I saw this post by Karina Longworth from Spout about a screening and q&a of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker which has been making its way around before a full release this summer. The film is about the Iraq War and has been getting some good buzz. I’m excited to see it.
What interested me about the conversation is the ongoing debate about women not being able to direct action films or anything outside the typical women’s box. I still don’t understand how we can be having this conversation. Why is it so hard to fathom that a woman, or many women, are interested in directing films that a) star men; or b) blow things up in them?
Guys have no problem directing films about women. It happens everyday. No one said so and so shouldn’t direct for example Confessions of a Shopaholic (directed by PJ Hogan) or He’s Just Not That Into You (directed by Ken Kwapis) because he’s a man? Why do they say that Kathryn Bigelow is such an anomaly because she likes to blow shit up?
As Karina says:
The argument that Bigelow’s work is somehow subversive just because she has a vagina is not only ludicrous, but unnecessary, being that her films are actually subversive.
That the conversation surrounding Bigelow’s work seems to consistently get stuck in the mud of gender politics is all the more tragic in the case of The Hurt Locker, a film of such complex construction and complicated values that it should be able to sustain much deeper inquiry than what it feels like for a girl. If anything, it’s a film that bears the mark of a painter, full of deceptively beautiful imagery masking multiple layers of meaning.
I have long admired Bigelow’s work. She is a very interesting director. But the reason why the gender politics continues to dog her is that there are still too few women doing what she does. It’s all about the numbers. If there were 20 women directors making action films the gender conversation would be moot.
THE HURT LOCKER at AFI Dallas, and Kathryn Bigelow’s girl problem (Spout)
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
People are always shocked when they learned that a woman directed American Psycho (a great film with lots of gore and sex). I’m still really angry about that sexist, racist EW’s list of 25 greatest active directors. Not one female or non-white director. What a bloody travesty.
Great post. I am also a big Bigelow fan (although I have always been less-than-thrilled with ‘Strange Days’) and I am very excited about ‘The Hurt Locker.’
Interestingly (or,perhaps, not surprisingly), the last trailer I saw for ‘The Hurt Locker’ included the tag “from the director of Point Break” without actually giving Bigelow’s name. That simply wouldn’t have happened if Bigelow had been a man. I think that might change as the film actually gets to theatres – there’s a marketing/pr angle to attaching Bigelow to the film if only unfortunately because she’s such a novelty.
I was disappointed that there wasn’t more action directed to supporting Lexi Alexander’s ‘Punisher: War Zone’ last year. It was no masterpiece, but it was the only credible film made in that franchise and the only comic book film with a female creator made at all last year – some box office success would have been a real boon for female action directors.
I am really looking forward to “The Hurt Locker!” Iraq war movies are a passion of mine. :)
Hi All,
I would agree with just about everything you said Tammy except for the PR part. I’ve seen plenty of movies that say “from the director” or sometimes “from the writer” in their advertising; if the movie has more name recognition than the director then they’ll go with that.
But I’m going to say the unpopular thing – this one neither surprises me or angers me. Why should anyone think that women would be interested in action fare? It belies I’m sure a ton of anecdotal evidence that says otherwise. I wouldn’t think so myself if I weren’t a woman who loves action flicks.
Action films are too low brow. I thought it was interesting that even the blogger spoke about how The Hurt Locker doesn’t need to be directed by a female to be subversive – its content is subversive. Why does it have to be subversive at all? Why can’t it be just on the nose fun and entertaining? Why can’t it be absolute mindless drivel?
I’m going to second what Tammy said. Just look at here for example. We didn’t talk at all about Lexi Alexander’s Punisher, who I think is a great example of a woman who could make a film as bloody – and possibly as bad – as a guy (although it looked like a much closer adaptation to the real comic). And she had a tough time with production as well – partially because she was a new director, but I have a sneaky suspicion that you can’t rule out gender. We didn’t talk about it at all.
Let’s broaden it out a bit – what about films that star women in lead action roles? Say what you will about the latest Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, it was an action film that starred a female in the lead role. I would think that Angie would get lots of love in these parts, because she is one of the few women who has consistently shown she can open an action film – huge. But she doesn’t. And I would say much like Meryl Streep, she has made a career of playing flawed, strong characters. She is almost never anyone’s arm candy.
And it’s not just here, it’s everywhere. It’s in the articles I read, it’s in the comments I hear from other women, it’s in the choices they make. They tend to just want to go to male action flicks, and it seems only to appease the guys they are with – or the kids they have. I mean if you have the people who are in films like Gwenyth Paltrow say that these comic book films are “boy’s films”, or someone like Nicole Kidman say that she wants to play a strong heroine, but not some female superhero – she wants to still show her femininity, then I can’t see how someone could not come to a conclusion that females who want to direct action flicks, and especially ones that star men, are anomalies.
I really feel like there is this stereotype that women are more high-minded than men and therefore not interested in action films (unless the guy is uber hot) and strangely enough this is not something the women I have been around have rigorously refuted.
So I agree that until we get many more women directing (writing and starring also) action flicks, then these questions will always plague the ones who do. But that won’t happen unless women want to do these films and people – specifically women – want to support them. I mean I am sure it sucks that so many are not great (I didn’t quite like Point Break much, but I liked Strange Days a lot better), but for every great film of any kind there are dozens of ok to bad films that still made enough of a profit that it convinced people to invest in them.
Oh, and I’m kind of worried about this film. There hasn’t been an Iraq war film yet that has done well financially, has there? I thought Stop-Loss would have done it, but that didn’t fly either.
Maybe we can kill 2 birds with 1 stone? Maybe we can keep the drizzly, 1-dimensional romantic comedies, and add lots of explosions and car chases!? :) To me one of the best love stories ever was the first Terminator!
Women critics are always saying that women audiences won’t be interested in seeing action flicks. Ann Thompson on her blog, for instance, said that Watchmen would be too violent for female audiences to watch. Bullshit.
I agree with some of what that blog said, however, Karina Longworth from Spout makes too many assumptions that are inaccurate.
Kathryn Bigelow doesn’t have a “girl” problem, because she is not a “girl”. She is almost sixty years old, and that’s far beyond the age that women are generally called “girls.”
Beyond that, there is a fallacy that a director is the sole creator of a film. This is a myth that is perpetuated by film critics. Film is not painting. It is not one person sitting in a room with a paintbrush and an empty canvas waiting for inspiration.
Film is a collaborative art form where usually hundreds of people, together, make a final finished product. Far too many directors get treatment as “auteurs” when really they just direct the “mise-en-scene” (i.e. just “show up”). It isn’t really fair or accurate to the writers, cinematographers, film editors, production designers, sound designers and recordists, visual and special effects people, hair & makeup or costume designers for just one person to get total credit for all of their collective collaborative work.
If anything, Catherine Bigelowe probably gets far too much of the “benefit of the doubt” just for being a woman and for being one of the only female directors who is regularly hired.
Yes, Hollywood needs to employ more women in all of the crafts (a recent study says that although the town is famously liberal, it discriminates against women and hires men 87% of the time for all the top above-the-line jobs). The film industry needs to be compelled to go beyond the same two or three women who get every directing job and instead, seek out new voices.