Yesterday, Kathryn Bigelow earned her first DGA nomination for directing The Hurt Locker. She’s not the one who made history yesterday. Seven women — Lina Wertmuller (“Seven Beauties”), Randa Haines (“Children of a Lesser God”), Barbra Streisand (“The Prince of Tides”), Jane Campion (“The Piano”), Sofia Coppola (“Lost in Translation”) and Valerie Faris (who was nominated with Jonathan Dayton for “Little Miss Sunshine” — came before her but keep in mind NONE have won. Lee Daniels was the surprise nominee for Precious making him the first black person to be nominated for a DGA honor. (Only John Singleton has been nominated for an Oscar.)
Now we all know that everyone has written ad nauseum about how Kathryn Bigelow has made a career of directing so-called “non-female” films. Films with action, and stuff blowing up. There are other women in her camp most notably Karyn Kusama. I for one am fucking sick of this conversation. We need to move on. There are men who direct movies that have more of a female sensibility like Ken Kwapis (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, He’s Just Not That Into You) and Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook, My Sister’s Keeper) and NOBODY ask if they are a male director.
Why is it when a woman ventures out of the safety of girlworld does her gender get talked about over and over but the same conversation never happens to the guys?
IndieWIRE’s new piece Is Kathryn Bigelow a Female Director? also lays out the contradictions. And the thing about this conversation is that it is rife with contradictions. I have them myself all the time. I’m as conflicted as Caryn James who said recently on this site when talking about the Golden Globe nominations (and picked up in the IndieWIRE piece) “real progress will come when we stop looking at poetic films as if they exist in some lesser, female category.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that we are going to have the 4th potential best directing nod for a woman and maybe the first win and I’m really glad that lots of critics and bloggers have woken up to the fact that Hollywood doesn’t really respect women in the same way as men. I think that just having these conversations will help improve things for women directors because FINALLY this issue is being discussed in more places that just the feminist world.
The bottom line to me is that we have made progress in people feeling comfortable with a woman director through Bigelow’s work, but we have minimal progress in how we look at films with a female sensibility. Granted we have Precious and An Education which are in the year end hunt, but remember they are both about young women coming of age. Hollywood is much more comfortable with young women’s lives and experiences than older women.
But let’s be real, Hollywood is not any different from the rest of the culture. We still have a hard time seeing women and women’s experiences as universal. We are “other” and the male experience is the “norm”.
I think it was naive to hope that the first woman to win the best directing Oscar would be a director of a more “female” type movie. We’re just not ready for that. This could be one of the big reasons why Kathryn Bigelow will be the breakthrough female director. She’s a woman who doesn’t threaten the universal vision of the world — that boys rule.
Daniels, Bigelow Join DGA Club (Hollywood Reporter)
For Your Consideration: Is Kathryn Bigelow a Female Director? (IndieWIRE)
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Can I scream? Did anyone see “The Weight of Water”? It had female leads (Sarah Polley was fantastic) and came from a unique female perspective. It’s not a perfect film and made about 4 cents at the box office, but exhibits the same striking visual talent present in “The Hurt Locker”. Personally, I though it was a feminist film and completely identified with the Sarah Polley character, who rebelled against the acceptable parameters of what it means to be a woman. Kathryn Bigelow also tried for years to get a period action film made with a female lead. The financing fell through.
With my own films, I have had to sit through Q&A’s where the moderator asked the audience “Can you believe a woman directed this film?” I’ve also been told, I don’t make women’s movies. Well I’m a woman, aren’t I. If I have men prominently featured in one, the next film might be totally different and feature women. Men direct women’s stories all the time and nobody says a damn thing!
“Now we all know that everyone has written ad nauseum about how Kathryn Bigelow has made a career of directing so-called “non-female” films. Films with action, and stuff blowing up. There are other women in her camp most notably Karyn Kusama. I for one am fucking sick of this conversation. We need to move on. There are men who direct movies that have more of a female sensibility like Ken Kwapis (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, He’s Just Not That Into You) and Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook, My Sister’s Keeper) and NOBODY ask if they are a male director.”
100% AGREED!!! couldn’t have said it better myself!
One must separate the movies women make from the opportunities women have to direct. Women should make whatever kind of film they desire. The real news will be in the rooms where women are hired by others and as Kathryn Bigelow and other fine women filmmakers alter the perception of women behind the camera, the stubborn perception of “less than” will forever dig its own grave.
I speak obviously as a guy, but from my point of view until women are treated as equals and not defined by the film they work on, equality will not exist. If a man directs a tear jerker he is called sensitive, he isnt told he cant do this film. Why do people object when women direct or produce( say Gail Anne Hurd) films that might not be in a small box that the msm reserves for females. The more women we have in the psoitions of leadership the more women will be allowed out of the box. So to me the goal is more women executives as that will lead to all the other changes
If Kathryn Bigelow wins the academy award, it’s huge. A billion people will see her grab that gold statue. It may not change perceptions overnight, but it puts a significant dent in the glass ceiling.
Does Anand Tucker, director of “Leap Year” have a vagina? Or just a copy of Seventeen, circa 1968?
OOOOOhhhh–
I love the stories women tell, in all our infinite variety. I love telling stories about women, especially stories about our infinite variety. I love working with women who want to make movies. And I HATE the way that women filmmakers are lumped together, because when we’re are, it’s rarely for good reasons. (Women & Hollywood excepted here!)
Remember what Gloria Steinem wrote (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gloria-steinem/a-modest-proposal_b_55772.html): “Whoever is in power takes over the noun – and the norm – while the less powerful get an adjective” . Thus we get, to give some of her examples, “Hispanic leaders” but not “Anglo leaders”, “gay soldiers” but not “heterosexual soldiers”. And “chick flicks” but not “prick flicks”.
And it’s not just our cunts here. As a Spanish filmmaker Iciar Hollain has said: “In reality, the doubts appear when they see our tits”. That is, those who make decisions, who may be women, tend to have a fixed view of what gender means in filmmaking and what stories films we women may tell, and because of that deny us opportunities to participate.
Other Spanish filmmakers also hit it on the button: “The works of women directors are less appreciated…our efforts at experimentation get cut less slack”: Josefina Molina. And “I always skip on the question of whether it is more difficult for women to direct films… But today I will dare answer it…yes it is more difficult… I would dare say that twenty years ago it was easier. At that time there were so few women in my profession that they always considered you a curiosity, an oddity, you were someone who was tolerated — a demonstration of their liberal character. Now we’ve gone from being curiosities to being the competition. And that’s as far as we have been able to get”: Patricia Perreira — all from Perez Millan, J. 2003. “Women Are Also the Future: Women Directors in Recent Spanish Cinema.” Cineaste 29, no. 1: 50-55.
Hey admin I was wondering if I could steal this for my site. I will provide full credits to you and your site. Thanks.
I think the question’s really “Does Having a Vagina Make You a Feminist Director?”, but since the F-word is so controversial and divisive nowadays, the term “Female” is conflated with it, as shorthand.
I think the problem is that there are two warring conceptions of what a Director: The butch and the femme. The femme director coordinates like-minded artists while supporting their creativity yet has a unique and passionate artistic vision, managing to put that vision on the screen like a Romantic poet puts ink to paper.
In contrast, the butch director is a General, more or less. That General commands troops, bends wills to that unwavering vision, and goes through hell and high water to get that film in the can. If jodphurs and stevedore-like cursing’s required, so be it, but dammit toughness is mandatory.
The problem with broad directors, as with guy directors, is that they are above all manipulators — they need to cajole *and* threaten, delicately coax creative work out of other and brandish the whip. With male directors we assume they can work both the right hand and the left, as far as they can avoid hostile workplace lawsuits, but with female directors the assumption is that they have an imbalance of intuitive rather than command skills.
With Bigelow, that assumption’s stupid on its face, and gives the stereotyping game away. Unless the Academy pulls that ‘honorary male’ crap, voters will have to reexamine their prejudices without the comfort of a ‘femme’ production to make up their minds for them.
I wrote the IndieWIRE article – I am also a fan of this site, and am finding the discussion here rather more lucid and productive than certain others elsewhere… I have no vagina but I am a feminist, and I regret that some of these discussions have to take place in the parameters they do. Ultimately though the goal is awareness and progress, and I hold hope that the discussion surrounding Bigelow might go a small way to achieving this.
1st, congrats to the Academy for recognizing Katherine Bigelow’s great directing of Hurt Locker, regardless of genitalia.
Second, this sounds too much like, “is he black enough? Does having brown skin make you black?” Questions that are equally offensive.
She is a woman who is from our culture, who has experienced her share of our cultures sexism. She has directed a story, a character driven story, from within a male dominated industry. I don’t know her, but as a woman in film who doesn’t care much for the romantic comedy genre or the weepy movies, I’m proud of her and grateful for the way she is paving.
I felt Monster was a lost opportunity by the academy, to give a woman a directing Oscar. I hope Hurt Locker will overcome the money Oprah and Tyler Perry are putting into campaigning for Precious to win.
I’m sure articles will emerge pitting sexism against racism.
I hope the winner is
the best film of the year:
Hurt Locker.
I’m working on other peoples films and projects as well as my own. When I direct, it wont be a romantic comedy, it wont be sweet and soft spoken, but, then again either was my poetry.
Fulfilling my purpose and living my bliss makes me not only a female (as I was born) but a feminist (as I developed).
Hurt Locker is worthy of the Academy, regardless of the gender of the director. The fact that the film does not scream “A woman directed me!!!” does not make it any less feminist a film.
It tells a human story so well.
There are some male directors all over who are plotting how they can direct the next Sandra Bullock (or “like” movie with a Sandra-like lead who actually won’t ask for equitable money) movie. Even Waiting to Exhale was directed by a man. If it makes enough money or in this economy – is a job, even women directors, producers, screenwriters, etc are competing to for the chick movie jobs. Hey – look at the Twilight job replacements.
Bravo to Stacy for reminding everyone about THE WEIGHT OF WATER, a wonderful & totally woman-centric film that deserved much better at the Box Office!
As I’ve already said in direct response to MHK’s IndieWIRE article, Oscars typically reward a body of work as well as a specific achievement, so there is NO REASON why any woman (or man of good faith) should question Bigelow’s suitability:
http://www.thehotpinkpen.com/?p=1104
This is Kathryn Bigelow’s year & when she breaks thru the celluloid ceiling to become the first woman in history to receive a Best Director Oscar, it will be a great day for women (& men of good faith) everywhere. Full Stop!!!
Kathryn Bigelow’s direction in The Hurt Locker is raw, poetic, and powerful. The story she shapes through the riveting narrative of war has universal, cross-gender appeal. Small moments loom large in this film’s overall emotional pull, and Bigelow has a gift for drawing out actions that take seconds in real time yet are depicted in extended dramatic vignettes from which I couldn’t look away for one second. The ordinary becomes dangerous and the utterly innocuous is instantly transformed into something dark and threatening behind Bigelow’s lens, and the fact that she is a woman or that this is what would conventionally be typed as a “guy” film – it’s set during the Iraq war in 2004 – in no way diminishes the impact of her storytelling.
This is an amazing film, honestly and passionately told, and if Bigelow wins the Oscar, what difference does it make that it’s for a film about war instead of the smaller intimacies of life that so often predominate in films directed by women? Whatever else she may be, Bigelow is a unique talent with an extraordinary gift.
There have not been enough modern day women film makers to judge what type of film women direct.
When there are enough, say….51% or so, I bet we’ll be able to determine that there are as many variations in stories women choose to tell as men.
Bravo Thomai!! I could not agree more.
Bravo Melissa!
It’s hard not to contradict yourself in this argument, because ideally female directors – scratch that, ALL directors – would be making movies which were equally about men and women, and some that were all about women also, because the portrayal of women in movies is an issue just as much as numbers of women who work in the industry is.
However if women do work in the industry, why should they be hounded for making a war film that depicts reality (ie men make up a large percentage of the soliders)? And if they should, why shouldn’t men be equally hounded? Why should Kathryn Bigelow be able to relate to be more than any man? A lot of women have male partners, women live in close proximity to men so male directors should be portraying women in a broad range of characters, realistically, and as much as men. If you’re going to blame Kathryn blame everyone, because feminism isn’t about women fighting against men it’s about people and equality and making a change in everyone’s attitudes, no matter the sex.
And furthermore, WHY is this not a women’s film? I very much enjoyed it! I think we need to move away from the idea of ‘women’s films’ and just have ‘films’ because otherwise we’re going to create one finite, established female identity that serves to impede other female identities and viewpoints.
I absolutely hate it that every time you see a woman leading a film it is categorised a ‘chick flick’ (What a patronising term). And why is this? Because it is about the female experience. We need to leave stereotypes at the door and be working toward supporting films that are about either men or women that either men or women will want to go to see (although of course, we need to put our support behind women-led projects now to get them produced just as much as men-led projects for this to work).
We need a breadth of female characters and female identities because women in real life are masculine and feminine, aggressive and timid, mean and sweet, baddies and goodies and all the sticky bits inbetween.
Does having a vagina make you a female director? Does being black make you a black director? I could go on.
There are only two possible answers to this question: yes and no. Both are right. If you’re using “female” and “black” as adjectives (where an adjective is a word that modifies a noun), the answer is yes. A female director is a director who is female (though I would use “woman” rather than “female”, but why quibble here). If you’re using “female” and “black” to describe an aesthetic, then the answer is no. I’m not fond of using essentialist traits to define an aesthetic. As someone who is both black and female, I hate when people assume they know what my interest are by looking at my gender or the color of my skin. I hate it even more when people who share my gender or race try to impose their ideas about what I should be interested in or write about simply because we have this single trait in common.
The truth is that there is nothing about having a vagina that means you want to write or direct romantic comedies or period pieces about women or anything else that a woman is supposed to be interested in by virtue of her femaleness. One of the most overlooked truths is that sometimes we have emotional and intellectual interests that flow from our humanity. These interests are not always gendered. There are themes that belong to the realm of the universal, matters of human concern, like war, human suffering, etc. Why should we imagine that I as a woman (or, more to the point, Katherine Bigelow, as a woman) have nothing to say about these matters. When we speak of “women’s films” we are largely talking about those films that confine themselves to the domestic or romantic spheres of human endeavor. These are worthy objects of inquiry to be sure, and they are the traditional purview of women (though Judd Apatow is proof that men are as much concerned about these matters as women are), but we err when we assume that it is our only purview.
True progress looks like each individual human being having the opportunity to live their authentic life, unbounded by the limitations of gender or race. The expectation that a woman “should” make a “woman’s” film is in itself a sexist limitation. Almost a century ago, Sojoruner Truth coined the phrase “Ain’t I A Woman, Too” in response to the unspoken assumption that “woman” was synonymous with “white woman.” Well today I might say “Ain’t I Human, Too”, in response to the unspoken assumption that “human” is synonymous with “male.” Of course Katherine Bigelow is a female director because she is female. She’s also a tall director, from what I can tell. And so what?
{ 2 trackbacks }