It’s been over a week since the DGA win, and almost a week since Kathryn Bigelow got her best director Oscar nomination and it turns out that since then, she has been nominated for a second Oscar as one of the producers for her film The Hurt Locker. (When the nominations were announced last week, the credit were still pending.) So, if she wins best director and The Hurt Locker wins best picture — both are conceivable — she will win two Oscars in one night.
The reason why I want to talk about it is because I think that no matter how much Ms. Bigelow doesn’t want to talk about the gender implications in her nomination, they are everywhere. I heard them when I was listened to the Oscar Talk podcast when Kris Tapley called her “hot” and Anne Thompson said that she’s not 100% convinced she will win because the Academy is “overwhelmingly male and she just doesn’t trust them.”
I started thinking about this a lot more this weekend when I was reading the excellent new book Notes from the Cracked Ceiling by Washington Post reporter Anne Kornblut which is all about the gender issues and the 2008 election. The book talks about how lots of people, especially young women, think that we have achieved equality, we are far from equal and what happened to the female candidates are examples of how far we have to go. (Mind you I haven’t gotten past the Hillary Clinton section yet.)
While many believe we live in a “post feminist” culture, 2008 reminded us how far we still have to go.
But in hindsight, 2008 turned out to be just the opposite for women: a severe letdown, with damaging consequences. It revided old sterotypes, divided the women’s movement, drove apart mothers and daughters, and set back the cause of equality in the political sphere by decades.
and
…the political culture does not take women as seriously as we would like to think. The glass ceiling may be cracked, as Hillary Clinton declared at the end of her presidential campaign. But it is far from broken.
Women in politics, though very different from women in Hollywood, still gives us a context to think about how women are looked at in general.
We all know that the Hollywood culture doesn’t take women as seriously as we would like to think they do. The fact that there are so few female writers, so few female directors, so few female centric films are right off the top examples of the problems Hollywood has with women.
But this year has as most people like to say been a good year for women directors and I really hope that the successes we have seen — like with Lone Scherfig’s An Education being nominated for best picture and also for many BAFTA’s — are not a blip on the radar screen. But until there is critical mass — at least 30% — I’m afraid we are going to keep getting blips here and there and no real forward motion. That’s where this is like politics. Even though on the surface it looks like women have made real strides in politics, on close examination we still have a really, really long way to go.
Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone asked a bunch of people to ponder the Bigelow nomination and most people do not feel that her nomination and win will help other women directors and that women need to make movies that make money in order to be taken more seriously. Yet of course women don’t get those jobs so it is a vicious circle.
He’s one of the comments I found most interesting by Pete Hammond:
…she made a movie that looked like it was directed by a man. That plus the subsequent hype (not fostered by her in any way) about being the “first woman” has made her inevitable. Oddly if Hurt Locker WAS directed by a man we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The award would be Cameron’s to lose.
Bigelow had to be perceived to be like a man in order to break through. While I have said it before I don’t believe that The Hurt Locker is a film for men because it is a war movie and things blow up, any more than I think Valentine’s Day (an upcoming film) is a film for women because it is about romance.
But the whole acting like a man gives me real pause. As Susan Wloszczyna said is her response:
“If I watched The Hurt Locker, I probably would naturally assume it was made by a man given the subject.”
Kathryn Bigelow longs for the day when people shouldn’t know or care about the gender of the director. And quote frankly it’s only us insiders who really care at all, but care we do and deeply. Here’s what she said to the LA Times after her nomination:
I long personally for the day when the modifier is a moot point…I anticipate that day will come, but if ‘The Hurt Locker’ can make the impossible seem possible to somebody, it’s pretty overwhelming and gratifying. At least we’re heading in the right direction.
I long personally for the day when nobody cares that Kathryn Bigelow was married to James Cameron or how she looks. Because I have read articles that literally have said that James Cameron directed The Hurt Locker or that she only has a career because of him. But we lived in a world where Kathryn Bigelow is being held up to an absurd standard. She’s a boy and a girl. She’s the hot one and the kick ass one. She’s everything to everybody. That’s a lot of pressure on one person.
Here’s a key sentence from the new report from The White House Project Benchmarking Women’s Leadership (I am on the advisory panel for the report) that sums it up for me and the work that still needs to be done.
Across the board, the key to true transformation is advancing a critical mass of women into leadership, so that we can move permanently beyond gender and on to agenda.
Oscar Roundtable Take Seven (Awards Daily)
Will female directors break through the glass ceiling? (Toronto Star)
Benchmarking Women’s Leadership (The White House Project)
In Oscar directing category, a numbers boost for women and African Americans (LA Times)
When will people understand there is NO SUCH THING AS GENDER BOUNDARIES? No such thing as “it looked like it was made by a man” or “by a woman”!!!!
I’m really freakin sick of people saying “The Hurt Locker” looked like it was directed by a man, yet like you have written many times before, many shitty (and good) rom-coms were written and directed by MEN!!!
We do NOT live in a post-feminist society at all. Many women and girls are still routinely targeted for their gender– raped, beaten, abused, humiliated, degraded, objectified, mocked, and derided by men and women everywhere, including Hollywood and Capitol Hill!
Bigelow’s Oscar win( HOPEFULLY) might not bring in immediate change for women in Hollywood, but we can finally have someone to look up to. Little girls can be encouraged to become filmmakers and hopefully we’ll have many more female filmmakers in 5, 10 years.
Since I’ve found this site I have been mystified at times as to how success and clout in an industry is viewed. I completely understand the dollars aspect. Dollars means money. But in all honestly having worked in the corporate world and seeing women in leadership positions, they can be just as if not more discriminatory than the men are. I respect Kathryn Bigelow and hope she wins but and there is a but. Women have a social responsibility to help each other as other minority groups do IMO. where are the foundations or organizations in the film community to help women get funding for pictures they want to make. Why aren’t the successful women helpng others move ahead.
But we define success for women in Hollywood based on Twilight and how many women supported it? Sure it generated dollars. But if that means more movies like Twilight being made forget it. Those films exemplify IMO everything that is wrong with how women are viewed. So women support a film that’s centered around a women being obsessed with and saved by men. Fantastic. You really believe women making films like this really means great things?
I realize you have to celebrate the successes you have and while 2009 can be celebrated as a better year for women, and it has been, what films aside from The Blind Side and perhaps Julie and Julia have gone against the typical female stereotypes in terms of how women are viewed.
And while I admire Bigelow and the story and lord knows I didn’t want the token female thrown in, the film was about war and men. The fact that a woman directed it just proves that woman are just as capable of making these types of movies. Just as Thelma and Louise, Aliens showed that a capable male director can make films that portray women as strong and empowered.
I have harped on this here before but anyone who hasn’t read Naomi Wolf’s book “The Beauty Myth” needs to. Everything you have written about here is talked about in the book along with the reasons why. It’s all a way to keep women as second class citizens. Have a women be a smart and successful politician(Hillary) but she’s too bitchy, have Kathryn Bigelow win Best Director, and it’s because of her ex or her looks.
Women AND MEN not only need to make films but they also need to make films that portray women as individuals and not as someone who needs to be saved or rescued by the resident male. Aliens. Thelma and Louise prove that these types of films can be made and can be profitable
I understand why Bigelow doesn’t want to talk about the gender implications of her wins and nominations, and I also understand why it’s important that someone else does. When you are facing down barriers of gender or race or fill in the blank, it can sometimes be essential to NOT to focus on those barriers. For many of us, if we focused on how we’re not permitted to do this or that, we wouldn’t be able to muster up the chutzpah to do it anyway. Perhaps it’s fitting that the commentary about the gender implications be offered by someone else. I think both postures — refusing to engage gender barriers and insisting that we look at them — are essential to crashing them down.
@ Katie,
Your post made me think…
Hurt Locker was WRITTEN by a man.
Thelma & Louise was WRITTEN by a woman.
I still agree that there is nothing about being a man or being a woman that need dictate the subject matter of the films one writes or directs, but, because of the gender of the writers who were the genesis of the stories on which these films were based, Hurt Locker and Thelma & Louise don’t prove the point.
Paula
And The Hurt Locker was directed by a women
and Thelma and Louise was directed by a man
NO objection to either. scenario. I am not sure the point you were making. Maybe the answer is more screenplays written by women then I don’t know. What I do know is I can’t and won’t celebrate a film like Twilight or New Moon simply because they made tons of money because of how the females are portrayed.
I think that some women bloggers can create an echo chamber that say that really, sexism of the sort the older generation complained of doesn’t really exist. A lot of times, if you do the research, you find that many of these bloggers have non-profit jobs, have a spouse earning the living, or somehow in a female dominated position so they can afford to say they don’t personally experience sexism – because, really, they don’t have to compete in a male dominated world for funding, for promotion to leadership positions leading teams of many or all men.
And I have to say, these are the sorts of female bloggers who wrote that sexism had no impact on Hillary Clinton’s run. (Or Obama’s habit of calling female reporters “honey” or kissing them on the cheek before an interview).
Yeah, I will call that out.
These are the the women who believe that if you are “cool with it” and can take a joke and hang with the guys, you don’t have to be strident or openly fight against sexism. That was for the humorless, unsexy feminists.
The thing is….
They don’t realize that for the most part, they are mascots, not real potential power players when they are “cool with it” and can take a joke and hang with the guys without ever calling anyone on sexism.
And it never naturally happens that their talent is seen and they are promoted by the guys after doing their time beyond entry level and a bit higher, maybe. It never naturally happens as it does for one of the dudes in the dude club. And after you work for a while, and even have some notable successes, and you notice that dudes with lesser experience and talent get the job, the funding, the opportunities, and just a boost of referral. You can say “hey I made money on this project” “hey I’m accomplished” but you are invisible as opposed to a dude that lost money and never did much yet they see so much potential in.
Part of changing things is rooting for older talent of women. I know that is weird to some, as opposed to encouraging younger talent, which some younger feminists begrudge older ones to do for them. As if the flow is one direction only.
But entry level AND higher level needs to be supported by women. Calling Meryl Streep an “old dog” as one woman film critic called her on Charlie Rose or running down Madonna for being “too old,” or begrudging Hillary her success, or any older woman who is not the image of teh sexy, burns your future. When I talk to girls in their teens, few imagine a life beyond fifty, except as grandmother, but talk to guys, and they say many things would be going on in their life. They imagine being James Cameron and still being vibrant. Yet, many young women not only don’t imagine that age for them as desirable. That is so sad.
A future where a woman in her sixties can have creative control power and growing power and can be chubby, grey, and even cranky and all the things James Cameron can be should be an unambivalent possibility imagined by young women. No one would call Cameron “done” and “get out of the way for young dogs.” We expect him to continue to create, yet we do that all the time with older women. Without reflection.
At this point, I think it’s a fair fight. The Fox people are clearly scared that this scrappy little 11 million dollar indie film is going to win best picture. Cameron is not well liked and voting actors are not thrilled with the idea that they may be replaced with digital animation. Of course it has to be frustrating for her to hear her gender endlessly discussed in reference to the film. But if she wins, she’ll be the first woman. It’s a big deal.
A disturbing trend is developing in the Oscar coverage, that this is some sort of affirmative action nomination. The fact is the big budget Oscar bait, turned out to be not very good this year. Blame the incompetent studios and the implosion of the independent film industry. Along comes Bigelow, one of a handful of women who has worked with large budgets and real equipment. She makes a small film in the heat and sand, with no trailers and complete artistic control.
Let’s see, there’s another story here. You give an established artist a modest budget, casting power, control on set, don’t interfere with the final cut and the film actually turns out to be good. What a concept!
In a way, it was much easier to become a director when Bigelow started. The industry was more open to anyone who could write a decent script or get a film funded. There were so few women, that it was more an oddity. They hadn’t institutionalized the discrimination yet, things like refusing to read any scripts written by women. What’s amazing is that she chose this path at all and her choices may very well culminate in her winning best picture and best director.
To me, the biggest part of Bigelow’s story firmly has to do with the fact that the movie looks like “it was directed by a man.” For me, the most exciting part of this story isn’t that she won the DGA awards, or could win the oscar, though that is mighty great. For me this is a nod to what stories women are seen to be able to tell. Now whether she has an impact on this on not may be too soon to tell. But that is what I would hope.
Like mentioned earlier, men have both written and directed romances, something seen as a female, or woman-appealing film. But I’ve read quite a few accounts of female directors who would love to direct an action flick, but have not been offered those scripts (or have been turned down). I hope now there is at least a better chance for them to get those scripts, if they want them.
Katie,
The point I was making is that demonstrating that women can direct films that are usually seen as the purview of men (and vice versa) is not enough. We also need examples of women and men writing material that seems to defy conventional notions of what people of a certain gender write. I know several women who write or want to write material more typically associated with men, and the idea that women can only write romantic comedies or other “female” subject matter contribute to their difficulty establishing the careers they want.
In the case of both The Hurt Locker and Thelma & Louise, the voice that shaped the story was the writer’s most of all. The director’s voice was essential to interpreting the material, but the words on the page, the story, etc, were the creation of the writer. In both cases, the writers wrote to gender, which is fine. I just want to see women who don’t write to gender have a shot too. That, along with the strides Kathryn has made with The Hurt Locker, will be a triumph.
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