WOMEN IN INDUSTRY 'only 7% of film directors are' ...

The figure is around 6-15% in the UK...
...the % of film directors who are female!

IN BRIEF...
This is 1 of 2 lengthy posts on the huge topic of the clearly differential treatment of women at all levels of the film industry - there are relatively few senior executives, producers, scriptwriters, directors, actors given lengthy dialogue, even women in crowd scenes are a minority ... This post (a short video and an overview of female directors, including the campaigning company Birds Eye Views) and its companion post - are a start ... look for much more using the female fimmakers tag.

Its a story that just won't go away, and the BFI are playing their part to publicise the issues.

I'll add the full article below (and see the longer post on fem dirs.), but first, an extract and then a video containing a rather useful but also intriguing bit of theory (v. useful for hoovering up a few marks...):

Birds Eye View started out as a positive response to the fact that women make up only 7% of film directors (a statistic that remains accurate for Hollywood, and that has fluctuated between 6-15% in the UK over the last few years), and around 10-18% of screenwriters (depending on which year, and which side of the Atlantic). That's 6-18% of the creative vision in the world's most powerful medium. We live in a visual culture, and what we see on screen profoundly affects the way we see ourselves and each other. Film offers us an incredible thing – an immersive trip into someone else's universe, someone else's vision of the world. But if that vision is dominated by men then we are missing out on so much complexity, richness, diversity and creativity.

Here's the theory, wrapped up in a short but entertaining vid for you...

MALE GAZE left behind in Deadpool?

A lengthy discussion here on the extent to which the 'pansexual' Deadpool character is or is not counter-hegemonic (underming hetero-normativity), given that the only relationship or physical intimacy (other than with a unicorn in the end titles) is with his girlfriend ... but also a very direct discussion of the male gaze, and how it might be subverted here.

Note how the writer homes in very specific moments; this is just what you need to do too when writing an analysis of cinema - in the micro elements we find evidence to discuss the macro environment in which these are created and consumed:

The film’s reluctance to make good on its hero’s pansexuality should not overshadow the little moments of daring, the subtle advancements, that have survived to the screen. In a medium characterised by the male gaze, it is implicitly radical to include a lingering closeup of a man’s pert behind, especially when that shot isn’t giving straight male viewers the get-out clause of replicating a woman’s point-of-view: everyone, male or female, is simply being invited to enjoy the image on its own merits.

Female gaze?

UPDATE, 2015: Rather than add another post, I'll add to this one which looked at the example of Magic Mike as an exemplar of an emerging female gaze. That was rather limited to the notion of objectifying; I've added more below on an article for Media Magazine by Sean Richardson in which he challenges us to think more carefully about how a female viewer (de)constructs and receives media images. Yes, media and not least cinema remains somewhat patriarchal overall, but it is just too simplistic to view media entirely through the prism of sexist objectification.

UPDATE 2: TODD HAYNES ON WHY IT TOOK HOLLYWOOD LONGER TO MAKE A MAINSTREAM LESBIAN MOVIE THAN A GAY MALE MOVIE...

The director, Todd Haynes, agreed that same-sex female relationships had been even less well-served by mainstream movie-makers than those between two men. The reason that the likes of Brokeback Mountain and Milk had preceded Carol was, he suspected, “because male audiences will not be excluded [by them]. They are the prime audience Hollywood are marketing films for.” (From a feature on Cate Blanchett, star of Carol)

The Female Gaze: Rethinking Representation
Following quotes are from an article in the always excellent Media Magazine (subscription needed - ask the Librarian or me for login details). Sean Richardson wrote in April 2015 on this topic, starting with a simple statement on the impact of male gaze:

Research suggests that advertising campaigns for a female audience are dominated by heterosexual Caucasian size 0 to 2 models. This is a fact, despite what we might think or want, in a multicultural, complex world. Increasingly, accusations have been made by the likes of Naomi Campbell and Dame Vivienne Westwood that representations of women in advertising are too white and nearly exclusively under size 6.

Male gaze and taboo of phallus on screen

Delicate issue here, but timely given we've just been exploring Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory. Legendary writer Russell T Davies (Dr Who... and actual good TV as well! Not least the groundbreaking Queer as Folk) argues we should loosen the tight regulations around screen depictions of the phallus, that this has important cultural effects:

Sex – whether we have loads of it or none of it – is a part of all of our lives. But on the screen, its depiction is often met with shock or silliness. Female actors are often objectified, the reasons for their nudity sometimes having little to do with character, and everything to do with satisfying the male gaze

We need more penises on our screens http://gu.com/p/455de

WOMEN BJD Rene Zellweger - Just a pretty face?

There has been quite a commotion over Rene Zellweger's re-appearance in the media spotlight this past week, specifically surrounding her radically altered facial appearance. This is an actress, lets not forget, who piled on extra pounds to play a 'chubby' Bridget Jones (actually still well below the average size/figure of a British, never mind American, woman of her height, a quite invidious representation).

Steve Rose posts an interesting article which argues (quite briefly!) that, irrespective of gender, an actor's trade is centred on their face; it's their brand he effectively argues, with the close-up a key tool of cinema.

On the other hand ... Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy writes that this scrutiny is inherently sexist, and symptomatic of the objectification women in the media (and beyond) face:

“Where did Renee Zellweger’s face go?”

Male Gaze: Stop leering at Scarlett Johansson!

That's the plea from Bronwen Clune, a feminist critic writing in The Guardian, fed up with encountering profiles of female celebrities which linger on their bodies, and describe them in excessive detail. She specifically name-checks the male gaze theory:

We’re all familiar with the concept of the “male gaze”, particularly when it comes to Hollywood film – the lens lingering on the curves of leading ladies’ derrieres (Lane talks of Johansson’s “contours” of reputation) – a scopophilic guilty pleasure. And, let’s face it, women’s bodies are delightful things to look at, one of the reasons media executives conveniently argue that the economics of the industry make it impossible to avoid stereotypes of women.
But when respected male writers profile powerful women, is it wrong that we should expect more than lengthy, voyeuristic wet dreams? In the cases of both Hardy and Johansson, the writers of their profiles are accomplished and well-regarded. Their audiences, a “new intelligentsia”, are likely to congratulate themselves on their progressive values. Their subjects are powerful and sexually subversive women. Yet in both cases the women are reduced to something resembling not much more than titillating, slightly fearsome, but ultimately decorative objects.

She notes how one actress was described as having "nice tits" - something the male writer even went as far as to confirm with her housemate - and goes on to note:

I’m reading a profile of Scarlett Johansson by Anthony Lane where she appears as if “made from champagne”, her laugh “dry and dirty, as if this were a drama class and her task was [sic] to play a Martini” and her backside, “barely veiled in peach-colored underwear”. As Slate points out this is not the first time Johansson has inspired “culture writers to do horrible things with words”

Does this chime with your experience? Do you think seemingly respectable highbrow media (as opposed to tabloid press/TV) are just as guilty of needless objectification? Any examples you want to share?

Brave: Merida sexualised for sequel?

A good illustration of basic points about how ideology permeates even seemingly bland, inoffensive fare such as Disney (though once you begin some wider reading you'd be alerted to the wealth of writing on the ideology behind The Mouse) comes with controversy over the redesigned animated character of Meridia for a pending Brave sequel.
Here's a sample quote from a detailed Guardian article (with illustrative pics + vids) on this:

Chapman, who was replaced by Mark Andrews part way through the production of Brave but maintained a co-director's credit, said Disney had completely missed the point when creating the new version of her creation. "I think it's atrocious what they have done to Merida," she wrote to her local newspaper, the Marin Independent Journal. "When little girls say they like it because it's more sparkly, that's all fine and good but, subconsciously, they are soaking in the sexy 'come-hither' look and the skinny aspect of the new version. It's horrible!
"Merida was created to break that mold," she added. "To give young girls a better, stronger role model, a more attainable role model, something of substance, not just a pretty face that waits around for romance."

Any thoughts on this? Add a comment below.