What has happened to you, Manohla Dargis? Once a hero to women watching as you worked your way to power in the critics circle, do you now feel the need to go for the jugular of women filmmakers to earn your seat at the table? You’d never write the male version of this phrase:

Dargis: “The director Mira Nair, whose only qualification appears to be that she’s a woman who has made others films about and with women (‘Mississippi Masala,’ ‘Vanity Fair’)….”

This sentence is so shocking, it’s hard for me and my friends (male & female) to even get our heads around it.

Imagine the reverse: The director Steven Spielberg/Steven Soderberg/Michael Bay/(and so on so forth), whose only qualification appears to be that he’s a man who has made others films about and with men (name two of their fairly major movies here)…

Not only have you added to a damaging attitude of belittling women in the industry — and what’s more in a high-profile, intelligent newspaper — but, in one sentence, you have undermined not only all of Nair’s work, but ALL female filmmakers’ work.

As you must know, a director is not entirely responsible for the script and finished product of a film, so they deserve neither all the credit, nor all the blame. When dealing with a huge studio budget such as this film Amelia’s, there would be dozens of people involved with creating a mainstream vision of this story, and THAT is what should be criticized here. You may hold Nair responsible for her part, but you have a duty to also bring your knowledge of the studio system and its increasing pressures to create middle-of-the-road films aimed to maximize profit, rather than make a great film. This film’s flaws are not falling only at the feet on Nair; indeed, she would have enormous pressure as a woman simply having the director position of such a large budget feature to bring it in as desired by studio execs. Don’t be naive, Dargis, about the process. It is unbecoming and mean-spirited. I don’t believe you make such personal attacks of male directors that you review. It begs the question: why did you choose to say this about Nair?

Please take a serious look into yourself for this slip, and then write a follow up article calling attention to your own mistake, showing how insidious and subtle (or not so subtle, in your case) that these perceptions and dismissals are… in short, what an uphill battle women have, not just in overt ways, but by being undermined by their own colleagues.

You have shown that not only can women not just be criticized for their work, but they are criticized for WHO THEY ARE.

You, of all people, as a smart person, a thoughtful person, and what’s more, as a female critic!, should know how tough it is for women in ANY industry, and I would certainly not expect you to add to that burden by denigrating a person for her gender. (Would you like it if you were dismissed as a person whose only qualification is that you are a woman who has written reviews about movies with women in them? I can’t even conceive that you would ever like that as your NYT bio.)

Dargis, you write better than this. You should be better than this. I hope to see you directly address this problem in order to regain our confidence that you have lost.

NOTE: The NYT site did not post this or another note from a different reader, I’ve learned, completely unconnected to this reader’s (a short note which said the review was sexist and disappointing). Censorship from the NYT regarding readers comments against sexism? Strange and disturbing.

To me the film was the clifnotes version of Earhart’s life. It briefly touched upon the high points in her life but I never really understood Earhart’s motivation. And I really could have done without all the time spent on her relationship with her husband. There were just too many other more interesting aspects of this woman’s amazing life that I felt could have been better explored.

The sad fact is that if Earhart was a man, the love story would have been only a minor part of the story, while the real attention would have been spent on the merits of what he did and didn’t acheive.

One of the many reasons for pushing for recognition for women in film, and more opportunities for more women in this industry, is that in spite great ingredients many films still fall short of their potential. In order to achieve the collective magic that sometimes is filmmaking many many films need to be made, and so for women to make great films, we must also be allowed to make the mediocre, the forgettable, and even the downright awful.

I heard it before the film was reviewed and thought “uh oh…”

Also there’s a short story in Creative Screenwriting (Sept/Oct. ‘09 issue) about the screenwriters. Ron Bass, the original writer focused on the “love story – the triangle between her, her husband…and Gene Vidal”. When the original director, Phil Noyce, left and they brought in Mira Nair to direct she hired Anna Hamilton Phelan to re-write the script.

Seems to me this film really didn’t have a chance, just too many fingers in the pie, too many visions, too many voices. A classic case of Hollywood loving something to death.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/weekinreview/25dargis.html?ref=weekinreview

F–k that. I lost all interest in this movie.