In Hollywood, Creative Women Are Still at the Back of the Bus; Way Back

[marmar]

via AlterNet:


In Hollywood, Creative Women Are Still at the Back of the Bus; Way Back

By Melissa Silverstein, Women's Media Center. Posted June 4, 2007.


Less than a fifth of Hollywood's screenwriters are women, and the reasons behind this disparity are less than encouraging.

Ever read the credits of your favorite TV show or movie? Chances are it was written by a man. A recent report from the Writer's Guild of America West, "Whose Stories Are We Telling?" shows us why. The story the report tells is of an industry whose "business-as-usual-practices have been wholly inadequate for addressing the lack of diversity among writers."

The news is bad for women writing for TV, and worse for women writing in film. According to Darnell Hunt, the lead author of the 2007 Hollywood Writers Report and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, "women are still under-represented about 2 to 1 in the industry and that's pretty much across the board. In some places you see signs of progress, but overall it's pretty stagnant and quite distressing considering this has been a story we have been telling for a couple of decades." The report also covers minority writers who are also struggling at 10% of TV writers and a mere 6% of film scribes.

In film, the percentage of women writers of features has hovered between 17% and 19% since 1999. Why are there so few? Kimberly Myers, newly appointed director of diversity at the guild, believes that some of the problems stem from the Hollywood blockbuster obsession.

"Executives increasingly are looking for blockbuster movies that are going to appeal to a youth audience that they think of as more male than female," says Myers. "Therefore, they are likely to be more interested in what male writers are pitching." When they do get a job, women tend to make less money: the median women's earnings decreased 6.1% while male earnings increased 16.1%. In a single year, between 2004 and 2005, the gender pay gap doubled from $20,000 to $40,000. While neither Myers nor Hunt has a complete explanation for the gigantic jump, Myers attributes it to the continued consolidation of the industry: "all it takes is one studio to change their policy about the number and type of films they are making and it can impact the whole industry, which is not that large to being with." ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/52959/

[Demeter]

1. As AnyoneCould Tell By Looking at the Movie Listings

Still creaming over the teenage boy markets--ignoring the female majority and their pocket money.

I have never gone to fewer movies in my life, and even being very selective, half of what I do see is inferior to the worst of the 40's.

[bemildred]

2. "Creative" and "hollywood" do not really belong in the same sentence.

Shameless imitation and the heavy use of special effects to paper over thin plots are the rule of the day.

[northzax]

3. um, chicks can't write?

seems obvious to me!

no, seriously. actually I think it is because the whole factory system is geared, from an early age, to boys. look at summer movies: comedies and blockbusters, both deal more with the male experience, and tend to draw from the male talent pool.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Boys are the toughest sell. So, ads, movies, etc. are geared toward them.

75% of all Disney movie characters are male. There you go...

[northzax]

5. and girls will go to boys movies

but boys won't go to 'girls' movies.

[Captain Hilts]

6. Exactly. nt

[MsUnderstood]

7. another perspecitive

Another possibility is that when movies are geared toward women, they are geared toward MOMS meaning it doesn't matter what the movie has to offer women, as long as it satisifes the kids women drag to the movie.

So the movie either appeals to the man (brining the date along) or to the kid (bringing the mom along) while the female viewer is left to tag along with that audience.

Look at terms like "chick flick" which refer to any movie dealing with relationships. I teased my daughter because we went to see a movie called "in the valley of women" which was a film about a guy interacting with his grandmother and female neighbors. But the term is a derroagotry phrase used to identify films that men wouldn't want to go see--and movies in the category suffer.

During the previews 3 other previews for films which focused on relationships were shown--but I only saw one of them on a theater marque since the first movie.

Maybe part of the issue goes further than just hollywood--how many FEMALE movie critics do you see in mainstream press? If it is the young males defining the blockbusters and the old males defining the classics, how are women to break into that mold to tell herstory?

On a side note I was surprised to learn that the grey's anatomy creator was an african american female--gives me hope that hollywood can look through gender and race to see creativity (of course the show was a mid season replacement. . .).

Some articles about Shonda Rhimes:

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2005/12/shonda_rhimes_a.html

http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271%7C99701%7C1%7C,00.html

[katty]

8. in LA here it's a given Hollywood is an exclusive boys club

just like Washington D.C., - one of the big reasons the boys in d.c. can't stand the other boys club in hollywood. there is nothing democratic about the hollywood studio/tv system-just like the beltway.