SEEN AND HEARD

In 2010, for the first time in history, a woman was awarded an Academy Award for best direction.

The winner, Kathryn Bigelow, despite a relatively long career of making big-budget films, was virtually unknown by name until The Hurt Locker. Before her, only three women in more than eighty years had been nominated for Best Direction. In the words of Australian filmmaker Jane Campion, a previous nominee: with five nominations per year over eighty years, “you do the math”.

In fact, according to the Centre for the Study of Women in Television & Film,  in 2011 women made up only 5% of directors in the top 250 domestic grossing films (U.S.), a 1% decrease from 2010, Bigelow’s winning year, and almost half the percentage of women directors working in 1998. Meanwhile, 38% of films employed no women in any major productions role (writing, producing, directing, editing or cinematography.)

We believe that the lack of women in the film industry if an impoverishment to our culture. One that can only be rectified once we recognise that the dramatic underrepresentation of women amongst both cast & crew is a problem.

Why is it a problem?

Film is like no other medium. Many try to discredit film as a common media, a medium that is commercial beyond the point of artistry or intellectual credibility. Regardless of what credibility you care to give to film, there is no doubting its potential to speak to people. “Whether we like it or not, cinema assumes a pedagogical role in the lives of many people. It may not be the intent of a filmmaker to teach audiences anything, but that does not mean lessons are not learned,” writes author Bell Hooks. “It has only been in the last ten years or so that I have begun to realise that my students learned more about race, sex, and class from movies than from all the theoretical literature I was urging them to read.”

Given it pedagogical powers we have to ask: what is contemporary film teaching its audiences? Currently, only 10% of protagonists in the top 100 grossing films worldwide are female. Less than a third of ensemble casts include one prominent female character and less than a third of all speaking roles are acted by women. That means for every 2 men you see on screen you might see a woman. Of those women you do see, at least 1 in every 5 will be hypersexualised, making female characters 3 to 5 times more likely to be sexualised than male.

The underrepresentation of women behind the scenes, directly correlates to the representation of women on our screens: Films with at least 1 female director increases the women on our screen by 25%, while at least 1 female screenwriter increases female roles by 33%.

And yet, Bigelow, the first woman to win an Academy Award for best direction, is a director known for her male-orientated action pictures, a director who won her award for a film in which there was merely one speaking role for a woman.

But, maybe women just don’t make good films.

There is no statistical difference in box office grosses when comparing films which employ women in at least one major production role, and those that don’t. Similarly, there is no statistical difference in box office grosses when comparing films that feature a prominent female characters and those that don’t. In fact, the only statistical difference, is that those films that feature a prominent female character have a significantly lower budget, 42% smaller than those featuring only male leads.

But, maybe women just don’t want to work in film.

On average, film school admission record a 50/50 split of male to female students. Women do want to make films, so why don’t they? Sadly, films cannot be made without financial backing, to even get a short film of the ground is more than an arduous task, it is massively expensive. Given the historical discrimination against women in business, it is no surprise that few women find the funding to produce big budget films. Moreover, as mentioned above, the industry is biased against films featuring a prominent female character, resulting in a smaller budget, and women are statistically more likely to produce films with female speaking roles (and why not?).

Given this innate discrimination against women in the film industry, it is no surprise that one of the most famous, contemporary, female filmmakers is Sofia Coppola, the daughter of Francis Ford, Hollywood directing royalty. Despite a short career in film (director of four films, all of them big budget, incredibly rare for any filmmaker working in the industry for less than fifteen years), Coppola was the first person ever allowed to shoot a film in the Palace of Versailles, indicative of her pull. Sofia Coppola is an exception born of blood right.

What can we do?

As is the case with any product that is unethically produced, our buying power can have an influence: ask any filmmaker distributing a film by cinema, and they will cry, kiss and beg for you to buy a ticket and to tell all your friends to buy a ticket. Buying power at the cinema is massively strong – the duration of a film’s cinema run will depend on its success in its first few weeks. Whether you’re a filmmaker or not, consider who’s making the films you’re buying tickets to see – what kind of films are you supporting? And hence, what kind of film industry?

Consider signing up to the First Weekenders’ Group, a mailing list which will inform you what films made by women are up for release. If you are a female film student and you feel a gender difference in the way you are being treated in class, speak up, whether you speak to your student centre or faculty to make a complaint, write anonymous letters, or make anonymous phone calls. Support film festivals that support women filmmakers (there are many out there), including ours, Seen & Heard Film Festival, running 15-29th of March 2012, at The Red Rattler, Marrickville, Sydney.

© 2010 Lucy E Randall