Hollywood, a Man’s World
Women lack representation in the film industry
Michael E. Arth, via Wikimedia Commons
Taken from atop Mt. Lee showing the back of the Hollywood Sign. From left to right, the view includes the Griffith Observatory, downtown Los Angeles, Hollywoodland subdivision (near/below), the sprawl of Los Angeles, Lake Hollywood. Taken on January 6, 2019.
The US movie business shows the same minimal level of diversity it had a decade ago. Hollywood is still dominated by males, as women are not given equal opportunities to work in the film industry.
In 2019, women that got to direct a film were not given other opportunities to make more. According to a report “Gender and Short Films” from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, 46% of males were able to create a second film while with women only 17% were given the opportunity to make a second film.
A few notable exceptions were films that were “Little Women,” directed by Greta Gerwig, “Frozen 2,” directed by Jennifer Lee, “Birds of Prey,” directed by Cathy Yan, and “Black Widow,” directed by Cate Shortland.
Diablo Cody is a writer and a producer who wrote the screenplay for the film “Juno.” Her writing for this movie launched her film career and she won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Cody also noticed one benefit to how women are given unequal opportunities in the film industry. She said, “One nice thing about being a woman in Hollywood is that the women tend to be very close-knit. All of us writers and directors know each other and cling to each other for safety and support, and it’s really a completely different vibe than the men experience out here, where they’re all trying to murder each other.”
Of the top-grossing 1,300 films from 2007 to 2019 only 4.8% of women were directors. Fortunately, 2019 has a bigger percentage of female directors with 10.6%, 2018 has 4.5%, and 2007 only had 2.7% of women directors. It’s great to see these progressions, but there is still something delaying the increase of female directors in Hollywood. So far, only one woman Kathryn Bigelow has won an Academy Award for Best Director. Her movie was “The Hurt Locker” released in 2010.
It is not just director positions that females have a difficult time getting. There is a limited number of females in about every film position, such as ranging from producers, writers, audio, and editor.
Sexism still exists in 2020. There are people that view women as “less than.” There are women fighting every day for equality. Due to people becoming aware that sexism in Hollywood is an issue, I hope that soon females will be given the same rights as males. Fingers crossed.