It’s that time of year again! Before we enter the glamour and prestige of awards season, let’s see if Hollywood made the grade this fall with its representations of women in film. Please note that Hollywood is on academic probation for failing to improve on one of its grades from our summer report card, in which it received an F for having zero female-directed films among the 25 highest-grossing movies of the season. Not a great way to kick off the holidays, Hollywood. A to Indie Horror Cinema It’s been a frightfully good fall for women behind the camera: Leigh Janiak’s horror debut Honeymoon opened in theaters and VOD September 12; on October 21, twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska released sequel See No Evil 2 on DVD and Blu-ray; Ana Lily Amirpour’s vampire Sundance hit A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night comes out tomorrow; and Jennifer Kent’s creepy bedtime-story-gone-awry The Babadook hits theaters next weekend. We all scream for female horror directors! A to Emma Watson For the inspirational speech she delivered at the UN (to a standing ovation), calling for more men to join the fight for gender equality with a new campaign called HeForShe. One hundred points to Gryffindor! B+ to Superhero Movies Superhero cinema has never exactly made the honor roll when it comes to women, but when Marvel announced its movie rollout through 2019, its very first female-led superhero movie was tucked in there among the Thor sequels: Captain Marvel, due out in 2018. Jena Malone is rumored to be playing a female Robin in DC’s upcoming Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and in a very exciting (possible) development, Breaking Bad director Michelle MacLaren is reportedly the frontrunner to helm DC’s Wonder Woman. We’re withholding the A for when the speculation proves true—and when the genre continues the trend. F to The Internet Where misogyny is alive and well. This fall was pretty grim, with the celebrity nude photo leak and the explosion of the Gamergate controversy in the world of gaming, film’s nerdy cousin. Women like Jennifer Lawrence and Felicia Day get As for standing their ground in the face of blatant misogyny; Lawrence rightly refused to apologize for taking private photographs and unequivocally asserted that the leak was a sex crime, and Day spoke out publicly against Gamergate despite fear of backlash (and unlike famous male gamers who were critical of the movement, she was almost immediately doxxed). A to Paul Feig The Bridesmaids and The Heat filmmaker has announced his plans to direct an all-female version of Ghostbusters, continuing his streak of bringing awesome female-centric comedies to the world. “I’m making a new Ghostbusters,” he tweeted, “and yes, it will star hilarious women. That’s who I’m gonna call.” A to The MacArthur Foundation For awarding one of their “genius” grants to cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who invented the Bechdel test in a 1985 comic strip. For a film to pass the Bechdel test, it must have at least two female characters that speak to each other about something other than a man. As Soraya Nadia McDonald writes in The Washington Post, Bechdel “changed the way we think about and discuss film.” Sounds pretty genius to us. C+ to Gone Girl Also known as the film that launched a thousand think pieces—or the highest-grossing movie of the fall (by a decisive $52 million). No spoilers here, but a girl got gone and the misogyny debate got going. I give screenwriter Gillian Flynn (who adapted her own wildly popular novel) and director David Fincher enormous credit for making a provocative and complex film to inspire such a lively debate, but fall somewhere in the middle of it. Gone Girl gets a respectable C+ for its flawed feminism—and for passing the Bechdel test. Mary Sollosi / Film Independent Blogger
title: “Women In Film Hollywood S Fall Report Card” ShowToc: true date: “2024-05-18” author: “Shannon Frias”
Hollywood just barely maintained its performance from our summer report card when it comes to women behind the camera; for the second time in a row, women directed only two out of the 25 highest-grossing films of the season. Hollywood, please. Arguing that there are no female directors to hire is even weaker than claiming the dog ate your homework. We’ll make it easy for you: here’s a cheat sheet for next time. This fall has been unlike any other season that’s gotten a report card. Hollywood has graduated to a new level—not because its grades are always so stellar, but because it’s reached a point where the story of women in the industry has developed into a prominent ongoing conversation that’s greater and more complex than a series of isolated incidents. Congrats, Hollywood! Welcome to interdisciplinary academics! A prime example of this is the ever-growing club of celebrities who speak out against industry sexism—a group we’ve recognized in our past two report cards. Gold stars to all of them, including this A-list group who spoke to the New York Times about it! A to Jennifer Lawrence Speaking of A-listers: America’s sweetheart and Hollywood’s Girl on Fire Jennifer Lawrence joined the conversation this fall when she penned an essay addressing the Sony hack revelation that she was paid less than her male co-stars on 2014’s American Hustle. Lawrence wrote that she “failed as a negotiator” partly because she didn’t want to be viewed as a “spoiled brat”—a label, she observed, that is rarely applied to men. C to The Emmys The 2015 Emmy Awards, which took place in September, get credit for recognizing the feminist satire of Amy Schumer, the sensitive portrayal of trans characters in Transparent and Viola Davis, whose historic win for her performance in How to Get Away with Murder makes her the first black woman to win an Emmy for lead actress in a drama. However, that progress is undermined somewhat by the findings of a recent study (there’s always another cruel recent study!) analyzing Emmy statistics. In all writing, producing, directing and editing categories over the past 10 years, only 22% of nominees have been women—for directing alone, only 8%. D to Late Night TV In more bad news for television, a recent story in Vanity Fair looks at the ten biggest current late night talk show hosts. Guess what? They’re all men! “How gobsmackingly insane is it that no TV network has had the common sense…to hand over the reins of an existing late-night comedy program to a female person?” the article asks. Gobsmacking indeed. D+ (projected) to Awards Season For its yearly actress roundtable, in which awards season contenders get together to discuss their craft, The Hollywood Reporter gathered a truly incredible group of performers, including Cate Blanchett, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Lawrence—and exactly zero women of color. Obviously, the group is all female, so nobody can complain about a lack of women, numbers-wise—but what’s female representation when there’s no diversity among the females being represented? Come on, Hollywood. Let’s not have a repeat of last awards season. A to Female-driven Indies Women were tearing up the indie box office this fall. Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, starring a badass Emily Blunt, came out in September and is 2015’s highest-grossing indie to date; John Crowley’s breathtaking period romance Brooklyn, starring awards contender Saoirse Ronan, had a healthy limited opening in November and is still expanding; and both David Gordon Green’s Our Brand Is Crisis, which stars Sandra Bullock in a strong role originally written for a man, and Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette, a historical drama made by women and about women’s issues, broke the top 25 highest-grossing films of the season. Who says there’s no audience for female-driven films? Mary Sollosi / Film Independent Blogger
