Films: Oh, you had to go there!

Here’s the cause of my ire today:

I have a short list of things that women just can’t do (i.e. urinate while standing) and directing movies is one of them. I adore some Jane Campion (where the hell is she, these days?) and “Cleo from 5 to 7″ (by Agnes Varda) is pretty genius, but after a few hundred years of cinema, I can’t name a single woman that turned out more than 2 better-than-average works. I can’t name one “masterpiece” by a chick… I know you gals got started late, but… c’mon!  I’d love to be proven wrong, but ovaries are inversely proportional to directing skill.

Oh, but I can name a few:

Kathryn Bigelow, Mira Nair, Sarah Polley, Sharon Maguire, Mai Zetterling, Mary Harron, Gurinder Chadha, Dorothy Arzner, Amy Heckerling, Kasi Lemmons, Naomi Kawase, Nora Ephron, Sylvia Chang, Penny Marshall, So Yong Kim, and I’m biting my finger here, Sophia Coppola. I certainly can name a few more, but I’m still so pissed off that my ovaries are wiltering in fear.

And as for that ‘you gals started late‘ sting?

Alice Guy Blache, hello? Her first directorial film was made in 1896 and she was (belatedly) credited for inventing the concept of narrative film. Not only that, she had directed over 300 films between 1890s and 1920.

‘Masterpiece’? It depends on the definition of ‘masterpiece’. Award-winning? Can name a few. Cultural impact? Can name a few. Innovative? Can name a few. Defining or influencing the cinema? Can name a few. Record-breaking gross sales? Can name quite a few. Etc. High profiled? All of them. Why?

Historically and internationally, the ratio of female director to male director is 1 in 33. Do your maths. Furthermore, many didn’t get a publicised director credit. Such as Loveleen Tandan, the co-director of Slumdog Millionaire, who was responsible for a number of key scenes.

If there weren’t the moronic old boys’ network, the media’s bias and the gender discrimination, it would be a lot balanced and there wouldn’t be so much ignorant bullshit as that bloody comment. Ideally, directors’ genders would be ignored but alas, no. A female director has to work harder to prove she could direct well plus an ability to bring in the money.

Time again and again, a box office flop of a female-directed film usually means a massive set-back for female directors everywhere. It’s difficult to prove this because film-making is incredibly unstable. Investment gets yanked at the last minute usually for a random reason every day, so there’s no way of proving that sexism may be at work.

The box office success of Catherine Hardwicke’s film, Twilight, opened a lot of doors for many female directors and again, this is impossible to prove. (Curiously, quite a few shied from mentioning Hardwicke’s gender, which prompted speculations among us few. We have no idea why the mainstream media didn’t do its usual round of ‘oh wow, you guys, this director is female!’ crap. I think it’s backing up a friend’s theory: more successful a film is at the box office, fewer mentions of female directors’ gender in the media. Examples (U.S. only): Look Who’s Talking, A League of Their Own, American Psycho, Big, Point Break, Deep Impact, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, etc.)

What pisses me off is that whenever there is a culturally successful or award-winning female-directed film, the media always focuses on the director’s gender and brings out an editorial on a history of female directors as well as a speculation whether a “trend” of female directors is happening. Always.

Not just female directors, but female scriptwriters as well. When Juno became a sleeper and award-winning hit, had there been an editorial that didn’t mention Juno scriptwriter Diablo Cody‘s previous careers as a stripper and a pole dancer, and her gender? This happened to so many female scriptwriters including Thelma & Louise scriptwriter Callie Khouri. The attention on the fact that she is omgz the first female scriptwriter to win an Oscar for original screenplay was so intense that it apparently almost destroyed her.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the media somehow forgot the existence of the legendary Frances Marion who won an award or two for her scripts during the 1930s. Likewise for many other notable female scriptwriters (my favourites: Anita Loos, Jay Presson Allen and Catherine Turney).

Still, quite a few journalists and “film historians” frequently make an issue that many of these directors and writers wouldn’t get to where they are without help of their “mentors”, such as Kathryn Bigelow (former husband: director James Cameron),  never mind the fact she directed Near Dark long before she married Cameron. It’s so infuriating.

Let’s face it, it’s impossible to make a film without “mentorship”, but the “mentorship” is heavily mentioned whenever female directors or writers are mentioned. Male directors and writers? Ohhh no, it was entirely their talents that got them to where they are today.

I could go on all day about this, but it’d take up 400 blog pages, which I don’t think anyone could handle.  At least the entire issue doesn’t make my blood boil as much as the general portrayal of characters with disabilities in the Romance genre does.  God, if I had the brain and writing skills, I’d have written quite a few burning editorials about the Romance genre’s perspective of disability as a whole.  But I digress.

I can’t use all this as a reply to his infuriating comment, though. His “observation” was almost enough to make me want to revoke my membership. Thank God for this blog because otherwise, I’d kick a door or two down to express the depth of my annoyance with that person.