In honor of the Oscars and Katherine Bigelow’s Best Director win last night, Katrin sent in this graphic from the LA Times illustrating the underrepresentation of women in various jobs related to movie-making:
After winning her award Bigelow was interviewed backstage about being the first woman to ever win for Best Director. While expressing gratitude for the award, she said she dreams of the day that “female” is an unnecessary modifier for “director.”
I think we’ve got a while to wait.
I would be interested in seeing the numbers for film editors, an important but non-glamorous behind-the-scene profession in which women have always struck me as somewhat overrepresented compared to their numbers in Hollywood at large (though that’s relative; “overrepresented” may or may not mean a numerical majority). Last night’s winners were a (straight) married couple.
I wondered about that too. I don’t know much about the gender breakdown of behind-the-scene jobs, but was (pleasantly) surprised that one of the two film editors was a woman. I also wondered if perhaps Bigelow tried to have more gender parity in her crew, but that’s just idle speculation on my part.
You’re right about women film editors – there have historically been MANY more than in any other technical field in movies. Originally, film editing wasn’t considered an art (just “cutting out the bad bits”) and so it was just a mundane job given to women. Another rumor about this is that the original moviola machines were built like sewing machines with pedals, so it was similar to traditional women’s work. Again, this is just a rumor, but I think it’s interesting.
So yeah, there are a ton of women editors, but it seems to have had almost zero effect on the amount of women directors, cinematographers, camera operators, grips, etc.
Also important is the fact that female directors/writers are often pigeon-holed into the romantic comedy genre; a producer putting together the Hurt Locker without an attached director probably wouldn’t have even considered Bigelow, even though she actually is one of the few females who have done action movies in the past.
I’m guessing this is why the director gap is so large; you might be able to sneak in one female writer on an action or Judd Apetow-style comedy as long as they were tempered with a male, but when there’s only one person in a role they’re incredibly likely to be male.
funny thing is, the majority of romantic comedies in Hollywood are written, directed and produced by MEN. And most of them tend to be crappy.
true story.
Amen, sister, amen. Couldn’t agree more. Also I think it’s noteworthy that Bigelow won for a hypermacho film with virtually no females (apart from those that… um… are so terrible they make the male hero go crazy). It’s a bit like female politicians: Should be belligerent (Thatcher, Meir), just to ascertain that they’re taken seriously.
Wait, what? Did you see Hurt Locker? There weren’t many females, true, but that’s not part of the movie at all.
What is not part of it?
I think it’s noteworthy too. I mean, I really liked The Hurt Locker – it’s probably the most perfectly directed and edited US action film in decades, and Bigelow completely deserved all of her laurels regardless of gender.
However, it’s certainly interesting that a woman had to break into the locker room, so to speak, to be honored on this level. This particular film wouldn’t have been improved by more female characters or themes, but it’s hard to imagine so much industry attention going to any of the great filmmakers who do (or did) bring a uniquely female perspective to their work – like Agnes Varda, Claire Denis, Lucrecia Martel, Kelly Reichardt, Sofia Coppolla, Lina Wertmuller, Chantal Akerman, Jane Campion, Catherine Breillat, or Sally Potter. Each has created some extraordinarily wonderful and critically praised works that, perhaps due to having complex and non-histrionic females at their core, never really shook off the “specialty film” label that keeps budgets and audience exposure pretty low even with big stars on board.
That said, I found “Hurt Locker” far less “macho” than it could have been. I mean, aside from a pathological adrenaline junkie – who’s rather cuddly too – all the male characters spend the film scared shitless and horrifically close to a complete emotional breakdown. Seemed to me like Bigelow was ripping all the macho action-hero cliches to shreds, even while blowing stuff up.
Ummm…. the trailer gives off a VERY different vibe. Is the trailer not indicative of the film? And if it isn’t, then that once more speaks volumes about the film industry.
Kat…maybe I misunderstood…you mean you’ve been commenting on the content of a film you haven’t even seen?
Not to give you a hard time here, but a trailer is a commercial. It’s almost never created by the filmmakers, and can be edited to indicate whatever qualities the distributors think will sell the most tickets. For most action films, that means marketing more to young men and making it look like a fun thrill ride (not an unnerving, morally complicated, deeply intelligent and sad film about sensitive men).
This might speak volumes about the ad industry, and even about the ticket-buying audience. But I don’t see how it’s much different from any other kind of advertisement – whether it’s for shampoo, sausage, or cinema, the idea is usually to sell you the product, not to educate you in depth about its content.
So if you haven’t actually watched the film – why not do that, and then share your insights? Unlike some of the things that get discussed here, it is well worth the time!
Hi, how did they choose the movies in the study? Thanks!
They used the 100 top-grossing films of 2007. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-smith/female-directors-writers_b_480848.html
Could you find out how well women are represented in terms of specifically documentary film making? In my experience in this genre (journalism student) the representation of women may be more of an even spread, and I’d be interested to find out if my observations rung true!
As a complete hunch, I would assume that to be true, but documentaries do not have the same impact/commercial success/visibility. I just checked on wiki: The 32 films (one tie) who won the Oscar for Best Documentary from 1980-2010… 6 female directors, 3 wins which had two directors of which one each was female, and 23 films with a male director. :/ It’s more, but hardly a pinnacle of equality…
Notice also the years in which a woman alone (or two women) won the Oscar for Best Documentary:
1985, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1993, 1994. That’s it. So since 1994, nothing. 
The text accompanying the charts says, “Men outpace women 5 to 1…” Which is misleading, as it’s 4:1 for producers, 8:1 for writers, and 32:1 for directors. For the statistically underliterate, it belies the fact that there are few female writers and very few female directors. It’s only 5:1 if you add up all the writers, producers, and directors and lump them together; the real story is not even that optimistic.
[...] ist ebenfalls kein Zeichen für Wandel, zumindest nicht schnell. Eine Studie von 100 Filmen stieß auf 3% weibliche Regisseure, 11 % Drehbuchautorinnen und 20% Produzentinnen in Hollywood. [...]
dikes.
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