And other things rich white men like
Thursday, Feb 23, 2012 4:58 PM
Roth Cornet
Earlier this week the
LA Times unveiled the fruit of 20 researchers’ labor: old, rich, white men dominate the AMPAS. I was as shocked as you are.
I kid. I do. There’s nothing wrong with the article as such, and the structural dynamics of the Academy do bear looking at.
One of the strange, self-devouring aspects of the internet is that it
is now common practice for critics to reflect on, riff off, add to or
otherwise deconstruct one another’s work. A positive element of the
trend is that a conversation develops in our virtual realm. Of course,
levels of discourse are, as ever, varied. We’ve not yet weighed in on
the matter and I do so now with a grain of salt, and a bit more sass
than I had originally intended. Is it earth shattering news? Clearly
not. Does it seem to be indicative of an overindulgence of the paper’s
resources? Ish.
Let’s take a glance at the United States Congress. According to
ThisNation,
the House has 362 men and 76 women. In the Senate, there are 17 women
and 83 men. 361 members of the House are white, 44 are African American,
25 are Hispanic and seven are Asian. 96 members of the Senate are
white, two are Hispanic and two are Asian. To be frank, I’d rather see
the LA Times devote those man-hours to investigating how the racial and
gender composition of Congress effects the way laws are created and
implemented.
(Hint: They convene a council on women’s reproductive health issues,
and decide that it’s best for the ladies to retire to the drawing room
at that time.)
I assess a fair portion of this situation from the feminine
perspective because it is one I can speak to on an experiential level.
But the truth is that the bias revealed in the LA Times piece is felt
across gender and race lines.
We’ve all had to manage and negotiate the burden of perception in one
way or another. Though the lion’s share of the people in my field are
remarkable creatures I feel blessed to know, I tire of the indulgent
looks a small (but felt) number my colleagues bestow upon me as they
assume a position of grandiosity whilst stating their cinematic
opinions. It seems to matter little to them what my background may or
may not be, and they rarely bother to investigate as it is so much
easier to assume, for the most part, inaccurately. I am a small blond
female and have encountered countless “oh, look, it talks and knows what
color reversal is!” expressions of shock mid-interview with a
filmmaker. Annoying? Very. But there are certainly larger issues in the
universe, even in my own little world.
I can say with clarity that I’ve had jobs where I was hired based on
appearance (though they were primarily in a service capacity) and I have
had positions where, due to superficially based perceptions, I was paid
less than a male who had fewer skills and qualifications than I. And so
it goes. Should it be an issue that I am a female? Who cares? It is
one. Not one that defines my choices, but to pretend that things aren’t
so keeps them stagnant. Women still earn roughly 75 cents to the male
dollar here in the U.S. and until I receive a 25% “vagina discount” from
my creditors, I’m going to find that more than a little bit
problematic.
Does it matter that the Oscar voters are (as the LA Times reports)
nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male? Well, it does to me. It matters in
the sense that it speaks to an industry that is grotesquely outdated and
atrophied. It happens to be my industry, so yes, it matters. It affects
the livelihoods of many people I care about, as well as my own. In
light of a continued recession, it matters.
The real issue is employment and how these figures effect and reflect
employment practices. Believe me, most of us would rather have a job
than see the Academy manufacturing a false sense of diversity. Create
diversity via your hiring patterns and then let that, over time, be
reflected come Oscar night.
Here is a brief overview from the article of how employment breaks down along gender lines in the industry at present:
“Women account for 17% of film writers employment. The
academy's producers branch is about 18% female, and the directors branch
is 9% female, figures comparable to those in a study by San Diego State
University's Martha Lauzen. She examined the 250 top-grossing movies of
2011 and found that women accounted for 25% of all of the films'
producers, and 5% of all their directors.”
(Let us pause to really reflect on the fact that women represent over 50% of the population.)
As we can see, women have fared a bit better in the producer’s
sphere. That is a good thing. And yet it so often feels like one step
forward, two steps back. Brand new stereotypes have cropped up to
stranglehold women in what is so often, at its root, a support role.
“Producer” is an amorphous term in Hollywood. There are so many facets
to the job that it can describe a myriad of positions. Sometimes it
denotes a high level of influence (indeed, the most significant if you
are a studio executive), sometimes it denotes a financial stake and
sometimes it denotes a role that is more akin to a management position.
So we begin to hear things like “women are good producers because
they are organized, because they can multitask, because they are
nurturing” and so on. There may in fact be some truth to those
assessments. I would not and do not argue that men and women are very
different beasts. Indeed, I love those variances. I love that we each
have some of the masculine and some of the feminine. I love the way that
balance plays out in both our individual psyches, in our relationships
and ultimately in society at large. I love the traits that are so
uniquely male and I also, very much, love being a woman. The point is to
recognize our unique skill sets and value them equally. Additionally,
we must account for individual strengths and weaknesses.
It may be true that women (in very general terms) have some native
and some developed attributes that lend themselves to a producer’s
tasks. It is also true that those same attributes can, and do, lend
themselves equally well to a director’s chair.
Scientists are working to understand how the physical differences in
the male and female brain translate to traits and strengths. But one
difference they can discern is that women have more white matter, a
larger corpus collusum and more cellular connections, allowing for a
faster transfer of information between the left and right sides of the
brain. This means, theoretically, they can connect seemingly unrelated
pieces of information and tend to conceptualize in less linear terms
(think: big picture).
Whereas men have more grey matter, tend to operate more from the
left-side of the brain, and function in more individuated terms (think:
one task at a time). Both the male and female proclivities lend
themselves to different, but effective, directorial styles that have an
equal chance of yielding powerful and evocative films.
Of course, these are incredibly broad stokes and each person is going
to bring their own singular talent palette to the table. But the
endeavor is to get a seat at said table to begin with.
The Times article indicates that Frank Pierson, a former Academy
president who won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for "Dog Day
Afternoon," feels that the Academy’s structure is a result of an
egalitarian meritocracy. "I don't see any reason why the academy should
represent the entire American population,” he said. “That's what the
People's Choice Awards are for. We represent the professional
filmmakers, and if that doesn't reflect the general population, so be
it."
The notion that the financial and power discrepancies present in the
world are entirely a result of the “cream rising to the top” as it were,
is willfully ignorant, rude, self-aggrandizing, irresponsible and
frankly bullshit. We could sit here and argue about the cause for the
incongruity “on the ground.” But let us look at just the U.S. as an
example.
The truth is, if you really cannot concede that a culture that
emerged from a history of slavery, that signed the 14th amendment into
law less than 50 years ago, never (yes never) signed the ERA into law
and has misogyny imbedded in nearly every aspect of the language (“Hi, I
am a FeMALE, be careful or I may get hysterical”) has some intrinsic
and deeply ingrained biases then...you must be on your period.
With all that in mind, let's take a look at the (quite salient) video
Melissa Silverstein of Women and Hollywood put
together looking at some of the extraordinary work from women directors
just this year. And let's also remind ourselves that in 84 years only
four women (Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola and Kathryn
Bigelow) have been nominated for Best Director. Only one, Bigelow, has
won.
Again, I must beg pardon for focusing on the feminine aspect of the
issue, when the problem (and by that I mean inequity across industry and
national lines) is clearly far larger in scope.
In any event, we must take note that this business of the Oscars is
really a small matter in the grander scheme of global concerns. And the
weight and gravity with which the LA Times presented their (somewhat
“common-sense says”) study begged for a bit of ribbing. With that in
mind, and to conclude on a slightly lighter note, here's a look at what
goes on behind the cotton blend golfing pants curtain of the
Academy Awards:
Blogs
by
Melissa Silverstein |
February 23, 2012
It's that time of year, The Academy Awards, the "Super Bowl for
Women." It's the night where we all get catty about whose dress doesn't
work, who's got a new boyfriend or girlfriend, and who looks like they
haven't eaten all month.
Because the world is paying attention to Hollywood in a bigger way this
week there is an opportunity to raise awareness about gross inequities
in the business. So we here at Women and Hollywood are taking this
opportunity to say that THERE NEEDS TO BE MORE WOMEN CONSIDERED FOR BEST
DIRECTOR.
So we put together this video (it's only a little over a minute)
highlighting some of the women directed films from this past year that
were passed over. We're not trying to say that all of them should have
been nominated (though we think a couple of them should have), what we
are trying to say is that we have to find a way to get women directors
into these conversations.
We are so tired of watching parade after parade of men being praised
for their work. Last year at least we got to see Kathryn Bigelow up on
the stage giving out the best director award, this year, the lack of
women will be glaring. Not only are there no women directors
nominated, no films directed by women are nominated for best picture.
Here are the stats again:
-
In 2011, only 5% of the top grossing films in Hollywood were directed by Women. The number has decreased since 1998.
-
In 84 years only 4 women -- Lina Wertmuller, Jane Campion, Sofia
Coppola and Kathryn Bigelow -- have been nominated for best director.
One 1 has won.
We want to acknowledge the women directed films nominated:
-
Best Animated Feature: Jennifer Yuh Nelson for Kung Fu Panda 2;
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Best Documentary Feature: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
-
Documentary (Short Subject): The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of
the Civil Rights Movement Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin; God Is the
Bigger Elvis Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson; Saving Face Daniel
Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy; The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom Lucy
Walker and Kira Carstensen
-
Foreign Language Film: Agnieszka Holland for In Darkness
Please feel free to send this video out far and wide, and on Sunday,
remember that women directors voices and visions are missing from this
very large cultural conversation. Telling people this is a cultural
problem and not just a gender equity problem is a first step.
