23-1mjm0in.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365772/original/file-20201027-23-1mjm0in.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365772/original/file-20201027-23-1mjm0in.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365772/original/file-20201027-23-1mjm0in.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Star turns: Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in a still from the 1962 movie Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?</span>
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<p>This is best demonstrated in the making of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? because Davis and Crawford used this film to take control of their careers. Crawford pushed for the director Robert Aldrich to cast her in a new film with Davis as her co-star. Davis played up the grotesquery of Baby Jane for artistic merit, which earned her an Oscar nomination. Without the star power of both actresses, the film would not have been financed by Seven Arts Productions.</p>
<h2>Women to the fore</h2>
<p>This legacy is coming to the fore in several “Gothic” series, of which Ratched and American Horror Story are prominent examples. Lange has won several awards for her leading roles in American Horror Story, all of which reflect on her own faded stardom through characters that grapple with lost celebrity status, including failed actresses in <a href="https://americanhorrorstory.fandom.com/wiki/Constance_Langdon">Murder House</a> and <a href="https://americanhorrorstory.fandom.com/wiki/Elsa_Mars">Freak Show</a>, a former nightclub singer in <a href="https://americanhorrorstory.fandom.com/wiki/Sister_Jude">Asylum</a> and a fading beauty in <a href="https://americanhorrorstory.fandom.com/wiki/Fiona_Goode">Coven</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile Bates, who won a best actress Oscar for her portrayal of a deranged book lover (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100157/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Misery 1990</a>) has played a <a href="https://americanhorrorstory.fandom.com/wiki/Kathy_Bates">range of Gothic roles</a> in American Horror Story as part of the show’s ensemble cast.</p>
<p>Actresses are also producing their own Gothic shows. Dubbed as “<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340831030_Telling_Big_Little_Lies_Writing_the_Female_Gothic_as_extended_metaphor_in_Complex_Television">Female Gothic</a>”, the HBO series Big Little Lies, the creation of Reese Witherspoon’s production company, <a href="https://hello-sunshine.com/">Hello Sunshine</a>, has provided challenging roles for herself, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern and Meryl Streep. </p>
<p>In light of these recent examples, it’s time to reconsider the negative “hagsploitation” label that is often attached to Gothic roles as leading actresses continue to confront our assumptions about women, ageing and success.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harriet Fletcher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Series including Ratched and American Horror Story are sustaining the careers of some of Hollywood’s most talented female stars.
Harriet Fletcher, Associate Lecturer in English Literature, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/145922
2020-09-14T19:50:17Z
2020-09-14T19:50:17Z
The Inventor tells a story of a fraudulent female billionaire. Where are the films starring successful women entrepreneurs?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357579/original/file-20200911-24-o10f4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1920%2C1279&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">HBO</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-inventor-out-for-blood-in-silicon-valley">The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley</a>, now streaming in Australia on Binge, depicts Theranos founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes as a bewitching sociopath. </p>
<p>Holmes wanted to revolutionise health care by providing a simple and cheap way to perform blood tests using only a finger prick. In 2003, she founded Theranos, with a vision of the company’s machines in every home in America. </p>
<p>But, as the Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-has-struggled-with-blood-tests-1444881901">revealed</a> in 2015, Holmes created an intricate web of deception. Even as machines found their way into chemists and were being used by medical insurance companies, they never actually worked.</p>
<p>Holmes put patients’ lives at risk and cost investors millions of dollars.</p>
<p>The documentary is compelling viewing, but as it enters a very slim field of movies about female entrepreneurs it is worth questioning the impact of the stories we choose to tell.</p>
<h2>Fall from grace</h2>
<p>The journey Holmes took from young idol to spectacular failure is a story about systemic issues and the <a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/silicon-valley-work-culture/">sometimes toxic</a> culture of the world of start-ups. </p>
<p>Prior to the scandal breaking, Holmes was <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/15/blood-simpler">celebrated in the media</a>. She was portrayed as a Stanford University dropout with a vision for changing the world. She raised hundreds of millions of dollars from powerful men in a start-up landscape known for its <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/01/how-the-vc-pitch-process-is-failing-female-entrepreneurs">discriminating funding practices</a>.</p>
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<p>She made the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elizabeth-holmes/#338f337c47a7">cover</a> of Forbes magazine in 2014 as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. Holmes represented a heady mix of tech, science and business. She was the golden girl of the start-up world.</p>
<p>This made her fall from grace even more spectacular.</p>
<p>But compare Holmes’ portrayal with another well known example of a deceitful male entrepreneur: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/feb/28/wolf-of-wall-street-jordan-belfort-sex-drugs">Jordan Belfort</a>, the “wolf of Wall Street”.</p>
<p>Belfort ran an elaborate crime scheme linked to manipulating the stock market and was jailed for 22 months for securities fraud. Nonetheless,
his <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/522776.The_Wolf_of_Wall_Street">autobiography</a> and Martin Scorsese’s 2013 <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993846/">film adaptation</a> depict Belfort’s story as celebration of wealth and power, rather than a critical review of his fraudulent behaviour.</p>
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<h2>Where are all the good stories?</h2>
<p>Feature films about female entrepreneurs are few and far between.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/AMBPP.2020.21276abstract">Research</a> from one of the authors examined English-language films from 1986 to 2016 with female entrepreneurs as the central character. Over the 30-year period, only 11 films about women entrepreneurs were identified – fewer than the number of <a href="https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/apple/steve-jobs-movies-documentaries-to-watch-3786148/">films about Apple co-founder Steve Jobs</a> alone.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Movie still. Diane Keaton and a baby at a desk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357786/original/file-20200914-20-1551xdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357786/original/file-20200914-20-1551xdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357786/original/file-20200914-20-1551xdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357786/original/file-20200914-20-1551xdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357786/original/file-20200914-20-1551xdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357786/original/file-20200914-20-1551xdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357786/original/file-20200914-20-1551xdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In Baby Boom, JC (Diane Keaton) goes from corporate executive to starting a baby food company.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MGM</span></span>
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<p>From <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092605/">Baby Boom</a> (1987), where Diane Keaton’s character starts a baby food business, to Melissa McCarthy’s brownie empire in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2702724">The Boss</a> (2016), these films overwhelmingly depicted female entrepreneurs as running small-scale kitchen table businesses in female-dominated industries.</p>
<p>These movies told stories of cleaning, as in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2446980/">Joy</a> (2015) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0862846/">Sunshine Cleaning</a> (2008); fashion, as in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2361509/">The Intern</a> (2015); and not-for-profit work, as in the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116313/">First Wives Club</a> (1996).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/spoiler-alert-old-man-power-trumps-a-successful-young-woman-in-the-intern-49240">Spoiler alert: old-man-power trumps a successful young woman in The Intern</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Businesses depicted typically had low numbers of paid employees. The entrepreneurs were resource-poor, and most often it was a supporting male character who helped the female entrepreneur succeed. </p>
<p>Additionally, the study found a woman starting her own business is seemingly not enough to hold audience attention: all films included a parallel romantic storyline.</p>
<h2>The female entrepreneur as role model</h2>
<p>Celebrating successful female role models <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487011000353">encourages women</a> to dream big and succeed in male dominated arenas.</p>
<p>Role models provide a source of inspiration and contribute to self-belief. As the quantity of entrepreneurship related media increases, so does the amount of <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11365-006-0018-8.pdf">entrepreneurial activity</a>. </p>
<p>However, negative portrayals of careers may <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-04591-001">prevent</a> people from considering a profession.</p>
<p>The case of Holmes and Theranos is damaging for the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-14/theranos-misled-investors-and-consumers-who-used-its-blood-test">betrayed</a> customers and investors, but also for the field of entrepreneurship, which only in recent decades has seen its reputation overhauled. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-scandal-has-more-to-it-than-just-toxic-silicon-valley-culture-114102">Elizabeth Holmes: Theranos scandal has more to it than just toxic Silicon Valley culture</a>
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<hr>
<p>Entrepreneurship was once the <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-brief-history-of-entrepreneurship/9780231173049">domain of racketeers</a>. Over time, it has evolved to be the domain of tech celebrities, socially conscious founders and a vehicle for upward social mobility – but still, too often, a domain of men.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429279836/chapters/10.4324/9780429279836-26">One study</a> investigated how female entrepreneurs are featured on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine. Women were vastly outnumbered by men on the cover, and were often portrayed in a stereotypical female fashion. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Karlie Kloss on the cover of Entrepreneur." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357787/original/file-20200914-16-e27i7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357787/original/file-20200914-16-e27i7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357787/original/file-20200914-16-e27i7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357787/original/file-20200914-16-e27i7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357787/original/file-20200914-16-e27i7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357787/original/file-20200914-16-e27i7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357787/original/file-20200914-16-e27i7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover women on Entrepreneur are much more likely to get the glam treatment than their male colleagues.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Entrepreneur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Words surrounding images of women tended to be about nurturing, health, beauty and fashion. Wording accompanying images of male entrepreneurs talked of power, innovation and risk taking.</p>
<p>Women were “glamified” in full make-up and focus given to their face, while men were more likely to be standing and set against a corporate colour palette.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-may-turn-back-the-clock-on-womens-entrepreneurship-139961">COVID-19 may turn back the clock on women’s entrepreneurship</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>How we tell stories of female entrepreneurs matters. </p>
<p>In order to achieve equity in entrepreneurship, we need to acknowledge the role of the media in filling the entrepreneurship pipeline.</p>
<p>Positive depictions of innovative women act as a mirror, showing girls and women what they can achieve. We need more, and better, stories about female entrepreneurs so stories about female innovation aren’t limited to failure and fraud.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145922/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley is compelling viewing – but why have there been more films about Steve Jobs alone in the past 30 years than about successful female entrepreneurs?
Bronwyn Eager, Lecturer Entrepreneurship, University of Tasmania
Louise Grimmer, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, University of Tasmania
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/133824
2020-03-17T15:06:18Z
2020-03-17T15:06:18Z
The hidden history of women’s filmmaking in Britain
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321039/original/file-20200317-60932-gi0dee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C8%2C781%2C567&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ruth Stuart, the filmmaker of To Egypt and Back with Imperial Airways (1933)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EAFA</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The history of women making excellent films but not having their achievements fully acknowledged stretches back a very long way. This was most recently seen in Pamela B Green’s documentary <a href="https://benaturalthemovie.com/">Be Natural</a> about the “lost” foremother of film, Alice Guy-Blaché. The French-American filmmaker was largely forgotten in formative accounts of the history of cinema. This was despite her important innovations, including making what is arguably the first narrative film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d7FXY6veHk">La Fée aux Choux</a> (1896). </p>
<p>It is vital historical work to recover women’s filmmaking, which is always prone to being overlooked, downplayed or forgotten. Organisations like the <a href="https://wfpp.columbia.edu/">Women Film Pioneers Project</a> and the <a href="https://womensfilmandtelevisionhistory.wordpress.com/">Women’s Film and Television History Network</a>, alongside other initiatives and people, have laboured to prevent its erasure from the historical record, but there is always more to be done to ensure its preservation and celebration. Archiving is key to this.</p>
<p>The recently released <a href="http://www.eafa.org.uk/documents/invisible-innovators-final.pdf">report</a>, Invisible Innovators: Making Women’s Filmmaking Visible across the UK Film Archives, strives to rewrite women into history. Commissioned by <a href="http://www.filmarchives.org.uk/">Film Archives UK</a>, the report surveys work by women held in UK media archives and proposes strategies for making it more accessible. It suggests there are incredible riches waiting to be unlocked, and compelling stories that deserve to be more widely known.</p>
<h2>Creative amateurs</h2>
<p>Amateur film of various kinds constitutes a large proportion of those collections. Many are home movies, which women were <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-british-women-amateur-filmmakers.html">actively encouraged</a> to make at the advent of home movie-making technology in the early 20th century. This was because it was seen as an extension of their roles as wives, mothers and custodians of family keepsakes. </p>
<p>Although some amateur films might have interest solely as historical or familial records, others are much more aesthetically inventive. Such films suggest how filmmaking could become a vehicle for unleashing women’s creativity.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YEz1OcmCLl4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>For instance, one of the most intriguing filmmakers discussed in the report is Ruth Stuart. A teenage prodigy, she was described as “the maestra of Manchester” by Movie Maker magazine after her 1933 travelogue <a href="http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/3284">To Egypt and Back</a> (begun when she was only 16) and her 1934 apocalyptic vision <a href="http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/3256">Doomsday</a>. Both won the highest accolades for non-professional work from American Cinematographer and Amateur Cine World. </p>
<p>However, a gendered double standard was in operation around the status of amateur film at this time. While amateur filmmaking could act as a launchpad for the professional filmmaking careers of talented young men like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/nov/28/ken-russell">Ken Russell</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0914386/">Peter Watkins</a> – who both went from amateur filmmaking to the BBC and onto acclaimed feature film production – no such leverage seems to have been available to their female equivalents, however talented. As such, Stuart’s filmography is frustratingly brief. Little is known about her life or why she appears to have stopped making films altogether by the 1940s. </p>
<p>Clearly some women relished their adventures as hobbyist filmmakers and enjoyed the freedom of amateurism. In the flourishing cine club culture from the 1930s to 1960s, women were key participants, and not merely as helpful companions or tea-makers. As early as 1928, an all-female amateur filmmaking team put together the madcap comedy <a href="http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/3823">Sally Sallies Forth</a>. Featuring an all-female cast, it was a rare gynocentric achievement.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320829/original/file-20200316-27708-r7bdma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320829/original/file-20200316-27708-r7bdma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320829/original/file-20200316-27708-r7bdma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320829/original/file-20200316-27708-r7bdma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320829/original/file-20200316-27708-r7bdma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320829/original/file-20200316-27708-r7bdma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320829/original/file-20200316-27708-r7bdma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A still from the 1928 film Sally Sallies Forth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EAFA</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More often women worked collaboratively with men, but this has resulted in systemic problems in their work’s attribution. When the prize-winning films made by married couple Laurie and Stuart Day were discussed in amateur film magazines, it was automatically assumed that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2019.1703541">Stuart was the main filmmaker</a> and Laurie just his wifely assistant. Evidence from the films themselves seems to suggest that actually the reverse was true. However, these kinds of assumptions have impacted the cataloguing of films when deposited in archives, inadvertently effacing women’s contributions.</p>
<h2>Films by female filmmakers to watch:</h2>
<p>Women’s films should be a priority for digitisation, and archival catalogues and records should accurately reflect female contributors. If all relevant works across all film collections could be marked with an easily searchable term like “woman filmmaker”, it would really help to bring these women’s works out from the shadows. </p>
<p>Here are five films by female filmmakers that have been successfully digitised from the <a href="http://www.eafa.org.uk/">East Anglian Film Archive</a> which give a flavour of the range and richness of women’s filmmaking across the 20th century:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/3256">Doomsday</a> (1934): Ruth Stuart’s haunting vision of a very English apocalypse.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/2633">1938, the Last Year of Peace</a> (1948): Laurie and Stuart Day’s montage of memories of suburban family life just before the outbreak of the second world war.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/3293">England May Be Home</a> (1957): A moving documentary about Italian migrant workers. Bedfordshire cine-club member Margaret Hodkin is part of the team behind this.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/4131">The Stray</a> (1965): Marjorie Martin’s moody tale of an errant wife with laddered stockings returning to her taciturn shepherd husband. </p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/3580">Make-Up</a> (1978): A hand-drawn animation about “putting on a face” from Joanna Fryer, who went on to work on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A3THighARU">The Snowman</a>(1982).</p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133824/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melanie Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
There are many gems of female filmmaking in the archives that have been overlooked and should be made accessible to contemporary audiences
Melanie Williams, Reader in Film and Television Studies, University of East Anglia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/113058
2019-03-07T12:48:27Z
2019-03-07T12:48:27Z
Eight must-see films about women – that are all by women
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262653/original/file-20190307-82681-1jama28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C360%2C662%2C495&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bridesmaids: top comedians on top form.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is no secret that women are still <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-is-the-toxic-myth-at-the-heart-of-female-movie-reboots-102125">underrepresented in cinema</a> – whether they work behind or in front of the camera. They are also, as the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/oscars-2019-women-nominees-feminist-academy-awards-directors-sexism-a8779651.html">Independent’s</a> alternative all-female list of nominees for the 2019 Academy Awards shows, under-recognised during awards season.</p>
<p>The latest data from the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-43197774">BBC</a> shows that fewer than half of the 89 films named best picture at the Oscars since 1929 have even passed the measure of on-screen female representation known as the <a href="https://bechdeltest.com/statistics/">Bechdel Test</a>. For a film to pass the Bechdel test, it must satisfy three criteria: 1) does it have at least two named female characters? 2) Do they have a conversation with each other? 3) Is that conversation about something other than a man?</p>
<p>This only needs to happen once to count as a pass, so it’s even more astonishing that so few films manage it. There are 8,052 movies in the Bechdel Test <a href="https://bechdeltest.com/statistics/">database</a>, a user-generated archive, of which 4,640 (57.6%) meet the three criteria, 817 (10.1%) meet two of them and 1,781 (22.1%) meet one. Another 814 (10.1%) meet none of the criteria at all. Again, that’s just one single conversation between just two women that is not about a man. </p>
<p>The Bechdel test has been a good catalyst for talking about women’s representation in film. But it is a rough-and-ready measure that doesn’t analyse the quality of the representation of the women or allow for an intersectional perspective on women’s representation, which would consider how gender intersects with race, class, sexuality, religion or ability.</p>
<p>So this is a list that highlights the work of women behind the camera, but that also pays attention to the quality of representation of the women projected onto the screen. It includes a variety of genres, from historical drama to contemporary comedy, but all were written, directed or produced by women and have a sustained focus on women and their lives.</p>
<p><strong>Wanda (1970)</strong></p>
<p>The second-wave feminist movement in North America and Western Europe opened the path for a new generation of female writers and directors in cinema. The first ground-breaking film on the list is Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KF32MBvdy70?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Wanda trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Loden wrote, directed and starred in this independent film about a woman’s existential crisis in the coal region of eastern Pennsylvania. The film was remarkable at the time for its in-depth focus on the experiences of a single woman. It won the Pasinetti Award for best foreign film at the 31st Venice International Film Festival.</p>
<p><strong>Silkwood (1983)</strong></p>
<p>In the early 1980s, Nora Ephron, one of the figureheads of women in contemporary film, co-wrote the screenplay for Silkwood (1983). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iNyrSR5JGh8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Silkwood trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The drama is based on the real life of Karen Silkwood, a whistle-blower and union activist, who died in a car crash while investigating dangerous practices at the plutonium plant in Oklahoma where she worked. The film is notable for its two female leads, Silkwood, played by Meryl Streep, and her best friend, Dolly Pelliker, played by Cher, who won best supporting actress for her role at the Golden Globes in 1984.</p>
<p><strong>Daughters of the Dust (1991)</strong></p>
<p>The Fool and his money (1912), thought to be the first film comprising only African-American actors, was directed by a woman, Alice Guy-Blaché (1873-1968), the first female filmmaker on record. Then, 79 years later, Julie Dash became the first African-American woman to write, direct and produce a major independent film distributed theatrically in the US. Daughters of the Dust (1991) is set in the year 1902.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zdMxR2M_ddM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Daughters of the Dust trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With beautiful cinematography and innovative narrative structure, it tells the story of three generations of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah">Gullah</a> women from the Peazant family on Saint Helena Island off South Carolina as they prepare to leave the island and start a new life on the mainland.</p>
<p><strong>The Piano (1983)</strong></p>
<p>New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion makes the list for her lyrical masterpiece The Piano, which she wrote and directed. Again, the film focuses on the lives of its two central female protagonists, the mute piano player Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter) and her daughter Flora (Anna Paquin), who are sent to live with New Zealand pioneer (Sam Neil).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cyTn4XIYH8M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Piano trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Key to Campion’s portrayal of the erotic relationship between McGrath and Baines (Harvey Keitel) is that male, as well as female, nudity is shown. This is important because a recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/apr/05/female-nudity-three-times-likely-male-hollywood-films">report</a> reveals that female nudity is three times as likely in Hollywood films as male nudity. Campion is the second of only five women ever nominated for the Academy Award for best director (Kathryn Bigelow is the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/women-nominated-for-best-director-oscar-list-2018-1?r=US&IR=T">only female director</a> to have won) and is the first female filmmaker in history to receive the Palme d'Or (for The Piano).</p>
<p><strong>I Like it Like That (1994)</strong></p>
<p>Darnell Martin became the first African-American woman to write and direct a film at a major studio.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mVzmH9toJp0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">I Like it Like That trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The film, the comedy-drama I Like it Like That, tells the story of a young Puerto Rican woman struggling to survive in the poverty of New York’s South Bronx neighbourhood.</p>
<p><strong>Marie Antoinette (2006)</strong></p>
<p>As a multi-award winning director, writer and producer, Sophia Coppola has created some of the most compelling cinematic portrayals of young female characters in our time.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BuByY-DnGYo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Marie Antoinette trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In The Virgin Suicides (1999), Lost in Translation (2003) and Marie Antoinette (2006), Coppola provides aesthetically innovative and lusciously filmed depictions of lonely young women who, according to American film critic <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/marie-antoinette-2006">Roger Ebert</a>, are “surrounded by a world that knows how to use them but not how to value and understand them”.</p>
<p><strong>Bridesmaids (2011)</strong></p>
<p>Written by Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, this film boasts a predominantly female cast of comic actors at the very top of their game.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FNppLrmdyug?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Bridesmaids trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At its heart, it is a film about friendship between women, but it is also a key piece of cinematic evidence in the continuing, if redundant, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/tina-fey-kristen-wiig-and-mindy-kaling-answer-the-dumbest-questions-about-female-comedians-a6862481.html">debate</a> about whether women can be funny.</p>
<p><strong>Wadjda (2012)</strong></p>
<p>The first woman to shoot a Saudi Arabian feature film, writer-director <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5152687/">Haifaa Al Mansour</a>, earned multiple accolades for the bittersweet tale of a ten-year-old who, in conservative Riyadh, enters a Qur'an-reading competition to raise the funds to buy a bike.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3koigluYOH0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Wadjda trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What these films have in common is their unflinching focus on the choices women are able to make in societies still dominated by patriarchal structures. Some critically examine the fates of those who suffer under the status quo, but others show us ways to challenge it and make choices differently. Here’s to these trailblazers of cinema!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Spiers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Academy still isn’t recognising women’s filmmaking. But you can.
Emily Spiers, Lecturer in Creative Futures, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/109534
2019-02-25T06:06:03Z
2019-02-25T06:06:03Z
Oscars 2019: Olivia Colman wins best actress, but yet again Hollywood shows it thinks film-making is a man thing
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260625/original/file-20190225-26171-1r4kvhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2036%2C52%2C2304%2C1520&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> EPA-EFE/Etienne Laurent</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Another year, another Oscars Ceremony. Red-carpeted self-congratulations, the popping of flashes and the anticipation of the popping of corks at the many after parties for the rich and famous. And, once again, another Academy Awards in which no women were mentioned in the important category of best director.</p>
<p>In the 91 years that the awards have been running, only five women have been nominated for this coveted award – and only one, Kathryn Bigelow, has come away with the statuette: this represents about 1% of nominees and winners. It’s a shockingly low statistic, even when you take into account that a mere 8% of Hollywood’s top 250 films in 2018 <a href="https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2018_Celluloid_Ceiling_Report.pdf">were directed by women</a>. In 2017 America’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/20/hollywood-studios-sued-discrimination-against-female-directors">Hollywood to be guilty of discrimination</a> against female directors, but as yet there have been no significant shifts in the number of women directing.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1087776139798609920"}"></div></p>
<p>But while there is clearly much to do, there may be some small tremors discernible on Hollywood’s Geiger counter. Take Mimi Leder‘s newest film <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/feb/20/on-the-basis-of-sex-review-ruth-bader-ginsburg-felicity-jones-armie-hammer">On the Basis of Sex</a>, about the career of US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Leder was <a href="https://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1802-Spring-2018/DGA-Interview-Mimi-Leder.aspx">effectively ostracised by Hollywood</a> after the commercial failure of Pay it Forward (2000), so her return to directing with a biopic of one of America’s most prominent feminist icons suggests that Hollywood is softening in its treatment of women on, and off, screen.</p>
<p>Leder’s return to the director’s chair comes alongside the impressive success of Ava DuVernay, who has been breaking ground for women of colour in the film industry. DuVernay became the first African-American woman to make over US$100m at the American domestic box office with <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/box-office/wrinkle-in-time-incredibles-2-drive-ins-1202849353/">A Wrinkle in Time</a> (2018) and was subsequently offered a $100m deal with Warner Bros. This deal came despite the film’s lukewarm critical reception, and claims that it was <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/box-office/wrinkle-in-time-incredibles-2-drive-ins-1202849353/">helped to box office success</a> by The Incredibles 2, with which it was paired at various drive-ins in the US. It should be noted that DuVernay’s deal with Warner Bros was to develop television content.</p>
<p>It is in the television and streaming sectors that women seem to have more opportunities. It was as a television director that Leder has been working since her film career faltered, gaining acclaim for her work on The Leftovers, and DuVernay has oscillated between television and film – taking on a number of producing roles for the small screen.</p>
<p>The current Hollywood climate continues to favour male filmmakers, with its penchant for high-octane action blockbusters and superhero movies that are more often than not films for – and about – men. Coverage of the forthcoming Captain Marvel movie may be trying to <a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/captain-marvels-new-origin-story-could-be-even-more-feminist-than-the-original">draw on the film’s feminist credentials</a> – with its female lead and female director – but Anna Boden is only one half of the directorial team (she shares the role with Ryan Fleck). So despite Marvel boss Kevin Feige’s claims that “many” of the upcoming Marvel films will be directed by women, as yet no movie from what is known as the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” (MCU) has a female director, although Australian director Cate Shortland is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/jul/13/australian-cate-shortland-to-direct-marvels-black-widow-film">expected to helm</a> the Black Widow film. </p>
<p>Even if MCU and other action-producers continue to hire women directors, though, this will not necessarily affect the Oscars – Black Panther currently standing as the only MCU movie to be nominated.</p>
<h2>Hooray for ‘Indiewood’</h2>
<p>Big-budget, but low-brow action movies are generally overlooked during awards season – instead it’s those films that we might term “Indiewood”, independent-style films funded or distributed by specialist arms of the major studios, that tend to be celebrated. In 2019, two of the three English language films nominated for best director were distributed by major studios, or their specialist arms. The Favourite was distributed by Fox Searchlight, and BlacKkKlansman was distributed by Focus Features, a subsidiary of Universal.</p>
<p>Independent filmmaking has, historically, offered more opportunities for women directors, and therefore the lack of women nominated for the Best Director award seems even more pronounced. Although figures for women working within the independent sector are less well publicised, the <a href="https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2017-18_Indie_Women_Report_rev.pdf">Celluloid Ceiling Report suggested</a> that women are better represented in the independent sector, making up 23% of the directors of narrative features screened at festivals in 2017 and 2018.</p>
<p>Statistics such as these demonstrate that women directors <em>are</em> working in the American industry, but the big studios are failing to hire them and the Academy is failing to recognise them.</p>
<p>Women directors slated for nods this awards season all made films that fall into the independent or Indiewood category: Debra Granik’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3892172/awards">Leave No Trace</a>, Lynne Ramsay’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5742374/awards">You Were Never Really Here</a> and Marielle Heller’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4595882/awards">Can You Ever Forgive Me</a>. </p>
<h2>#OscarsSoMale</h2>
<p>Anne Fletcher’s latest film Dumplin’ was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/06/dumplin-review-jennifer-aniston-netflix-movie">independently produced and distributed by Netflix</a>. Fletcher had box office success with mainstream rom-coms including <a href="https://www.avclub.com/27-dresses-doesn-t-deserve-your-hate-and-neither-does-k-1831657431">27 Dresses</a> (2008) and <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10010458_proposal">The Proposal</a> (2009) but after the failure of <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/hot-pursuit-director-anne-fletcher-on-bad-reviews-gender-equality-in-hollywood-i-dont-expect-anything-from-anybody/">Hot Pursuit</a> it appears that she too has been pushed out of the mainstream. </p>
<p>That Dumplin’ was distributed by Netflix, and You Were Never Really Here was distributed by Amazon Studios, demonstrates that there are different outlets for women within the changing media culture – but there is still a lack of support for women in the mainstream – the big studios. And even those women who have had success in Hollywood are rarely recognised for their achievements. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1098296230881292290"}"></div></p>
<p>The death of Penny Marshall in December was met with a <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/12/18/penny-marshalls-death-leaves-celebrities-grieving-you-were-light/2351618002/">public outpouring of grief</a> via social media and popular press. She was hailed as a trailblazer as the first woman to make over $100m at the American domestic box office with Big (1988). But Marshall is not a household name. Big is remembered as the film that made Tom Hanks’ name, not Marshall’s. Marshall is just the first in a long string of women who have changed Hollywood, but they are not recognised for their achievements. </p>
<p>The American film industry must do better – in hiring women directors, in rewarding women directors and in highlighting and protecting their legacies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109534/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Jenkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In 91 years, only five women have been nominated as best director and only one has won the award.
Claire Jenkins, Lecturer in Film and Television Studies, University of Leicester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/102986
2018-10-11T19:08:02Z
2018-10-11T19:08:02Z
Friday essay: where are the female academics on film?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240157/original/file-20181011-72121-weo2wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amy Adams played an inter-species linguist in the 2016 film Arrival but she was a rarity. Most Hollywood films depict scholars as heroic males. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2016 science-fiction drama <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Arrival</a>, starring Amy Adams as linguistics professor Dr Louise Banks, was a ceiling-shattering moment for female academics. The film, directed by Denis Villeneuve, presented Adams’ character in a race against time to avert a war by finding a way to communicate with extraterrestrial visitors.</p>
<p>Banks’s character was groundbreaking because for decades, men have been portrayed as brilliant, heroic academics in American and British films. Movies such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/">A Beautiful Mind</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/">The Imitation Game</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2980516/">The Theory of Everything</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119217/">Good Will Hunting</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185014/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Wonder Boys</a> are not only all set at a university or in research institutes - and mostly excellent works of art - but are also all dramas of academic masculinity. </p>
<p>In these movies, women are extras who exist only to offer comfort, help, love, lust and support to the great man until they are assaulted, dumped or divorced. </p>
<p>Women make up <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/2017menu_tables.asp">49.3%</a> of academia in America, <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/publications/staff-2016-17">45.7%</a> in Britain and <a href="https://docs.education.gov.au/node/46141">45.6%</a> in Australia. Yet female academics have barely appeared as rounded characters in movies. </p>
<p>I still remember my joy and shock at watching Alfonso Cuarón’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/">Gravity</a>, five years ago, in which Sandra Bullock plays Dr Ryan Stone, a medical engineer who is stranded in space after the mid-orbit destruction of her space shuttle. Here was a blockbuster movie starring a complex, female academic character. Yet Gravity was not the breakthrough for which I had hoped. A single momentous work cannot, by itself, change things.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OiTiKOy59o4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The absence of these characters in mainstream film matters, because most women in academia must still fight to tell their own stories and fight against the stories that distort or erase them. And on the rare occasions when women have appeared as academics in Hollywood films, their depictions have often been awful.</p>
<p>The most notorious examples are characters such as the naive palaeontologist Dr Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119567/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Lost World: Jurassic Park</a>, or worse, the talented PhD student Hannah Green (Katie Holmes) in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185014/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Wonder Boys</a>, who lusts after her male supervisor. </p>
<p>While Dr Harding is ostensibly an intelligent academic, in The Lost World she more accurately serves as a damsel-in-distress. Ironically, it is Dr Harding’s supposed intelligence that puts her in distress in the first place. (Bring the baby Tyrannosaurus rex aboard the mobile home? Sure mommy, the nine-ton predator will never smell a baby or hear its cries in there!) When Dr Harding’s scientific shortsightedness leads to trouble, she proves she can wail on par with any princess in jeopardy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240161/original/file-20181011-72127-pnzzh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240161/original/file-20181011-72127-pnzzh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240161/original/file-20181011-72127-pnzzh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240161/original/file-20181011-72127-pnzzh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240161/original/file-20181011-72127-pnzzh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240161/original/file-20181011-72127-pnzzh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240161/original/file-20181011-72127-pnzzh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240161/original/file-20181011-72127-pnzzh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Julianne Moore in The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Wonder Boys’ Hannah Green is the ideal student for hyper-masculine academics. She is beautiful, brilliant, and innocent. She lives for her studies. And she has a crush on her male professor. Moon-eyed, she gushes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was thinking it’s like all your sentences seem as if they’ve always existed, waiting around up there, in Style Heaven, or wherever, for you to fetch them down.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In short, she is the perfect muse. </p>
<p><a href="https://seejane.org/wp-content/uploads/new-study-shows-women-will-turn-off-a-film-or-tv-show-if-too-stereotyped-or-lacking-female-characters.pdf">Women wince</a> at these unrealistic portrayals. They hurt because many viewers will take these stereotyped depictions and transfer them to any female academic they later encounter.</p>
<h2>The brilliant women who deserve movies</h2>
<p>One solution to all this is to change how and what stories are told. So here are my picks of women with brilliant minds who deserve blockbuster movies of their own.</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Hypatia</strong>, the Egyptian astronomer who built an astrolabe, the first instrument for calculating the position of the sun, moon, and stars at any given time. She taught astronomy and philosophy in ancient Alexandria and her classes where always popular. Students and other scholars would crowd in to hear her explain that you must reserve your right to think - for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Maria Reiche</strong>, the 20th century German archaeologist who found that hundreds of mysterious lines etched into the dry Peruvian desert, called Nazca Lines, actually correspond to the constellations in the night sky. She flew helicopters and planes to map the lines and used so many brooms to clean them that some people thought she was a witch.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240165/original/file-20181011-72103-epsi9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240165/original/file-20181011-72103-epsi9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240165/original/file-20181011-72103-epsi9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240165/original/file-20181011-72103-epsi9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240165/original/file-20181011-72103-epsi9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240165/original/file-20181011-72103-epsi9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240165/original/file-20181011-72103-epsi9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240165/original/file-20181011-72103-epsi9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A hummingbird depicted in the Nazca lines. Maria Reiche figured out the lines corresponded to constellations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<ul>
<li><strong>Ada Lovelace</strong>, the British mathematician who in 1843 wrote the first computer program in history, way before modern computers were invented! </li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240166/original/file-20181011-72113-1k8qss6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240166/original/file-20181011-72113-1k8qss6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240166/original/file-20181011-72113-1k8qss6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240166/original/file-20181011-72113-1k8qss6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240166/original/file-20181011-72113-1k8qss6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240166/original/file-20181011-72113-1k8qss6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1083&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240166/original/file-20181011-72113-1k8qss6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1083&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240166/original/file-20181011-72113-1k8qss6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1083&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A portrait of Ada Lovelace circa 1840, possibly painted by Alfred Edward Chalon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ada_Lovelace_portrait.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Grace Hopper</strong>, the American computer scientist. Thanks to the programs she wrote for the first computer, called Mark I, US forces were able to determine how to detonate atomic bombs.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Marie Curie</strong>, the scientist who found out that some minerals are radioactive, give off powerful rays and glow in the dark. Born in Poland in 1867, she moved to France to study. She discovered two new radioactive elements - polonium and radium - and won two Nobel prizes for her work. She <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/curie_marie.shtml">died in France in 1934</a> due to exposure to radiation.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Jane Goodall</strong>, the British primatologist who has discovered that chimpanzees have rituals and use tools, that their language comprises at least 20 different sounds, and that they are omnivores. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Maria Montessori</strong>, an Italian physician and educator <a href="https://montessori.org.au/biography-dr-maria-montessori">who lived from 1870 to 1952</a>. Instead of applying old teaching methods, she watched children to see how they learnt. Her innovative teaching method is applied in thousands of schools and it helps children all over the world grow independent and self-sufficient. </p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240169/original/file-20181011-72130-cnw4pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240169/original/file-20181011-72130-cnw4pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240169/original/file-20181011-72130-cnw4pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240169/original/file-20181011-72130-cnw4pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240169/original/file-20181011-72130-cnw4pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240169/original/file-20181011-72130-cnw4pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240169/original/file-20181011-72130-cnw4pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240169/original/file-20181011-72130-cnw4pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jane Goodall, who first went to study chimpanzees in Tanzania in 1960.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<ul>
<li><strong>Mae C. Jemison</strong>, the <a href="https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/jemison-mc.html">first African-American woman in space</a>. She graduated in African-American studies, chemical engineering, and medicine and learnt to speak Japanese, Russian, and Swahili. After becoming a doctor and volunteering in Cambodia and Sierra Leone, she then applied to NASA to become an astronaut. Dr Jemison was selected and sent into space on board the space shuttle. She carried out tests on other members of the crew. Since she was not only an astronaut but also a doctor, her mission was to conduct experiments on weightlessness and motion sickness. When Dr Jemison came back to Earth, she realised that her true passion was improving health in Africa. So, she quit NASA and now runs a company that uses satellites to do just that.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Signs of progress</h2>
<p>Filmmakers continue to produce movies with male actors (The Martian), with academic characters played by male actors (Doctor Strange) and with research institutes led by men (Interstellar).</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240167/original/file-20181011-72130-1bsgr78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240167/original/file-20181011-72130-1bsgr78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240167/original/file-20181011-72130-1bsgr78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240167/original/file-20181011-72130-1bsgr78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240167/original/file-20181011-72130-1bsgr78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240167/original/file-20181011-72130-1bsgr78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240167/original/file-20181011-72130-1bsgr78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240167/original/file-20181011-72130-1bsgr78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mae C. Jemison became the first African-American woman in space in 1992.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dr._Mae_C._Jemison,_First_African-American_Woman_in_Space_-_GPN-2004-00020.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nevertheless, the developments since Arrival are encouraging. 2017 saw <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4846340/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Hidden Figures</a>, the movie about the three brilliant African-American women at NASA - Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) - who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell) into orbit. It was a stunning achievement that restored the US’s confidence, turned around the Space Race, and galvanised the world.</p>
<p>And this year, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2798920/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Annihilation</a> was launched. Based on Jeff VanderMeer’s bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy, the movie stars Natalie Portman (as a cellular biologist), Jennifer Jason Leigh (as a psychologist), Tuva Novotny (as an anthropologist), Tessa Thompson (as a physicist), and Gina Rodriguez (as a paramedic). If Gravity chipped the ceiling for female academics; Arrival appears to have finally smashed it. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/89OP78l9oF0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>If Arrival does succeed in transforming how filmmakers perceive and represent women and female academics, it is due not only to this one movie being good and profitable, but also to the long, slow work by female and male actors, agents, directors, producers, researchers, writers and others that has gone before it. For decades, people have been researching gender representation in media and advocating for equal representation of women.</p>
<p>Still, Arrival should really have been just a science-fiction drama about a linguistics professor, who happens to be female, leading an elite team of investigators. Yet, with so few movies about female professors, or female humanities scholars, or female lead investigators, or female academics in general, it became highly symbolic.</p>
<p>The real test of how far things have progressed will be when a female academic has the luxury of being the star of a bad movie. That is one measure of equality — the right to be bad and not suffer for it, rather than the demand, placed on female academics and actresses, to be exceptional just to be seen.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was updated to reinstate ‘blockbuster’ in its discussion of women who should have films made about them. This was inadvertently removed during editing.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom van Laer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For decades, academics have been portrayed as brilliant, heroic men on our cinema screens. It’s time to tell the story of more heroic female scholars. Here are some suggestions.
Tom van Laer, Reader (Associate Professor) of Marketing, City, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/94861
2018-04-18T09:45:51Z
2018-04-18T09:45:51Z
Women filmmakers failed by EU’s €820m film fund
<p>The Cannes Film Festival, which starts in May, has long been a showcase for films supported by the Creative Europe MEDIA programme – <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/policies/media-programme">the EU’s €820m (£712m) fund for the film and audiovisual sector</a>. Last year, <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/20-media-supported-films-screened-cannes">the EU proudly boasted</a> that 20 MEDIA-funded films were being screened at the festival, including Ruben Östlund’s The Square, winner of the prestigious Palme d’Or.</p>
<p>But with the status of women working in the film industry under increasing scrutiny following the Weinstein sex scandal, #MeToo movement and Time’s Up campaign, Brussels should perhaps pay more attention to the number of women filmmakers who receive MEDIA support. And if previous years are anything to go by, there is less to brag about.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.academia.edu/36417395/United_in_diversity_The_EUs_MEDIA_programme_and_its_support_for_women_filmmakers">My analysis</a> of a sample of 1,473 films funded through MEDIA’s flagship theatrical distribution scheme – which promotes the cross-border circulation of European films – reveals that, during the most recent 2007-13 funding cycle, only 16% of MEDIA-funded films had a female director.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215002/original/file-20180416-127631-zjtvhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215002/original/file-20180416-127631-zjtvhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215002/original/file-20180416-127631-zjtvhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215002/original/file-20180416-127631-zjtvhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215002/original/file-20180416-127631-zjtvhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215002/original/file-20180416-127631-zjtvhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215002/original/file-20180416-127631-zjtvhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215002/original/file-20180416-127631-zjtvhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Number of European films released by MEDIA distribution support by director’s gender, 2007-13.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: Jones/MeCETES (2018) based on raw data from EAO LUMIERE Pro World, IMDb, MEDIA.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In financial terms, 13% of the distribution scheme’s €228m budget went towards films directed by women, while their median average award was 20% lower than male-directed MEDIA-funded films.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215023/original/file-20180416-560-1or4tzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215023/original/file-20180416-560-1or4tzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215023/original/file-20180416-560-1or4tzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215023/original/file-20180416-560-1or4tzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215023/original/file-20180416-560-1or4tzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215023/original/file-20180416-560-1or4tzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215023/original/file-20180416-560-1or4tzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215023/original/file-20180416-560-1or4tzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Median average award for European films released with MEDIA distribution support by director’s gender, 2007-13.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: Jones/MeCETES (2018) based on raw data from EAO LUMIERE Pro World, IMDb, MEDIA.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why women get less backing</h2>
<p>The lower amount of MEDIA distribution support received by female directors cannot solely be explained by the fact that <a href="http://www.ewawomen.com/uploads/files/MERGED_Press-2016.pdf">women produce only 21% of films in Europe</a>. My analysis of how the scheme operates – which I will be presenting at the <a href="https://media-industries.org/">Media Industries Conference</a> at King’s College London on April 19 – suggests women filmmakers are discriminated against in subtle ways.</p>
<p>First, there is no recognition that female directors are underrepresented in terms of funding. MEDIA’s own <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/evaluation/search/download.do;jsessionid=HhTQTJSfQYBn2PVWrzykwZDL1qy7JD63S1pZc9J53v4hn1PNGSXl!1601440011?documentId=4223">interim evaluation</a> of the 2007-13 funding cycle, for example, gives no indication of the gender balance among applicants or beneficiaries of MEDIA support.</p>
<p>Second, the film distributors who apply for MEDIA funding, as well as the assessors who approve or reject applications, are often men. Of the 30 British distribution companies that successfully applied for MEDIA distribution funding between 2007 and 2013, for example, only three (New Wave, Soda Pictures and Curzon Artificial Eye) had women in senior decision-making roles.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215005/original/file-20180416-566-1lenyel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215005/original/file-20180416-566-1lenyel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215005/original/file-20180416-566-1lenyel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215005/original/file-20180416-566-1lenyel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215005/original/file-20180416-566-1lenyel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215005/original/file-20180416-566-1lenyel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215005/original/file-20180416-566-1lenyel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215005/original/file-20180416-566-1lenyel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Top 20 awards for female-directed MEDIA-funded films, 2007-13.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: Jones / MeCETES (2018) based on raw data from EAO LUMIERE Pro World, IMDb, MEDIA.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Third, women make fewer films of the type the MEDIA distribution scheme tends to support. MEDIA funding often goes towards award-winning dramas – which distributors expect to perform well in the arthouse or crossover film market. As one distributor told me: “We’re simply looking for quality titles. So obviously the more high-profile festival winners like Amour or The Great Beauty or Oscar-winners are on our radar.”</p>
<p>This disadvantages women filmmakers – and not because their films are of lesser quality than men’s. Indeed, according to my analysis of data from the Rotten Tomatoes website, female-directed MEDIA-funded films in the period 2007-13 were more popular with critics than those by their male counterparts – with an average aggregate rating of 6.4 out of ten compared with 5.9.</p>
<p>But female-directed films receive fewer awards, partly because film juries are often dominated by men. Since MEDIA’s launch in 1991, for example, only four of the 26 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cannes_Film_Festival_juries_(Feature_films)">Cannes Film Festival juries</a> have been chaired by a woman.</p>
<h2>What audiences see</h2>
<p>The gender funding gap in MEDIA distribution support limits the range of films and perspectives audiences see in cinemas. My analysis – which uses data from the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/">Internet Movie Database</a> (IMDb) and the European Audiovisual Observatory’s <a href="http://lumiere.obs.coe.int/web/search/">LUMIERE database</a> – suggests male- and female-directed films released with MEDIA support between 2007 and 2013 had a lot in common. Most were mid-to-low budget French- or English-language dramas.</p>
<p>But female-directed MEDIA-funded films – including Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady (2011), Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank (2009) and Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes (2009) – were five times more likely to feature a female protagonist. With lower MEDIA distribution support, such films had less to spend on Prints and Advertising (P&A), and so were seen by fewer people. The average female-directed MEDIA-funded films, for example, attracted 19,000 fewer cinemagoers in Europe in the period 2007-13 than those by their male counterparts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215004/original/file-20180416-584-1nc9bku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215004/original/file-20180416-584-1nc9bku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215004/original/file-20180416-584-1nc9bku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215004/original/file-20180416-584-1nc9bku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215004/original/file-20180416-584-1nc9bku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215004/original/file-20180416-584-1nc9bku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215004/original/file-20180416-584-1nc9bku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215004/original/file-20180416-584-1nc9bku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Average number of cinema admissions (all European territories combined) for European films released with MEDIA distribution support by director’s gender, 2007-13.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: Jones/MeCETES (2018) based on raw data from EAO LUMIERE Pro World, IMDb, MEDIA.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In total, female-directed MEDIA-funded films reached 20m cinemagoers in Europe, compared with 200m cinemagoers for male-directed MEDIA-funded films. In some parts of Europe (for example Bulgaria, Estonia, Iceland), less than a dozen female-directed films were released with MEDIA distribution support throughout the whole 2007-13 funding cycle.</p>
<h2>Female perspectives</h2>
<p>At the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, there were <a href="http://variety.com/2018/film/global/eu-media-program-battle-secure-future-1202717998/">calls to increase funding</a> for the MEDIA programme. In an <a href="http://www.larp.fr/home/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/European-Tribune-Berlin-2018-EN-ALL-FR-6.pdf">open letter</a>, filmmakers – including Ken Loach, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Cristian Mungiu – declared: “European culture means putting together all singularities, all ways of life and points of view, all traditions, languages and histories that define each country.”</p>
<p>But unless women filmmakers receive a fair share of MEDIA distribution funding, audiences in Europe will have few opportunities to see female ways of life and points of view.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Huw Jones worked on the 'Mediating Cultural Encounters through European Screens' (MeCETES) research project between 2014-17. The MeCETES project was financially supported by the HERA Joint Research Programme (<a href="http://www.heranet.info">www.heranet.info</a>) which is co-funded by AHRC, AKA, BMBF via PT-DLR, DASTI, ETAG, FCT, FNR, FNRS, FWF, FWO, HAZU, IRC, LMT, MHEST, NWO, NCN, RANNÍS, RCN, VR and The European Community FP7 2007-2013, under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities programme. More info: <a href="http://www.mecetes.co.uk">www.mecetes.co.uk</a></span></em></p>
New analysis shows that women’s films get less EU backing, despite being more popular with critics than films directed by men.
Huw D. Jones, Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Southampton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/91019
2018-02-01T13:45:03Z
2018-02-01T13:45:03Z
Time’s up: the ‘pale, male and stale’ Hollywood of Harvey Weinstein is over
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204341/original/file-20180131-157473-1xyiced.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/harvey-weinstein-attend-carol-premiere-during-279099371">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the past 20 years, an increasingly repetitive Hollywood has been serving up bland blockbusters with male protagonists supported by busty blondes on the narrative sidelines, pseudo-intellectual disaster sci-fi, and endless comedies about weddings or stag nights and being lost in Los Angeles. For high-profile culture, Hollywood has offered audiences an exceedingly narrow view of the world.</p>
<p>This may paint a picture of intellectual decay and creative stagnation, but it’s actually worse than that. For decades we have been subjected to films in which women are 10 or more years younger than their male counterparts; where a James Bond character is accepted as sexy and valued in his 50s and 60s, yet the female sidekick is seen as attractive only if she is under 30 and conventionally beautiful.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204424/original/file-20180201-123849-1nt68ga.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204424/original/file-20180201-123849-1nt68ga.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204424/original/file-20180201-123849-1nt68ga.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204424/original/file-20180201-123849-1nt68ga.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204424/original/file-20180201-123849-1nt68ga.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204424/original/file-20180201-123849-1nt68ga.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204424/original/file-20180201-123849-1nt68ga.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A hit series on Netflix, Godless is a Western that focuses squarely on women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These women are flat, two-dimensional dolls devoid of darkness, moral or maternal imperfection, doubt or ambiguity. Their only function is to support men in their moral struggles and help them uncoil their fascinating internal complexities.</p>
<p>These narratives are not surprising given the demographics of decision-makers in Hollywood – that is male, pale and stale. The sorry <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/6/16431674/harvey-weinstein-allegations-explained">Weinstein affair</a> has particularly brought this imbalance of power to the fore. It turns out the accepted misogyny displayed in Hollywood film is a reflection of a misogynistic and abusive reality being played out in the dynamics of the film industry.</p>
<h2>Power and glory</h2>
<p>This concept of “narrative choice” is important. We know that people have a tendency to recreate their own vision of the world, not necessarily consciously or with malice. This is what they know and accept as the norm. But in choosing to recreate that narrative they are simply reinforcing and maintaining these norms.</p>
<p>In the context of Hollywood and Harvey Weinstein, the norms being reinforced and maintained are those of <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/martha-ts-laham-/the-celluloid-ceiling-tru_b_11389544.html">gender inequality</a>. Hollywood men with power recreate their world of inequality on screen, promoting and legitimising tired and outdated stereotypes in our society and culture. It is these “norms” that allow an industry and the individuals within it to abuse and exploit, or to be abused and exploited without challenge or intervention.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2LFg_KDxR5I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">YouTube/DC Comics.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The power to choose directors, actors and actresses, storylines and cultural context comes with the potential to have enormous influence over individual, social, and cultural assumptions. For some reason, few doubted the repetitive rigidity of these industry choices, and only now do we begin to notice that, like a metaphorical hostage, the films we watched without thought have been covertly communicating the place and value of women relative to men since films began. </p>
<p>In 2016, women made up <a href="http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/2017_Celluloid_Ceiling_Report.pdf">just 7%</a> of all directors of the top 250 films; in 2017 that went up four points to 11%. But Hollywood also suffers from a <a href="http://variety.com/2015/film/news/ucla-report-audiences-seeking-more-diversity-in-films-tv-1201441464/">racial inclusion crisis</a>, with very few ethnic minority producers and directors making it to the top.</p>
<p>In a multi-billion dollar industry there is a lot at stake in a very competitive and ruthless environment. As a result, narrative decisions in the biggest entertainment structure in the world are made by those in established positions of power – ruthless but risk-averse middle-aged white men. When this is translated into narratives about relationships and sexual power, dangerous precedents can be set. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204432/original/file-20180201-123829-1utgs7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204432/original/file-20180201-123829-1utgs7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204432/original/file-20180201-123829-1utgs7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204432/original/file-20180201-123829-1utgs7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204432/original/file-20180201-123829-1utgs7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204432/original/file-20180201-123829-1utgs7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204432/original/file-20180201-123829-1utgs7u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bridget Jones, the much-loved chick flick from Weinstein’s Miramax, would not have passed the Bechdel test.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Miramax</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For instance, Woody Allen’s films (such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/may/11/manhattan-review-woody-allen">Manhattan</a>) contain numerous references to old men dating very young women, which in any other context would be considered concerning. Quentin Tarantino’s films overtly <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/12/29/samuel_l_jackson_s_hateful_eight_monologue_about_forcing_the_general_s_son.html">sexualise violence</a>, often by trivialising the threat with humour.</p>
<p>Formulaic “<a href="https://www.quora.com/What-constitutes-a-chick-flick">chick flicks</a>” such as Bridget Jones, reproduce the common movie <a href="https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/07/what-is-heteronormativity/">assumption</a> that a woman’s sole purpose in life is to find a man – and until she achieves that, she is a figure of fun or pity.</p>
<p>Equally predictable action films romanticise the extremes of masculine and feminine stereotypes – powerful men and submissive women. Most of them would not pass the so-called “<a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheBechdelTest?from=Main.TheBechdeltest">Bechdel test</a>” which asks simple but provocative questions: does a narrative contain two female characters, and do they speak to each other of something other than men? </p>
<h2>Smashing the Hollywood monopoly</h2>
<p>Luckily, on-demand television and media streaming arrived just in time to shake up, then directly challenge, the industry, saving it from itself. HBO, Netflix, Amazon and the BBC all began to offer narratives that went beyond the limited tastes and perspectives of the average Hollywood decision-maker. </p>
<p>Shows such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytkjQvSk2VA">Luke Cage</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3UYWK2jeX0">Jessica Jones</a> envisaged a superhero who is not white, or even a man. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2013/jul/11/orange-new-black-netflix-tv">Orange is the New Black</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/may/11/i-love-dick-review-jill-soloway-transparent-kathryn-hahn-kevin-bacon">I Love Dick</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/26/fleabag-an-original-bad-girl-comedy">Fleabag</a> depicted the never-seen before – multi-dimensional female characters exhibiting aggression, criminality, promiscuity, alternative sexuality and the capacity to shape and achieve their own ambitions.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204434/original/file-20180201-123826-1sivcfj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204434/original/file-20180201-123826-1sivcfj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204434/original/file-20180201-123826-1sivcfj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204434/original/file-20180201-123826-1sivcfj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204434/original/file-20180201-123826-1sivcfj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204434/original/file-20180201-123826-1sivcfj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204434/original/file-20180201-123826-1sivcfj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fleabag featured the messy life of a funny, foul-mouthed thirtysomething woman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other complex, fleshed-out female characters could be found in <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-ryan/girls-season-1-finale_b_1602385.html">Girls</a> (a 21st-century Sex and the City), <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/arts/television/glow-netflix-recap-season-1.html">Glow</a> (a comedy about female wrestling), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/nov/22/godless-review-netflix-wonderfully-wicked-western-fires-on-all-cylinders">Godless</a> (a female Western series) and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/arts/television/top-of-the-lake-china-girl-tv-review.html">Top of the Lake</a> (a troubled female detective drama).</p>
<p>And at last there was an array of morally ambiguous but rather sympathetic female characters: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/fargo-star-kirsten-dunst-peggys-832967">Peggy Blumquist</a> in Fargo 2, <a href="http://time.com/4765797/fargo-mary-elizabeth-winstead/">Nikki Swango</a> in Fargo 3, Scandi-Noir detectives Sara Lund (<a href="http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-killing/23375/looking-back-at-the-killing-series-1">The Killing</a>) and Saga Noren (<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-not-sexual-freedom-if-someone-is-raping-you-sofia-helin-and-the-swedish-metoo-90962">The Bridge</a>) and most of the female characters in Orange is the New Black. </p>
<p>Rather awkwardly and much too late, Hollywood has been trying to copy this trend. Now Star Wars has a female protagonist in the form of <a href="http://www.starwars.com/databank/rey">Rey</a>. There’s even a female superhero in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jun/04/wonder-woman-review-gloriously-badass-breath-fresh-air-gal-gadot">Wonder Woman</a> – a protagonist proper, with no men attached to her story. Before them there were, of course, Ridley Scott’s female bad-asses such as <a href="http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/alien/47055/ellen-ripley-alien-and-the-rise-of-the-modern-ripleys">Ripley</a> in the Alien franchise, <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/ThelmaAndLouise">Thelma and Louise</a> and Lieutenant Jordan O’Neil in <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/GIJane">GI Jane</a>, who all fought for the right to be seen as human beings in a world otherwise run by men.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204423/original/file-20180201-123821-14bwt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204423/original/file-20180201-123821-14bwt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204423/original/file-20180201-123821-14bwt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204423/original/file-20180201-123821-14bwt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204423/original/file-20180201-123821-14bwt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204423/original/file-20180201-123821-14bwt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204423/original/file-20180201-123821-14bwt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greta Gerwig has been nominated for Best Director at this year’s Oscars for Ladybird.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/greta-gerwig-23rd-annual-critics-choice-797599711?src=OYpZmLlv7mb2mDS5D7QI5Q-1-7">Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>With the revulsion caused by the uncovering of Weinstein’s abuse of power and the exposure of unequal pay highlighting the shocking lack of gender equality, it feels like finally those narratives are about to change. Women everywhere celebrate every milestone on the road to equality – this year Greta Gerwig has been nominated for best director at the Oscars, and with only five other women ever nominated (and only one, Kathryn Bigelow, winning) in the awards’ 90-year history, this is a <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/23/entertainment/greta-gerwig-lady-bird-oscar-nomination/index.html">big deal</a>.</p>
<p>The powerless have been given a voice with which they can make demands, challenges and criticisms of the Hollywood we know. The genie is out of the bottle and she’s not going back in.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91019/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Hollywood has long had a problem with diversity. But thanks to services like Netflix women have found a place for their stories, compelling Tinseltown to change.
Helena Bassil-Morozow, Lecturer in Media and Journalism, Glasgow Caledonian University
Katy Proctor, Lecturer in Criminology and Policing, Glasgow Caledonian University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85890
2017-11-02T16:01:35Z
2017-11-02T16:01:35Z
The Snowman: Nordic Noir with a hint of Dirty Harry
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192863/original/file-20171101-19858-rzoap2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal PIctures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tomas Alfredson’s recently released film adaptation of Jo Nesbø’s bestselling novel <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1758810/">The Snowman</a> closely captures, in its slow, quiet intensity, the bleak essence of Nordic Noir. </p>
<p>The tones of Nordic Noir originate in the region’s uncompromising climates and landscapes and build upon the cold cultural comforts of Kierkegaard, Bergman and Munch. Its international popularity as a literary and screen genre has led to various attempts to adapt its most successful narratives for English-language audiences, including Hollywood versions of The Killing and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and British reinventions of The Bridge (as The Tunnel) and Wallander.</p>
<p>But, despite some lukewarm <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/15/the-snowman-michael-fassbender-serial-killer-thriller-review">reviews</a>, Alfredson’s film appears rather more successful than those other English-language attempts at the genre in its faithfulness to the cold heart of its genre.</p>
<p>The ice-cool Michael Fassbender seems born for the role of Nesbø’s inscrutable and taciturn Harry Hole in Alfredson’s adaptation. His understated performance recalls the character’s origins in Clint Eastwood’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Harry_(character)">Harry Callahan</a> and in Humphrey Bogart’s deadpan hard men of 1940s film noir. Yet the film’s machismo perhaps sites it closer to Dirty Harry and the traditions of American noir than to the genre into which the Nordic variety has more recently evolved.</p>
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<p>Since Kurt Wallander’s daughter Linda took the lead in Henning Mankell’s 2005 novel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_the_Frost">Before the Frost</a>, and (that same year) <a href="http://millenniumtrilogy.wikia.com/wiki/Lisbeth_Salander">Lisbeth Salander</a> first revealed her dragon tattoo, the genre has become increasingly characterised by its strong female protagonists. A far cry from the lazy chauvinism of Harry Callahan or Sam Spade, this Scandinavian genre has, at its best, explored the conflicted heroism of the likes of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/5r67r6H79CwBNQKMt6dcGDL/detective-chief-inspector-sarah-lund">Sarah Lund</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/1Zgbghx1TtfskdkhzgcRJ4X/saga-noren-and-martin-rohde">Saga Norén</a>, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/series/thoragudmundsdottir/">Thora Gudmundsdottir</a> and <a href="http://jordskott.wikia.com/wiki/Eva_Th%C3%B6rnblad">Eva Thörnblad</a>.</p>
<p>The growing (if only partial and belated) centricity of female characters to such popular narratives is not uniquely Scandinavian. As such screen stars as <a href="http://www.starwars.com/films/star-wars-episode-viii-the-last-jedi">Daisy Ridley</a>, <a href="https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80126024">Sonequa Martin-Green </a>and <a href="http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-10-13/doctor-who-jodie-whittaker/">Jodie Whittaker</a> take the reins of major popular genre franchises, might the brooding masculinity of Fassbender here come to seem somewhat retrograde? </p>
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<p>Alfredson’s film, while remarkably faithful to the tone of the novel, differs from Nesbø’s original in a number of aspects – not least the deaths of two main characters who survive the book (albeit hardly unscathed). These deaths take place for the sake of narrative impact and closure within the two-hour feature film. But this haste to resolution feels out of kilter with Alfredson’s commitment to a genre which, at its most effective, produced a 20-hour exploration of grief and pain in The Killing’s first season – and Nesbø’s own ongoing, multi-novel elaborations upon the consequences of acts of extreme violence. </p>
<p>The strategy that it is easier to kill off characters than to come to terms with issues of emotional complexity aligns the film itself rather too closely with the mentality of its own serial killer. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/kundera-speed.html">Milan Kundera</a>, by contrast, once advocated the virtues of slowness in an increasingly impatient contemporary culture. It is this capacity for quiet contemplation which has set Netflix and Nordic Noir apart from the puerile content of YouTube and the premature climaxes of so much of Hollywood’s macho product.</p>
<p>Alfredson’s film opens with the brutalisation, breakdown and suicide of a victim of domestic violence played by the Swedish actor <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0375138/">Sofia Helin</a>. Helin is one of the matriarchs of small screen Nordic Noir (along with The Killing and Fortitude’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0344894/">Sofie Gråbøl</a>), best known for her portrayal of Saga Norén in The Bridge. One might therefore read this opening as a declaration of the film’s departure from Nordic Noir’s recent female-centred history. But it doesn’t so much move on from the genre’s focus on gender relations as it offers its own dark perspective on that subject.</p>
<h2>Ambiguous hero</h2>
<p>The film’s core message is that the blame for the sins of the fathers tends to be visited by their sons upon their mothers and mother figures. It explores how male violence against women perpetuates itself by blaming women for that cycle of violence – and its final explicit message is that it is (of course) not the women but the men who are to blame. Key to this message are the parallels which the film draws between its villains (its emotionally distant cigarette smoker of a serial killer and his abusive policeman father) and its protagonist, the neglectful father and chain-smoking detective Harry Hole.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193021/original/file-20171102-26478-6ywpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193021/original/file-20171102-26478-6ywpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193021/original/file-20171102-26478-6ywpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193021/original/file-20171102-26478-6ywpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193021/original/file-20171102-26478-6ywpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193021/original/file-20171102-26478-6ywpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193021/original/file-20171102-26478-6ywpyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Sidekick: Rebecca Ferguson as policewoman Katrine Bratt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Pictures</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The laconic Harry Hole is no typical hero. He is, as his name suggests, something of a nothing, an emotional vacuum. (His name may also contain an implied expletive: there is something of the hole about Harry.) </p>
<p>Like Gary Oldman’s George Smiley in Alfredson’s 2011 adaptation of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/sep/15/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-film-review">Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy</a> – and, like Saga Norén, Sarah Lund and Lisbeth Salander for that matter – he fails in his personal, social and professional relationships. His main contribution to the film’s actual action is to get wounded and fall over. He is a drunkard who – in Nesbø’s <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/authorinterviews/9130821/Jo-Nesbo-talks-about-Phantom.html">later work</a> – skids further and further off the rails and eventually turns to opium abuse. He is, as he admits in the film’s dramatic and emotional climax, fundamentally selfish. In short, he is no kind of a role model for his adopted son or for a contemporary audience. His one redeeming feature – and the film’s – is that he knows it.</p>
<p>That is perhaps scant consolation; but in a film released as a series of shattering revelations emerged about <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41594672">sexual misconduct</a> of some of Hollywood’s biggest players, its overt polemic against such bludgeoning misogyny might seem almost as timely as the blockbusting returns of such kick-ass heroines as Lara Croft and Wonder Woman. If Harry Hole, then, is a hero for our times, then it is only because (unlike Eastwood’s glamorously dirty cop) this emphatically unwholesome Harry is one whose conduct serves not as a model but as a warning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85890/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alec Charles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Jo Nesbø’s bleak thriller featuring troubled hero Harry Hole, rings the changes in a genre recently dominated by female protagonists.
Alec Charles, Dean of Faculty of Arts, University of Winchester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/82900
2017-08-29T20:10:22Z
2017-08-29T20:10:22Z
Beyond Atomic Blonde: cinema’s long, proud history of violent women
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183574/original/file-20170828-17108-w2r8fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> 87Eleven, Closed on Mondays Entertainment, Denver and Delilah Productions.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whenever a film like Wonder Woman or <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2406566/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Atomic Blonde</a> is released, one thing is certain: critics will take notice of the violent heroines who lead the story. It happened with <a href="http://www.dailylife.com.au/dl-people/dl-entertainment/the-rise-of-the-young-feminist-action-hero-20131227-2zys0.html">Katniss Everdeen</a> in The Hunger Games, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/meet-the-new-action-heroines-1980491.html">Evelyn Salt</a> in Salt and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/19/style/cultural-studies-i-am-woman-now-prepare-to-die.html?pagewanted=all">Beatrix Kiddo</a> in Kill Bill. Whenever a heroine appears, some critics will argue that she is a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jun/05/why-wonder-woman-is-a-masterpiece-of-subversive-feminism">landmark</a>, as in the case of Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. </p>
<p>Some will <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/movies/blog/2016/05/06/what-lies-beyond-bad-ass-heroine-hollywood">complain</a> that she is simply “acting like a man”, whereas others will celebrate her, as in the case of Theron’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/07/wonder-woman-opened-floodgates-for-female-action-heroes">“smart, combat-ready action spy”</a>. And there will <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/07/wonder-woman-opened-floodgates-for-female-action-heroes">inevitably be talk of a new era</a> of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/27/why-hunger-games-katniss-everdeen-role-model-jennifer-lawrence">female empowerment</a>) and “butt-kicking” heroines.</p>
<p>But there is nothing special or unusual about women kicking butt in film. Murder and violence are ever popular subjects in cinema, and women have taken part in the bloodshed from the beginning.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-the-amazons-the-real-wonder-women-78248">The truth about the Amazons – the real Wonder Women</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<h2>An early heroine</h2>
<p>One of the earliest heroines who aspired to violence can be found in a silent film from 1923, La Souriante Madame Beudet. The titular character is a bored housewife who despises her boorish husband. So great is her dislike, in fact, that she fills a handgun with bullets in the hope he will accidentally shoot himself. </p>
<p>Monsieur Beudet discovers the bullets, but it never occurs to him that his wife had ill intent toward him. Instead, he stupidly concludes that she must have meant to kill herself rather than him. </p>
<p>Nearly 100 years after the film’s release, the joke appears to be on us. Monsieur Beudet’s reluctance to think that his wife is capable of murder mirrors our own surprise whenever violent women appear onscreen. </p>
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<p>In this early film, Madame Beudet’s near act of violence is a form of feminist commentary. It is a cry of frustration and a desperate act caused by an unsatisfying marriage.</p>
<h2>Film noir</h2>
<p>Women’s desire to escape their circumstances also appears as a motivating factor in film noir. Translating as “black film”, film noir is a genre made up of crime dramas and detective thrillers. They were first made in the USA in the 1940s and 50s – well-known examples include <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033870/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Maltese Falcon</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038355/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Big Sleep</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040525/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Lady from Shanghai</a>. </p>
<p>Noir films are diverse, but their hallmarks include male protagonists, violent crimes and the femme fatale (“fatal woman”), a beauty who sexually manipulates men for personal gain. Femmes fatales don’t always conspire to kill people, but some do go to such lengths. Phyllis Dietrichson of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036775/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Double Indemnity</a>, Cora Smith of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038854/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">The Postman Always Rings Twice</a> and Kathie Moffat in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039689/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Out of the Past</a> all spring to mind.</p>
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<p>These femmes fatales are not violent simply because they’re “bad”. Phyllis, Cora and Kathie all kill for money, which would help them achieve independence. Indeed, Cora repeatedly says she wants to “make something” of the business that she runs with her husband. The grim reality is that she can only accomplish this by murdering the dolt.</p>
<h2>Highbrow and lowbrow</h2>
<p>In other films, the purpose of women’s violence can be quite different. Some filmmakers use deadly women to shock audiences and challenge our values. Interestingly, this strategy appears in films at opposing ends of the cinema spectrum: “highbrow” art films as well as “lowbrow” exploitation cinema. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-reduce-sexism-in-screenplays-80142">How to reduce sexism in screenplays</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>“Exploitation” cinema is a genre named for the way these films “exploit” taboo topics to lure audiences. Themes include drug use, vigilantism, gratuitous sex and, in many cases, homicidal women. </p>
<p>Violent heroines correspond with the forbidden pleasures of exploitation cinema. As the “nurturing” sex, women “shouldn’t” kill people and it is scandalous to see them do so. Female killers thus appear aplenty in exploitation genres: in rape-revenge films like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082776/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Ms .45</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077713/?ref_=nv_sr_2">I Spit on Your Grave</a>, in blaxploitations <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071517/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Foxy Brown</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069890/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Cleopatra Jones</a>, and in prison films <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066830/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Big Doll House</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068273/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Big Bird Cage</a>. </p>
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<p>Violent women’s subversive power also explains their appearance in some art films: thematically and aesthetically ambitious works that challenge established film norms. Violent women provide a means of pushing the boundaries. Feminist art film classic <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073198/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles</a> famously ends with a housewife committing an act of murder. Extreme French film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0204700/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Trouble Every Day</a> concerns cannibalistic Parisians plagued by sexual longing. Provocative art-horror film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0870984/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Antichrist</a> is a story of spousal conflict that ends in violence.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RtxtvzSgNl8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>In each of these films, the female characters’ aggression expresses their alienation and angst. Each film is concerned with the extremes of human experience: oppressive domesticity, taboo desire and marital strife. Through their violence, women in these art films “speak” their unspeakable emotions, making them spectacular and bloody onscreen.</p>
<h2>Violent women today</h2>
<p>Violent women have been around for decades. So why are we still so surprised by them? </p>
<p>One reason is that we are in two minds about women’s aggression. On one hand, thinkers from <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/history/">Aristotle</a> to Sigmund Freud have characterised women as the passive sex. On the other, our narrative tradition is filled with tales that portray women as the nastier gender. The Gorgons, Euripides’s Medea, and the duplicitous femme fatale all suggest that, however tough a man might be, women are “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poems/the_female_of_the_species.shtml">more deadly than the male</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183575/original/file-20170828-17129-hqxco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183575/original/file-20170828-17129-hqxco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183575/original/file-20170828-17129-hqxco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183575/original/file-20170828-17129-hqxco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183575/original/file-20170828-17129-hqxco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183575/original/file-20170828-17129-hqxco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183575/original/file-20170828-17129-hqxco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183575/original/file-20170828-17129-hqxco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Medea by Ernest Legouvé (1807-1903).</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The incompatibility of these two ideas dooms us to endless surprise. We fall into the habit of thinking that women aren’t as violent as men, and so are impressed anew whenever another deadly woman appears.</p>
<p>One explanation for the enduring appeal of violent women in film is that cinema provides a space where we can realise our fantasies. Whether they are good or bad, deadly women offer enjoyable images of empowerment. Talking about her love of film noir, <a href="http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780851706665">Angela Martin</a> calls this “the treat of seeing women giving as good, if not better, than they got”. Physical vulnerability is an everyday reality for women, so the idea of fighting back is appealing. </p>
<p>And as <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Modern_Man_in_Search_of_a_Soul.html?id=U6lMnx8AQsYC">Carl Jung</a> has written, cinema “makes it possible to experience without danger all the excitement, passion and desirousness which must be repressed in a humanitarian ordering of life”. </p>
<p>Another explanation is simply that violent heroines provide product differentiation in a marketplace saturated with male action heroes. For example, when the first <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Alien</a> film appeared in 1979, the film’s heroine, Ellen Ripley, helped distinguish her franchise from masculine competitors. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451279/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Wonder Woman</a> has a similar function today, standing out from the numerous male-led Marvel franchises. </p>
<h2>A new feminist era?</h2>
<p>Whenever a new “butt-kicking” heroine appears onscreen, some will be tempted to see her as evidence of a new feminist era. Certainly, there does seem to be some correlation between violent women and past feminist movements. Film noir emerged when women found new freedoms in wartime America, and many female-led vigilante films of the 1970s coincided with second-wave feminism. </p>
<p>Such links are compelling. However, it is more accurate to say that violent women appear consistently throughout cinema history. Sometimes they facilitate discussions of feminist issues, but they also offer remarkably consistent pleasures across the decades. They are fantasy figures, subversive mavericks, and an enduring part of our narrative tradition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82900/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janice Loreck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From Kill Bill to The Hunger Games, women have been kicking butt in films (and in real life) forever. But we still act surprised when they do, because deep down we still see women as the passive sex.
Janice Loreck, Adjunct Research Fellow in Communication and Cultural Studies, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/80570
2017-07-27T08:31:28Z
2017-07-27T08:31:28Z
Amazon, Netflix and righting the wrongs of television’s gender problem
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179780/original/file-20170726-3011-5lcp16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Glow from Netfix.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.netflix.com/en/only-on-netflix/68621">Netflix</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Netflix will spend <a href="https://www.rapidtvnews.com/2017060247462/netflix-to-spend-6bn-on-original-content-in-2017.html#axzz4npLXMcRA">$6 billion</a> on original content in 2017. Between them, Amazon, Hulu and Netflix have scored 125 <a href="http://variety.com/2017/tv/awards/emmys-nominations-2017-netflix-hulu-amazon-1202494881/">Emmy nominations this year</a>. The message is clear: Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) is no longer the new kid on the block. And it is this blooming platform which is starting to turn the traditionally male-dominated world of television production on its head.</p>
<p>Every year, <a href="http://www.wga.org/the-guild/advocacy/diversity/hollywood-writers-report">reports</a> on industry employment reveal how women are underrepresented on the writers’ credits in television. In the US and the UK, women’s share of television employment has remained at under 30%. <a href="http://variety.com/2016/tv/features/diversity-television-white-male-showrunners-stats-fox-nbc-abc-cbs-cw-study-1201789639/">Women showrunners</a> (creators, executive producers and writers) account for only 22% of showrunners in the US. Women of colour make up just 4%. Once the bothersome newcomer in the entertainment market, subscription streaming services are shaking up the system and showing their more traditional rivals how innovation can lead to market dominance.</p>
<p>Two key points separate the production of subscription video on demand original content from the more traditional “linear” television model, where content is programmed to broadcast at one specific time. </p>
<p>First, producers such as Amazon, Netflix and Hulu have flexibility in the programming they commission. For example, without being restricted by commercial breaks and channel scheduling, episodes can run shorter or longer than a conventional drama (usually 45-50 minutes) or comedy (22-28 minutes). Being less accountable to programme sponsors, online original series can also tackle more <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-psychologists-have-got-it-wrong-on-13-reasons-why-79806">controversial subject matter</a>. But most importantly, they can commission content from a more diverse range of people with different voices.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179781/original/file-20170726-11301-1vc0ktp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179781/original/file-20170726-11301-1vc0ktp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179781/original/file-20170726-11301-1vc0ktp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179781/original/file-20170726-11301-1vc0ktp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179781/original/file-20170726-11301-1vc0ktp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179781/original/file-20170726-11301-1vc0ktp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179781/original/file-20170726-11301-1vc0ktp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Orange is the New Black, season five.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.netflix.com/en/only-on-netflix/4892">Netlfix</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The second key difference between subscription video on demand and linear programming is their commissioning processes. Amazon completely shook up the convention of the “pilot season” (where initial episodes of new content are made then dropped or pushed forward depending on their anticipated success) with its own version of the “pilot” process. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Amazon-Studios-Invites-TV-Writers-Submit-Comedy-Children-Series-Ideas-42088.html">Amazon’s version</a>, anyone could submit an idea for original content through an online portal. In this break from the “who you know” system of commissioning, Amazon made the pilots viewable by its Prime customers, who can then vote for the content they want to see produced into a full series. </p>
<p>This democratisation of viewing is also influenced by the feature that is at the very core of on-demand viewing – we watch what we want, when we want, for however long we want. We watch on our laptops, on our tablets, on our smart phones and on our home smart televisions. Importantly, all of this has helped increase <a href="https://theconversation.com/orange-is-the-new-black-is-fast-becoming-a-feminist-classic-40353">programming about women</a>, created by women. </p>
<h2>A man’s world</h2>
<p>Television production has traditionally been a man’s world. <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0163443714544868?journalCode=mcsa">Evidence</a> for the media industries shows that people in positions of power over hiring will employ those they feel are most similar to their existing teams. So, for a team of white men, another white man will typically be seen as a “safer” hire than a woman or a person of colour. When the odds are loaded against women like this, it becomes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jul/25/women-in-tv-arent-trusted-as-writers-claims-happy-valley-creator">harder</a> for a woman to get her foot in the door. </p>
<p>In addition to these “<a href="http://www.benschneiderphd.com/People_Make_the_Place_PP_1987.pdf">homogenous</a>” hiring practices, the employment of women in creative and cultural industries declines sharply after the age of 35. These industries have not been conducive to motherhood, maternity leave or care-giving. Far more so than men in television, women in television <a href="https://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/articles/10.16995/sim.26/galley/23/download/">report</a> that they were made to feel they could either have successful careers, or be mothers, with no middle ground. </p>
<p>By its very nature, television runs on short-term contracts, long and unsociable hours and <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.12240/abstract">informal recruitment</a> practices. For those lacking a family network of childminders or the financial stability to hire flexible child carers, it is near impossible to <a href="https://creativeskillset.org/assets/0000/6250/Balancing_Children_and_Work_in_the_Audio_Visual_Industries_2008.pdf">have it all</a>.</p>
<p>This is where original online content can shine. These series are, for the most part, being made by production companies – but the commissioners can now order content that speaks to women. Previously, an unproduced writer needed the right contacts to have a series picked up. Now she can now pitch directly to Amazon Studios. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179782/original/file-20170726-30108-4c0dat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179782/original/file-20170726-30108-4c0dat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179782/original/file-20170726-30108-4c0dat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179782/original/file-20170726-30108-4c0dat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179782/original/file-20170726-30108-4c0dat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179782/original/file-20170726-30108-4c0dat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179782/original/file-20170726-30108-4c0dat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sense8.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.netflix.com/en/only-on-netflix/4907">Netflix</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Original content distributors are responding. A <a href="https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/04/the-25-best-netflix-original-series.html">Paste Magazine</a> piece lists the “top Netflix Original” series, and stories focusing on women are beginning to climb the ranks. <a href="https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80017537">Grace and Frankie</a> (2015) studies the lives of two older women whose husbands have left them to begin a relationship with one another.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/sense8-and-sensibility-how-a-tv-series-is-transcending-geographical-and-gender-borders-77377">Sense8</a> (2015) features women in leading roles including LGBTQ women and women of colour. <a href="https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80114988">Glow</a> (2017) follows a team of female wrestlers in the 1980s, while <a href="https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80025384">Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</a> (2015) is a comedy exploring a woman getting back on her feet after being imprisoned in a bunker for 15 years. </p>
<p>These series create a discussion about what is hidden on most mainstream television. They are about women – but not about “traditional” romantic entanglements, shoe shopping and mean teenagers.</p>
<p>So the question now is, will we see a knock-on effect in the employment of women writers for scripted series? Or will the industry reproduce its gendered norms and continue the pattern of white, male, middle-class dominance? Time will tell. But for now, original on-demand content has steered the industry to a turning point, bringing women’s voices to our many screens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kirsten Stoddart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Original content made by subscription and on demand platforms such as Netflix and Amazon is taking off – but what does that mean for women screenwriters and producers?
Kirsten Stoddart, Postgraduate Researcher in Television, S.V.o.D and Gender, University of Salford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74702
2017-06-08T04:57:38Z
2017-06-08T04:57:38Z
Where are the epic women’s coming of age screen stories?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169635/original/file-20170516-24341-ynqr1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1490%2C996&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Films like Mean Girls often show the high school jungle, but they lack the gravitas of films such as Boyhood.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTgwMDczOTM5OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNzcxODAzMw@@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1493,1000_AL_.jpg">Paramount Pictures</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are some astonishing male coming of age films. For instance, Richard Linklater’s acclaimed <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1065073/">Boyhood</a> depicts the subtle moments and emotional experiences of one Mason Evan Jr, played by Ellar Coltrane. Exceptional in concept, execution and exploration of events such as divorce, blended families, young love and painful separations, it offers a boy-turns-to-man perspective.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ys-mbHXyWX4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Barry Jenkins’s Oscar-winning <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4975722/">Moonlight</a>, meanwhile, also chronicles the life of a young boy called Chiron, played as a child by Alex Hibbert. Unlike Mason’s relatively charmed upbringing, Chiron deals with an abusive mother as well as other harrowing experiences involving racism, drug abuse, bullying and sexuality. This is a brave and valuable piece of cinema. But, once again, the emotional core of the narrative is male.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169636/original/file-20170516-24344-gpst6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169636/original/file-20170516-24344-gpst6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169636/original/file-20170516-24344-gpst6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169636/original/file-20170516-24344-gpst6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169636/original/file-20170516-24344-gpst6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169636/original/file-20170516-24344-gpst6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169636/original/file-20170516-24344-gpst6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169636/original/file-20170516-24344-gpst6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjE0MTk0MTM1NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzY5MTg4NTE@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1378,1000_AL_.jpg">Warner Brothers</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another revered and influential male coming of age film is Nicholas Ray’s <a href="http://www.classicfilmsreloaded.com/rebel-without-a-cause/">Rebel Without a Cause</a>. James Dean’s groundbreaking performance as a troubled youth in this film defined teenage angst in the post-war period.</p>
<p>It’s hard to think of a female equivalent to Dean’s character. Indeed, while there have been some excellent films that trace a young woman’s path from childhood to adulthood (such as Rosemary Myer’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3955894/">Girl Asleep</a> and Kelly Fremon Craig’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1878870/">The Edge of Seventeen</a>) none are as highly prized as male coming of age stories.</p>
<p>Women’s films also have a tendency to undercut serious issues impacting upon a young person’s development. In <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097493/">Heathers</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377092/">Mean Girls</a> bitchiness operates as source of humour in undermining the psychological harm of bullying. By contrast the highly respected <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/stand-by-me-at-30-why-this-stephen-king-movie-is-timeless-w435519">Stand by Me</a> treats this issue, and others (such as childhood death) with an appropriate solemnity, giving this male coming of age drama “gravitas”. </p>
<p>Men’s lives overwhelmingly dominate our screens and this in part can be attributed to an historical marginalisation of female directors. In the US, <a href="http://time.com/4326519/aclu-government-sexism-female-directors-hollywood/">efforts</a> to investigate discriminatory practices against female directors found that only 9% <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2015">of the top 250 grossing films of 2015</a> featured women filmmakers. </p>
<p>Last week actor Jessica Chastain, a member of the jury at this year’s Cannes film festival, said that she was <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/30/15712156/jessica-chastain-cannes-sexism-video">disturbed by</a> the “way female characters were depicted in film” asserting that “the way the world views women” is greatly influenced by their cinematic representation or rather lack thereof:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I hope when we include female storytellers, they will be more like the women I know in my day-to-day life. They are proactive, have their own point of view and don’t just react to men around them.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169638/original/file-20170517-24315-1xj51ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169638/original/file-20170517-24315-1xj51ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169638/original/file-20170517-24315-1xj51ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169638/original/file-20170517-24315-1xj51ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169638/original/file-20170517-24315-1xj51ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169638/original/file-20170517-24315-1xj51ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169638/original/file-20170517-24315-1xj51ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169638/original/file-20170517-24315-1xj51ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Girl Asleep is one example a coming of age story that deals with a teenage girl’s awkward adolescent years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOTY1ODk3MTA1MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNTIwMzUxNzE@._V1_.jpg">Soft Tread Enterprises</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is difficult to name a single film primarily about a woman (or women) that has won Best Picture over the Academy Award’s 89 year history. The fact that 76% of the Oscar voting is <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/oscars-2016-voters/">done by men</a> does not help matters. While Kathryn Bigelow remains the only woman to win Best Director or direct a Best Picture winner (The Hurt Locker), her film once more dramatises the lives of men. </p>
<p>Although the female-directed Wonder Woman has come to be a <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/6/5/15739284/wonder-woman-box-office-records-female-director-get-out-hidden-figures">box office hit</a> it is nonetheless a small advancement in an industry where women have little control over the development, production and realisation of cinematic storytelling.</p>
<p>Even beyond the Anglo-American axis of mainstream film making where there are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/07/wadjda-saudi-women-fighting-oppression">accomplished female directors</a> producing extraordinary features about women’s lives, epic narratives chronicling a young woman’s passage from childhood to adulthood are uncommon. </p>
<p>And while there is a rich literary history of <a href="https://www.bustle.com/articles/147887-13-coming-of-age-novels-from-the-female-perspective">women’s coming of age novels</a>, relatively few have been successfully adapted to screen – other than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/19/director-sarah-polley-paired-up-with-little-women-adaptation">Little Women</a> and the critically acclaimed French-Iranian <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/movies/25pers.html">Persepolis</a> (2007).</p>
<p>Interestingly a brilliant example of the coming of age film was produced in Australia - some three decades ago. John Duigan’s 1987 film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094347/">The Year My Voice Broke</a> is an unconventional coming of age story in giving equal weight to the lives of a boy and a girl growing up in rural New South Wales. Based on Duigan’s own childhood, Danny is the ostensible protagonist, played by Noah Taylor. However, the film also provides an extremely sensitive portrayal of Danny’s best friend Freya (Loene Carmen). She is arguably one of Australian cinema’s most finely developed female characters, evoking the subtle shades of a burgeoning womanliness.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q48hLGtazdw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Cinematic storytelling not only invents characters and their experiences, it influences how we think and what we believe. </p>
<p>It is heartening to know that Screen Australia’s $5 million program <a href="http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/newsroom/news/2017/mr-170308-gender-matters-interim-update">Gender Matters</a> fosters women’s participation in the film industry. Productions currently in development include a miniseries on Germaine Greer, a feature on the life of jockey Michelle Payne and a <a href="http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/new-directions/gender-matters/gender-matters-funding/brilliant-stories-update">comedy drama</a> based on three young Lebanese women living in Sydney’s western suburbs. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MzyI6FsdxCE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Screen Australia’s initiative plans to help address the issue of gender imbalance over three years.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Acclaimed American actress Geena Davis’s <a href="http://www.equityfoundation.org.au/conference/conference-news/article-one-for-news">Institute on Gender in Media</a> is also committed to putting women’s lives and experiences on the big screen by advocating for their equal representation. </p>
<p>But there is much work to be done in closing cinema’s gender gap. In the meantime, we await an epic feature devoted to the life of a woman that is tantamount in scale and ambition to the likes of Boyhood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suzie Gibson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The success of Wonder Woman has demonstrated an appetite for female leads in Hollywood films. So where are the movies that tell truth about young women’s lives?
Suzie Gibson, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Charles Sturt University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/73300
2017-02-28T15:09:49Z
2017-02-28T15:09:49Z
Lego Batman: the darkest knight yet?
<p>“All important movies start with a black screen,” growls Will Arnett over the opening of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGQUKzSDhrg">The Lego Batman Movie</a>, as he breaks the fourth wall to speak to the audience with the same knowing tone which unexpectedly stole the original <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5lUgBNBUC8">Lego Movie</a> in 2014. And although this latest outing mines the same seam of pop culture irony – to often hilarious effect – there is a bitter aftertaste: the film also reinforces many of the property’s toxic tropes and legacies.</p>
<p>The pleasure of Batman’s appearance in the original Lego Movie was how successfully the character channelled the essence of the now 78-year-old character into a song. Batman’s self-penned thrash metal cacophony, Untitled Self Portrait, was a brutal skewering of the character with the lyrics: “Darkness, dead parents, continued darkness,” perfectly capturing the latent adolescence of his alter ego Bruce Wayne. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ulbz3YZ6_fg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Untitled Self Portrait: Lego Batman.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The real surprise of the new film is how much it attempts to explore this arrested development. But in doing so it celebrates the bleakest of Batman source materials: <a href="http://www.dccomics.com/talent/frank-miller">Frank Miller’s</a> <a href="http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Batman:_The_Dark_Knight_Returns">The Dark Knight Returns</a>.</p>
<p>Featuring a Batman staring down the barrel of retirement, Miller’s bruising 1986 work concludes that Wayne’s vigilante persona has not disempowered the villains he fights but has instead inspired them. This theme is given flesh (or brick) in the new Lego film when Zach Galafianakis’ Joker bursts into tears because Batman refuses to acknowledge him as his arch enemy. “You mean nothing to me, no-one does,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUPXPPq64Vk">Batman spits</a> at the blubbing clown prince of crime – who then spends the next 90 minutes attempting to win back the hero’s gaze in ever escalating ways. This is a brilliant lampooning of Miller’s concept but the problem with ultimately using this source material for a family film is that The Dark Knight Returns does not end with Wayne reaching any form of enlightenment. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Batman in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/12215704@N03/15151049455/in/photolist-p5R69B-RpC2Yx-4UYSC8-dRbYdi-fhBfM2-jrthXA-rikfNz-oc6RuZ-u6Jiov-pyXcVV-nN8B46-ejFP2P-HuA1sE-qngpf7-7JFjaZ-Ssef4A-bGNVHR-bhu3KP-dWwGhJ-aJNeHZ-aE4poP-fhRwku-quDsRu-s5ThhK-g7AJ8Z-vFtH7N-p5ECbc-pLtc9R-spVvKR-ea58bq-g7ARp3-g7ARvL-e8JT3v-g7B6Ah-eT7AYe-LYdZqE-Sh5X8o-4kgBW7-p5PQQw-e6Pzct-dpxUpx-GwXBhh-kR2tV-JdEfyf-dVtjur-7JVhKD-Ssefod-g7AJrp-rRm3pp-5DEAn8">nick gaurkee/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To Miller, the only thing that means anything to Wayne is Batman. This leads to a highly problematic climax when, rather than be re-integrated into lawful society, Wayne instead goes further underground and forms a private army of child soldiers. Miller’s piece has been attacked by critics as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/apr/01/frank-miller-fascist-dark-knight-modern-archetype-donald-trump">fascist parable</a> and one of the the biggest shocks of The Lego Batman Movie is seeing how its climax equally celebrates the character eschewing normality. Instead he settles down with a new surrogate family who enable his dark disease. The fact that they all wear batsuits together provides a chilling echo to Miller’s story and the troubling nods it contains to the cult of personality.</p>
<h2>The Killing Joke</h2>
<p>Two years after Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, acclaimed British writer <a href="http://www.dccomics.com/talent/alan-moore">Alan Moore</a> examined the depraved dynamics of the Batman/Joker relationship in a storyline whose single gunshot echoed around DC for decades to come. In 1988’s <a href="http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Batman:_The_Killing_Joke">The Killing Joke</a> the Joker is depicted as so desperate for attention that he disables Batgirl <a href="http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Barbara_Gordon">Barbara Gordon</a> and forces her father into viewing photographs of her naked, broken body. This brutal treatment of the character has since become <a href="http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/460">emblematic of the portrayal of female characters in comic books</a> as victims, stereotypes and ciphers. So it makes it all the more dispiriting that the Lego Batman Movie treats its female lead in a similarly reductionist manner. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexlc/4255195730/in/photolist-7u1ZrC-fw3vQS-7gPTzQ-7hdWbq-5YhwVJ-dZuJ8R-7ffDmX-6diPMn-7hdWaf-748gDf-cYac2q-gA1ECx-ffxJRg-po7GTY-oovF8b-rtPFo5-2WWxGp-aDqKBa-hwsw2h-3iu5QY-fHwXMX-9SH18g-bnWhEh-8uzp8P-5BmPTt-haDaqx-52H7Kb-gJtpNi-HrXogb-oFurEP-ouKgQ4-5M4zJy-dEaStq-6Ubtmd-2NR5tJ-nkdzit-nKnUJa-uyHMU-a7UcGx-kDADL3-n5qVaS-5f7jdd-6PbLti-59teGT-2jMsCf-btouMU-dPGtfV-55NmFW-61cfSi-9n6WFc">Alexandre López/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thankfully Rosario Dawson’s Gordon is not subjected to the same level of physical humiliation as her comic book namesake. She instead suffers an insidious process of trivialisation which diminishes her status from an empowered Batman rival to an ancillary sidekick. Studies of <a href="http://worldsciencepublisher.org/journals/index.php/AEL/article/view/1197">gendered linguistics</a>
have laid bare the suppressive nature of names, typified in this film by Batman’s ceaseless paring down of Gordon’s moniker from Commissioner Gordon to Barbara to “Babs” and finally Batgirl. </p>
<p>And, although the narrative attempts to sideswipe this disenfranchisement with a sly line of dialogue, it is clear that this character’s independent identity has been replaced with that of a supplicant, a process known in comic book circles as <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge">“fridging”</a>. </p>
<p>Fans of <a href="https://geeks.media/rise-of-harley-quinn">Harley Quinn</a> - the Belle de Jour of the contemporary comic book - may rightfully complain that her portrayal in the Lego film is tied to an outdated 1990s version of the character. But at least this subordinate representation has precedent. Squeezing a successful adult woman into Batgirl’s juvenile uniform is instead a chauvinistic creation of the filmmakers but one which sadly chimes with the often <a href="http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2016/03/the-long-and-terrible-history-of-dc-comics-mistreating-batgirl/">troubling history of the character</a>. </p>
<h2>Toxic behaviours?</h2>
<p>But are we reading the piece too much at face value? The point of satire after all is to exaggerate the flaws of the subject in order to puncture the pomposity of the myth. And when the film is at its most lucid, the Lego Batman Movie does this very well. Not even Miller portrayed the wretchedness of Wayne’s life as vividly as the excruciating Lego scene in which he watches a microwave slowly warm up his dinner. </p>
<p>But the film often dangerously indulges the toxic behaviours of its protagonist too. The message of the film to children, that playing together is better than playing alone, may appear innocent enough on paper. But that message appears troubling onscreen when that togetherness involves strong female characters surrendering their status and identity in order to accept sidekick roles.</p>
<p>Sequels typically go darker but here the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cQgQIMlwWw">Everything is awesome</a>” mantra of the first Lego Movie seems has been swallowed up entirely by that opening black screen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Ross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Lego Batman Movie is a worldwide box office smash – but have the filmmakers delved too much into the character’s more ‘toxic’ elements?
Andrew Ross, Graduate Tutor and Lecturer in Film, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70032
2016-12-07T00:24:08Z
2016-12-07T00:24:08Z
Where are the women scientists, tech gurus and engineers in our films?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148957/original/image-20161206-15334-1agn5ln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joseph Mazzello and Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network (2010): women are rarely depicted in such roles on screen.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Columbia Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Perennial stories about the lack of women working in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) often revolve around why women are not studying these subjects, and when they do, why they don’t make their careers in these areas.</p>
<p><a href="https://seejane.org/">The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media</a> asks a different question. Are women not working in science because there are very few women portrayed in films and on TV who are working in science?</p>
<p>Academy Award-winning actress, Geena Davis, founded the institute that bears her name to educate, advocate and influence the media and entertainment industry to encourage more diverse representations of women and girls.
Over the past eight years it has provided quantitative research that exposes the unconscious gender biases in casting, screen writing and story-telling.</p>
<p>The institute has teamed up with Google to use their machine learning technology – along with the University of Southern California’s audio-visual processing technologies, called GD-IQ – to analyse the content of films. GD-IQ automates the analysis of media content with greater precision than the human eye and can process vast amounts of data quickly. </p>
<p>At the Equity Foundation’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JULlQl6bIug">Gender on the Agenda Summit</a> held in Melbourne this week, the institute’s CEO, Madeline Di Nonno outlined some recent research findings. The institute reviewed the top grossing, non-animated films of 2014 and 2015 as reported by Variety, the US published film and TV magazine. Only 17% had female leads. Male characters dominated the screen – as the main figure in the camera shot – almost twice as much as women (28.5% to 16%).</p>
<p>When a film had a male lead, men dominated the screen thrice as much as women (34.5% to 12.9%). In films where the lead character was a woman, men still had slightly more screen time than women (about 24% to 22%).</p>
<p>When looking at speaking time for both genders, results were similar – but in male led films the gap was even greater. In films with a male lead, men spoke 33.1% of the time while women spoke less than 10%. </p>
<p>Further research across the same time period shows a stark lack of women characters in STEM jobs.</p>
<p>Looking at family films, characters in STEM careers were 83.8% male. Breaking down the figures, women were shown in life and physical sciences more often than men (65.4% to 49.3%) but in computer science, maths and in engineering just 7.7% of those characters were women. </p>
<p>In prime-time TV programs, no women were shown in engineering, at all.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148953/original/image-20161206-25753-12wybov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148953/original/image-20161206-25753-12wybov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148953/original/image-20161206-25753-12wybov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148953/original/image-20161206-25753-12wybov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148953/original/image-20161206-25753-12wybov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148953/original/image-20161206-25753-12wybov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148953/original/image-20161206-25753-12wybov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148953/original/image-20161206-25753-12wybov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dr Helen Cho in Avengers: Age of Ultron: a rare instance of a woman playing a geneticist in an action film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Communicating science and technology to a non-specialist audience is difficult enough. My research into the dramaturgy of science in performance shows approaches that can be taken to aid translating technical language and practices into accessible stories. </p>
<p>The issue of gender in the stories we tell ourselves about science adds another layer of complexity.</p>
<p>However, if we agree that young women and girls are influenced by the way women are depicted in film and TV, then the way women are depicted in the work place will have an effect on their career choices. </p>
<p>Showing female characters in prestigious occupations, such as leading a team of science researchers, managing or designing major engineering projects, or applying complex mathematics to real-life problems, will help build their aspirations and ambitions in these important STEM areas.</p>
<p>The argument usually given by studios in casting men as leads is that films featuring women are not good at the box office. However, the institute’s research shows that films with lead female characters grossed 15.8% <em>more</em> on average than those led by men.</p>
<p>That is surely incentive enough to see a film where a woman wins a major prize for her outstanding discovery in mathematics or theoretical physics, or revolutionises our thinking in computer technology, and goes on to lead a billion-dollar tech company.</p>
<p>As Geena Davis says, “If she can see it, she can be it.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70032/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vivienne Glance is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, and a member of MEAA, Australian Writers Guild and the Greens.</span></em></p>
New research on gendered roles in top-grossing movies has found that 83% of characters in family films with a STEM career are men.
Vivienne Glance, Hon Research Fellow in Poetry and Theatre studies, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/68740
2016-11-15T01:38:07Z
2016-11-15T01:38:07Z
Women aren’t the problem in the film industry, men are
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145907/original/image-20161114-5108-bfuccw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Using the same network analysis used to identify criminal organisations, new research examines how men work in the film industry. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week Australia’s screen producers will gather at their <a href="http://screenforever.org.au/">annual conference</a> to discuss the state of the industry. One of the many hot topics <a href="http://screenforever.org.au/sessions/women-on-the-edge-of-a-nervous-breakthrough/">under review</a> is the federal government’s recent attempt to address the industry’s woeful gender equity record.</p>
<p>Since the federal government began systemically funding film production in the 1970s, participation rates for women in key creative roles (producer, director, writer) have <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-right-to-make-a-scene-about-gender-equity-in-the-australian-screen-industry-51728">never even remotely approached parity</a>.</p>
<p>In response, late last year the national funding agency, Screen Australia, launched a policy response, <a href="http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/new-directions/gender-matters">Gender Matters</a>, largely designed to assist women at the level of project and career development. It’s hard to see these tentative initiatives doing more than reiterating that the key problem for addressing gender inequity lies with women themselves. </p>
<p>This was scandalously underlined last week when the Screen Australia Head of Production, Sally Caplan, speaking at the Athena Project forum, declared that what the organisation was <a href="http://screenworks.com.au/theathenaproject/athenaproject-tv-live-stream/">really trying to put in process</a> was “a system whereby organically we’ll get to 50/50” once women are able to “believe in themselves”.</p>
<p>Like Screen Australia, industry commentators typically place the burden for women’s omission from the screen industries on women themselves, rather than seeking to examine the specific dynamics of what must now be plainly called a deeply ingrained pattern of injustice. This is subtly reiterated by the regular release of statistics describing how <a href="http://www.ewawomen.com/en/research-.html">women are missing</a> from film industries around the globe.</p>
<p>But what if, after 40 years of intransigent inequality, we shifted focus and instead turned to address specifically those who benefit from maintaining the status quo?</p>
<p>Research data shows that films with male producers, on average, have creative teams that are 70% male. Similarly, the average creative team for a film with female producers is 60% male. No matter the gender of the producer, key creative roles for men predominate. </p>
<p>What if we used industry data to demonstrate the impact of dominant behaviours, and to inspire new approaches to encourage change in the industry?</p>
<p>This is what we did. We analysed data describing all the key creative roles in films submitted to the <a href="http://www.aacta.org/">AACTA awards</a> between 2006 and 2015. This data includes information on 205 films, which generated 997 key creative jobs.</p>
<p>Using a technique known as Social Network Analysis, we are able to observe how the film industry operates as a series of creative networks in which male-only or male-dominated creative teams thrive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145678/original/image-20161114-9048-1bnpmu5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145678/original/image-20161114-9048-1bnpmu5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145678/original/image-20161114-9048-1bnpmu5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145678/original/image-20161114-9048-1bnpmu5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145678/original/image-20161114-9048-1bnpmu5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145678/original/image-20161114-9048-1bnpmu5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145678/original/image-20161114-9048-1bnpmu5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145678/original/image-20161114-9048-1bnpmu5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This diagram represents the Australian film industry’s producer networks; that is, who is working with whom. Women are represented by orange dots, and men by purple (the data has been anonymised).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even more specifically, we can use associated techniques such as <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/msparrow/documents--in%20use/Application%20of%20Network%20Analysis%20to%20Criminal%20Intelligence--Social%20Networks--1991.pdf">Criminal Network Analysis</a> to understand how to disrupt networks of what we might call “gender offenders” (men who work predominantly with other men).</p>
<p>Typically Criminal Network Analysis has been used by police and counter-terrorism agencies – for example, identifying how <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4361400/">drug cartels and terrorist networks</a> cohere and how they can be most effectively fragmented. It could also be used to make evidence-based interventions in the film industry’s male dominated creative networks.</p>
<p>For example, using Criminal Network Analysis we have identified which individual producers have the most influence throughout the film industry</p>
<p>We can also measure the significance of specific male producers to maintaining the cohesion of male dominance in the industry and therefore exactly how much impact their absence would have in terms of fragmenting the network.</p>
<p>The network data visualisation below is not really a pretty picture. It describes the relationships between male producers in the Australian film industry over a ten year period. During this time, 89 men in our dataset worked exclusively with other men in key creative roles. That’s around 40% of the total number of male producers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145686/original/image-20161114-9089-1fbsf36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145686/original/image-20161114-9089-1fbsf36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145686/original/image-20161114-9089-1fbsf36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145686/original/image-20161114-9089-1fbsf36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145686/original/image-20161114-9089-1fbsf36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145686/original/image-20161114-9089-1fbsf36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145686/original/image-20161114-9089-1fbsf36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/145686/original/image-20161114-9089-1fbsf36.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Every point on this diagram represents a male film producer. The pink dots represent men who worked exclusively with other men in the period surveyed, and the green dots represent those who worked with women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course some of these men may have worked with women in other parts of the industry (television or commercials for instance). Or they may have worked with women who have not been credited for their contribution. But interestingly, about 30% of the films made by these male-only teams were also nominally about men, with a male pronoun in the title – The Railway Man, Cedar Boys, Son of Gun and The Boys are Back, just to name a few. </p>
<p>Perhaps most astonishing, more than 75% of the male producers in the industry worked on films during this ten-year interval with only one or no women in key creative roles.</p>
<p>It is our belief that many women and some men would try and act against the unrelenting dynamics that ensure male dominance if they understood how and why these dynamics work.</p>
<p>Male dominance will not decline until there is a different distribution of the film industry’s finite resources, one that is based on reducing the number of men, rather than by using equity measures to “just add women” onto existing production teams.</p>
<p>Unless we know how men control the film industry and unless we understand how they influence the industry’s institutional and social processes, our hopes for developing equitable participation in the industry are unlikely to succeed. </p>
<p>There is no need to maintain the smokescreen around the problem of male domination in the Australian screen industries any longer. The historically consistent lack of equity for women in the film industry is not inevitable, but is caused by identifiable networks of people. Using techniques like Social Network Analysis we can now see this all too clearly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68740/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Women are underrepresented in the film industry, but it’s not their fault. New research analyses the system that ensures male dominance and identifies the ‘gender offenders’: men who work predominantly with men.
Deb Verhoeven, Professor and Chair of Media and Communication, Deakin University
Stuart Palmer, Associate Professor, Integrated Learning, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/64910
2016-09-30T11:34:28Z
2016-09-30T11:34:28Z
Under the Shadow: feminist Iranian film is one of the best horrors of the year
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139893/original/image-20160930-9922-ya7f3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who's there?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Under the Shadow</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Under the Shadow, a horror set in 1988 Tehran and Iranian director Babak Anvari’s first feature, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/05/under-the-shadow-review-feminist-horror-film-sundance-film-festival">took Sundance by storm</a>. Out this week, it is not only one of the best horror films this year but also the newest feminist reading of the genre.</p>
<p>The film takes place predominantly indoors in a Tehran flat. A young couple are trying to continue their normal lives with their six-year-old daughter, in the midst of the war between Iran and Iraq. Yet, the war is not the only horror they will have to deal with. We slowly discover that the family – or rather the mother and her daughter – are also under attack from mysterious forces.</p>
<p>Under the Shadow grounds you in reality even as it deals with the supernatural powers that soon haunt and suffocate the mother, Shideh (Narges Rashidi), and her daughter, Dorsa (played by the impressive young actress Avin Manshadi). The film does not hurry with the horror, taking time to develop its characters, slowly introducing them and the context in which they live, including the neighbours. This gives us glimpses of various lives and lifestyles in post-revolutionary Tehran.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kHVFP80Upxw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>We find out early on that Shideh wants to go back to her medical studies but much to her frustration is unable to due to her political activism before the revolution. In one lengthy scene, she desperately tries to convince the male authority figure to give her another chance, yet the man tells her she will never be readmitted. Back home, seeing how upset she is, her neighbour tells her “not to let them change her”. But how one remains unchanged, and how to keep “them” outside, is the question Anvari seems to be asking with the rest of the film.</p>
<p>Shideh’s desire to become a medical doctor, along with other details of her life, all work together to establish that she is constantly maintaining (like many) two lives, one in the outside world and one on the inside. And this distinction leads to increasing suffocation and invasion of her interior (life) as the outside slowly creeps in. Things start disappearing – as well as appearing – as a vicious djinn comes out to play, or rather mess, with her.</p>
<h2>Tackling sexism with terror</h2>
<p>Although Anvari’s film is about Iran and entirely in Farsi, it was not shot there in order to bypass censorship. The country has strict regulations in film-making, particularly regarding the representation of women. Some Iranian regulations make it very difficult for filmmakers to capture interior life realistically, and to construct fully developed characters. It would have been impossible, for instance, for Shideh to expose her hair and wear gym clothing at home while she exercises.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139891/original/image-20160930-9902-tkwdgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139891/original/image-20160930-9902-tkwdgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139891/original/image-20160930-9902-tkwdgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139891/original/image-20160930-9902-tkwdgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139891/original/image-20160930-9902-tkwdgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139891/original/image-20160930-9902-tkwdgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139891/original/image-20160930-9902-tkwdgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More to it than losing the veil.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Under the Shadow</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Under the Shadow appears to critique Iran and its preoccupation with women’s bodies, yet it does not stop at criticising the imposed veil. Shideh’s husband, for example, is an educated man (a doctor) and appears to be supportive of his wife’s decision to go back to medical school. Yet in one argument he reveals that he really thinks that Shideh is chasing a dream at the expense of her other (motherly) responsibilities.</p>
<p>I know of no woman who won’t relate to this “educated” and “nuanced” form of sexism and it is refreshing that Anvari’s film is prepared to acknowledge it, rather than resorting to easy criticism of Iran only. Anvari seems to be aware that the male privilege is part of what makes such oppression function smoothly, which is undoubtedly not specific to Iran. In a context where how much women cover and uncover is predominantly determined and justified by men (and sometimes policed at gun point) this is also a film about male privilege, about regulating women’s bodies, and the horrors that come with it.</p>
<p>Except for a few – easily forgivable – near cliché moments, Under the Shadow will not disappoint horror fans. But given its wider and all too of the moment concerns, it deserves your attention whoever you are.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64910/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ozlem Koksal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Scary moments with a wider social message.
Ozlem Koksal, Visiting Lecturer in Film and Television, University of Westminster
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/60021
2016-06-10T13:47:19Z
2016-06-10T13:47:19Z
Changing the portrayal of women in film means getting more women behind the lens
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126132/original/image-20160610-29219-1rwkz5k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour, director of 2012's Wadjda.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HaifaaAlMansour.JPG">HaylieNiemann</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Is there a relationship between the number of older working women and mothers working behind the camera in the television and film industries and the way they are represented – or misrepresented – on our screens? </p>
<p>It’s clear that there are still issues of inequality within the workplace that directly impact on women. But the problems facing women in these post-feminist times, as expressed by Joan C Williams, distinguished professor of law at Stanford University, are “less about the obstacles faced by women than <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unbending-Gender-Family-Conflict-About/dp/0195147146/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8">about the obstacles faced by mothers</a>”. </p>
<p>Her argument is that the workplace discriminates against women who are often defined by their roles as mothers and caregivers. Miriam Peskowitz, former professor and author of the <a href="http://daringbookforgirls.com/">Daring Book for Girls series</a>, endorses this view. She argued that the 21st-century workplace continues to demand that families accommodate a fairly traditional working pattern where mothers stay at home with the children while fathers provide the role of breadwinner.</p>
<p>Some 50 years since the Equal Pay Act was passed in the UK and women are still routinely paid up to 14% less than men for the same work, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/18/uk-has-one-of-worst-records-for-gender-equality-at-work-report%22%22">with mothers earning up to 21% less</a>. As well as receiving unequal pay, a <a href="https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/managing-pregnancy-and-maternity-workplace/pregnancy-and-maternity-discrimination-report">2016 report</a> by the Equality and Human Rights Commission estimated that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Around one in nine mothers (11%) … were either dismissed, made compulsorily redundant … or treated so poorly they felt they had to leave their job [and] … as many as 54,000 new mothers may be forced out of their jobs in Britain each year. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the situation for some women may have improved from the amount of attention that equality in the workplace has received, for mothers it has actually deteriorated over the past decade. And the film and television industries are no different.</p>
<p>And as a <a href="https://creativeskillset.org/assets/0000/6239/Skillset_Creative_Media_Workforce_Survey_2010.pdf">Creative Skillset report from 2010</a> showed, older women are under-represented in the film and television industry compared to their white male equivalents: 66% men are aged over 35 compared to 49% of women. Women cite the challenges of trying to balance domestic and family responsibilities with the hard work and often erratic hours of a career in the creative industries.</p>
<p>So what is going on, and does this lack of representation matter? According to the <a href="http://seejane.org/">Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media</a>, it is of the utmost importance. The more we see women doing brave things on our screens, <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/pages/%7E/media/MDSCI/CARDReport%20FINAL%2022216.ashx">the bigger the impact</a>. In fact, research commissioned from the Geena Davis Institute with J Walter Thompson <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/29/geena-davis-tv-girl-gender-equality-thelma-louise-women">revealed that</a> “the more TV a girl watches, the fewer options she thinks she has in life”. This makes for shocking reading, particularly when you consider that there are still so few role models – and the <a href="http://seejane.org/research-informs-empowers/">male-to-female ratio onscreen remains as it was in 1946</a>.</p>
<p>We’ve spent more than a decade examining the way mothers and older women are represented on television, and are now embarking on research into the effect of women’s roles working behind the camera. What we’ve found suggests that the lack of mothers working behind the scenes may result in a motherhood penalty, shifting the balance of women in the industry, and inevitably affecting how mothers are portrayed. Until more women and mothers are able to sustain careers in both film and television – particularly in decision-making roles – this negative cycle will continue.</p>
<p>Recent figures from the film industry bear this out: as film data researcher Stephen Follows <a href="https://stephenfollows.com/gender-of-film-crews/">said earlier this month</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A male dominated industry leads to male focused films, leaving women not only under represented amongst directors but under represented in the art and stories themselves. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>If the film industry would benefit hugely from hiring more women in prominent positions, the same is true of television. We need to improve the opportunities for other talented women within the industry and create role models – as characters onscreen and in real life behind the lens – to inspire the next generation. Without changing the make-up of the people creating the fiction we watch, that fiction will continue to misrepresent women and mothers well into this century, as the last.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60021/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
More mothers and older women working in the industry can balance how women are represented onscreen.
Kim Akass, Senior Lecturer in Film and Television, University of Hertfordshire
Lyndsay Duthie, Programme Leader for Film & Television, University of Hertfordshire
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.