Every year Dr. Martha Lauzen at San Diego State, who has become the leading expert on the status of women in the film and TV industries, releases a study analyzing the what's up with women in the biz. (This study analyzed behind-the-scenes employment of 2,883 individuals working on the top 250 domestic grossing films (foreign films omitted) of 2007 with combined domestic box office grosses of approximately $9.3 billion.)
As you can imagine the news is grim and has been getting worse over the last few years. My question is, what can we do about this? Got any answers? Comments are welcomed.
Here are some of the statistics:
In 2007, women comprised 15% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films. This represents a decline of 2 percentage points from 1998 and represents no change from 2006.I am fucking depressed. We have to do something about this.
Women accounted for 6% of directors in 2007, a decline of one percentage point since 2006. This figure is almost half the percentage of women directors working in 2000 when women accounted for 11% of all directors.
The following summary provides employment figures for 2007 and compares the most recent statistics with those from the last 10 years.
Findings:
• Twenty one percent (21%) of the films released in 2007 employed no women directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, or editors. No films failed to employ a man in at least one of these roles.
• A historical comparison of women’s employment on the top 250 films in 2007 and 1998 reveals that the percentage of women in every role considered has declined.
• Women accounted for 10% of writers working on the top 250 films of 2007. Eighty two percent (82%) of the films had no female writers.
• Women comprised 14% of all executive producers working on the top 250 films of 2007 (see Figure 3). Sixty seven percent (67%) of the films had no female executive producers.
• Women accounted for 22% of all producers working on the top 250 films of 2007. Thirty seven percent (37%) of the films had no female producers.
• Women accounted for 17% of all editors working on the top 250 films of 2007. Seventy nine percent (79%) of the films had no female editors.
• Women comprised 2% of all cinematographers working on the top 250 films of 2007. Ninety eight percent (98%) of the films had no female cinematographers.
• By genre, women were most likely to work on romantic comedies, romantic dramas, and documentaries and least likely to work on science fiction, action-adventure, and horror features.
Report compiled by Dr. Martha M. Lauzen, Director, Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, 92182, 619.594.6301
No Country for Old Men- what's the big deal?
I resisted for a long time seeing No Country for Old Men. I really had no desire to see what everyone (the film critics- not regular people) said was the best film of the year but was also the most violent movie of the year. I'm really not interested in seeing movies about violence for the sake of violence. But I went. I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. So now I've seen it and my questions remains, what's all the hoopla about? It's fine, the violence is over the top (but no more than the scene from Fargo where a person gets fed into a woodchipper), Javier Bardem has the most horrific bowl haircut from the 80s and he kills lots of people for no reason other than the fact he can get away with it. So what? So did Jeffrey Dahmer. The Coen brothers clearly have a great feel for their material and are very good filmmakers, but I am still left wanting...
I feel that people who write about films really like to jump on a bandwagon with the rest of the club. Once films get momentum its much easier to stay on the wagon that to challenge conventional wisdom.
News
Brendan Fraser to be honored at ShoWest with Distinguished Decade Award. Come on. His career is about distinguished as mine.
B. Ruby Rich's take on Sundance and its return to its roots.
Back into the Light (The Guardian)