Before Films Were Big Business, Women Had Far More Power in Hollywood
Film Fatales - Oct. 9, 2019

With the growing awareness of the inequities in Hollywood and active outreach from people doing the work to hire at parity, Leah Meyerhoff, founder of Film Fatales, a collective that advocates for gender equality in the film industry, says she's seen "more activity in the past three years than in the rest of the decade." Though, admittedly, that progress has been seen more in the independent film world than the mainstream industry.

By Rachael Rifkin, Shondaland

Before Films Were Big Business, Women Had Far More Power in Hollywood

Women writers, directors, and producers flourished during the early days of the film business. What happened?

Women directed a slew of critically-acclaimed films in 2018, including Debra Granik's Leave No Trace, Chloe Zhao's The Rider, Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here, and Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me? But it was back to business as usual at this year's Academy Awards ceremony when women were shut out of the Best Director category once again.

While Hollywood has certainly gotten more diverse in recent years, the Oscars provide a good encapsulation of the power dynamics in Hollywood, and the history is hard to contend with. In the 91 years the awards have been around, only five women directors — Lina Wertmuller in 1977 , Jane Campion in 1994, Sofia Coppola in 2004, Kathryn Bigelow in 2010, and Greta Gerwig in 2018 — have been nominated, and Bigelow is the lone woman to have won the award. Meanwhile, 68 men have won, and over 400 have been nominated, for Best Director...

With the growing awareness of the inequities in Hollywood and active outreach from people doing the work to hire at parity, Leah Meyerhoff, founder of Film Fatales, a collective that advocates for gender equality in the film industry, says she's seen "more activity in the past three years than in the rest of the decade." Though, admittedly, that progress has been seen more in the independent film world than the mainstream industry.

In 2018, there was an increase in female representation in front of the camera to about 40 percent, compared with 32 percent in 2017, and just 16 percent in 2007. But the numbers sound a lot less encouraging when you realize this means that 60 of the top 100 films of 2018 did not feature a female lead, and 72 did not have a lead that was a person of color. Similarly, "The Celluloid Ceiling" report, which studies the top 250 grossing movies of the year, found that only eight percent of directors were women, down from 11 percent in 2017, and 9 percent in 1998.

Big budget films continue to struggle to reach gender parity, but larger shifts are coming from independent films, film festivals, and streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, which have been reducing financial barriers and providing more opportunities for women directors.

"At South by Southwest this past year, 80 percent of the competition feature films were directed by women, which is a huge increase, though the majority was white women. Some festivals have already hit parity, especially in the documentary space," says Meyerhoff.

At the Sundance Film Festival, the average percentage of films directed by women hovered around 25 percent, while this year, that number hit 45 percent, an all-time high. On TV, the percentage of first-time female directors increased to 40.6 percent during the 2017-18 season, up from 18 percent between 2009 and 2015.

Increasing the numbers of women in the industry is about more than just representation — getting experience is important given the powers that be in Hollywood are less willing to take a chance on women and people of color who don't have a proven track record. When it comes to big-budget films, women seeking opportunities face a "fiscal cliff" — when going from first-time TV directing to film, the percentage of women at the helm declines by 21 percent. Similarly, a drop of 23.5 percent occurs for women from independent to mainstream film. Men, on the other hand, go from making up 72 percent of independent film directors to 96 percent of top-grossing film directors.

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