Female directors difficult to find in summer offerings
Over the last year, women have seemingly gained ground in Hollywood with female directors leading the charge. But according to Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, “it is very easy to be misled by a few high-profile cases.”
“We see Ava DuVernay or the success of Patty Jenkins with ‘Wonder Woman’ or we see Greta Gerwig nominated for best director at the Oscars and we assume everything must be OK and women have achieved some sort of parity,” she said. “The truth couldn’t be further from that.”
Take for example the upcoming summer slate where only two of nearly 50 films scheduled for wide release between May and August are directed by women: Susanna Fogel’s “The Spy Who Dumped Me” and Jennifer Yuh Nelson’s “The Darkest Minds” both open Aug. 3. That’s a worrying trend compared with last year, when there were fewer wide releases (around 40) but five were female-helmed.
“My impression is that people believe in this notion of ‘creeping incrementalism,’ that things are getting a little bit better every year and that eventually this is an issue that will take care of itself,” Lauzen continued. “But there is no evidence that that is the case.”
Each year for the last 20, Lauzen has written “The Celluloid Ceiling” with support from San Diego State University, where she is a professor. The study looks at the behind-the-scenes employment of women in film.
Her 2017 analysis found that women constituted 18 percent of directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers working on the top 250 grossing films domestically, a 1 percent increase from 2016, but virtually even with the number in 1998.
Women accounted for 11 percent of the directors on the top 250 grossing pictures, a value on par with female director representation in 2000.
Last summer was notable for having five films directed by women receiving the 1,000-plus theater treatment: Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman,” Stella Meghie’s “Everything, Everything,” Lucia Aniello’s “Rough Night,” Kathryn Bigelow’s “Detroit” and Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s “Megan Leavey.”
“Wonder Woman” became the highestgrossing film of the summer.
Yuh Nelson, who makes her first foray into live action this summer with the Amandla Stenberg-led YA adaptation “Darkest Minds,” can’t quite place if true change is coming or has already arrived in the industry.
“There should be so many women making movies it should be a completely normal and realistic thing,” the director said. “But more and more women will be making these big films and then more and more people won’t think it’s unusual.”