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escaped their attention that most of the critics are men.
“A studio can support a film, but it’s the invisible faces on the internet, and often male reviewers, who can view it through a prism of misunderstanding.” Blanchett says.
“And so I think that is a really big part of the equation.”
Bullock leans forward. “It would be nice if reviewers reflected who the film is for, like children should review children’s films, not a 60-year-old man,” she says.
“I guess his opinion would be kind of skewed.”
But she then reflects that men do like Ocean’s 8, too, saying: “We did a surprise screening in New York and we were sort of thrown off because half the audience was very gregarious men.
“I didn’t know how to read the audience because I had a bunch of girl jokes, but it was refreshing in that within the first 10 minutes of this film you forget that we are women and you just enjoy the journey.”
A recent study found that 80% of film critics are male, and questions have been raised about how much that impacts films made by and for other demographics.
Is this part of the problem of gender imbalance in the film industry?
“I don’t know,” Bullock says. “But I would like to see if it is by balancing out the pool of critics so that it reflects the world we are in, like we are trying to reflect the world that I live in and my friends live in. It’s not just all men. I love men — I want to be at the table with men, but I also want to be invited to the table that the men are at.”
Ocean’s 8 is out now