Why aren't there more Women Film Directors?

December 13, 2009
Women in the Seats but Not Behind the Camera

By MANOHLA DARGIS

Only three women have been nominated as directors by the academy in 81 years: Lina Wertmüller for “Seven Beauties” in 1976; Jane Campion for “The Piano” in 1993; and Sofia Coppola for “Lost in Translation” in 2003. None won.
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This isn’t just about money, or even male sexism. There have been women running studios on and off since 1980, when Sherry Lansing became the president of 20th Century Fox. But trickle-down equality doesn’t work in Hollywood, even when women are calling the shots and making the hires, as they presumably did a few years ago, when four out of the six big studios were run by women.
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It’s hard to know why women have fared so badly in Hollywood in the last few decades, though any business that refers to its creations as product cannot, by definition, have much imagination. The vogue for comics and superheroes has generally forced women to sigh and squeal on the sidelines. Even the so-called independent sector, with its ostensibly different players and values, hasn’t been much better, as we know from all the female directors who have made a splash at the Sundance Film Festival only to disappear. New digital technologies and the Internet have leveled the field " though usually it seems as if it’s sheer grit that pushes filmmakers like Kelly Reichardt (“Wendy and Lucy”) along the hard road from idea to distribution.

In 1920 an American actress turned director named Ida May Park published an essay for a book titled “Careers for Women,” in which she warned other women about her chosen path. “Unless you are hardy and determined,” she wrote, “the director’s role is not for you. Wait until the profession has emerged from its embryonic state and a system has been evolved by which the terrific weight of responsibility can be lifted from one pair of shoulders. When that time comes I believe that women will find no finer calling.”

There are women who would agree with Park’s conclusions, or would if they could get the chance to direct. The problem is, 90 years later, women have advanced while much of the movie industry has not.