I was involved in an interesting 140 character rant the other day with some fun folks on Twitter! (@melsil @SableFilms @ItsMelaHudson @FilmMakerMBA to name a few) The group included me (writer/director/producer), a woman who advocates and “agitates for gender equity in Hollywood,” an actress, a veteran filmmaker, and a film company specializing in producing commercially viable features about womens passions, among others. The topic? Gender equality and Hollywood. While its well known that women struggle to be equally represented in Hollywood—only 6 percent of the top Hollywood feature films were directed by women in 2013—much lower than the 16 percent that was brought up in our Twitter exchange. Women in Film actually released even more sobering statistics—the number of female directors working for the major studios in the past 5 years is as such: 2.9% for Warner Brothers, 2.6% for Universal, 7.4% for Disney, 5.2% for Sony, 6.6% for 20th Century Fox and 4.8% for Paramount. In response a Twitter hashtag campaign #HireTheseWomen has started. But the conversation—and yes, you can actually have a conversation on Twitter—turned to whether it’s not only women who are excluded from the coveted above-the-line positions, but everyone outside the very, very small Old Boys’ Network. Kevin wrote, “You cant fight them if you have nothing to show them! We need great Indy films!” Melissa wrote, “It is too important not to fight for this. Culture is what defines us.” There’s this notion that we’re in a fight, and that we need to develop amazing content so that the top studios will see that, recognize us for our mad skills and hire us. Sounds logical. Except that I’m fairly certain the Indie world is already making great movies. And as for talent, there’s copious, hardworking, talented people who propel Indies into festivals and distribution all the time. Good content isn’t the problem. And it’s not about talent. It’s curation. No one wants to do it. There’s so much noise coming from the Indie world that the Seven Big Studios don’t want to do what amounts to rummaging through the slush pile. I won’t say I have an answer. (I also won’t say I don’t, either.) I’m an optimistic, ambitious woman, and I’m always looking for ways to improve the wheel. But, I don’t consider myself in a fight. I’m too busy being creative to battle. I just want to make sure I’m looking to the future in a pragmatic way—and with optimism and a goal for myself and my work. To that end, it was nice to read this article about women who are creating short films: “Women filmmakers are creatively thriving.” ShortsHD, the “only short film network, is showcasing and celebrating women filmmakers by airing month-long programming, 100 Films By Her. The entire month of November is dedicated to airing all women-directed short films... the most extensive collection of womens films ever programmed on television.” That’s pretty cool. And something optimistic, for once, to Tweet about! huffingtonpost/paige-morrow-kimball/making-themshort-films-by-women-and-why-we-love-making-them_b_6130870.html
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 00:01:55 +0000
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