It’s long been a problem in Hollywood: a lack of women who move on from film school to take the helm of major motion pictures. It’s a problem that has been slowly but surely correcting itself over time, although the numbers are not fantastic: for the longest time only about one in a hundred Hollywood productions were directed by women, a number that rose up to around eight or nine percent in 1998. Flash forward ten years later, though, and that number has remained relatively steady. Women make up more than half of the population, so it’s always been a little odd that so few of our big-budget films wind up being directed by women.
The statistics aren’t that great in any category of filmmaking, really. Looking at the top 250-earning films of 2008, a San Diego State University professor found that 9% of them were directed by women, 12% of them had a credited female writer, and only 4% of them had a female cinematographer. The behind-the-scenes role that had the “best” representation of women was production, where 16% of all executive producers and 23% of all production roles went to women. Those are pretty depressing statistics overall, and they naturally raise the question: why are the contributions of women to big-budget films so marginal?
One of the (many and various) reasons given for the dearth of women directors at the big-budget level of filmmaking is that many of those films are almost required by nature to appeal to teen boys (the least discriminating category of filmgoers, and the most likely to make repeat trips), and if you’re hitching your $200 million wagon to the tastes of teenagers, you’ll probably want to go with the known quantity of a Michael Bay rather than someone who has never directed on that scale before, and that might go doubly so for a female director. Part of that is part of a larger-scale imbalance between women and men in positions of power in Hollywood; even if a woman might be the most-qualified person for the position, she’ll still be staring down a room full of men when she pitches herself for a high-profile directorial gig.
The last few years have seen some interesting milestones, though, with Kathryn Bigelow earning the first-ever Best Director Academy Award given to a woman, Jennifer Yuh taking over from Catherine Hardwicke and Twilight the honor of having directed the highest-grossing film ever made by a woman with Kung Fu Panda 2 and this last week seeing Patty Jenkins announced as the director of Thor 2. That last bit of news isn’t a quantifiable milestone in the way that the other two events might be, but it’s still interesting to see a woman take the helm of a big-budget comic book movie, of all things.
Marvel’s currently working on one of the Hollywood’s most sustained high-wire acts at the moment with the the ambition of The Avengers, as well as self-financing so many of the films that they’ve been releasing. (Although being bought by Disney alleviates some of those concerns.) Comic-book films have attempted to break out into the four quadrants (old, young, male, female) over the past decade, but they still require a fair amount of repeat traffic from young men to ensure their profitability, especially as their budgets have skyrocketed into the $200+ million range. This (quite naturally) leads to a fair amount of conservatism when it comes time to pick directors; even Yuh would have been unlikely to be offered the directorial reins on Kung Fu Panda 2 had she not been intimately involved in the first film in the franchise.
Which is why it’s encouraging to see Marvel take a chance on Jenkins, who has only directed a single film in her career, the decidedly low-budget Monster of 2003. Her efforts did win Charlize Theron an Oscar for her performance, so she can definitely direct actors, which is perhaps what Marvel is intent on improving in their films. To a degree, a lack of knowledge about CGI and action direction can be compensated for with a great team surrounding a director, but a director’s ability to work with an actor and bring something out of him or her that translates to a great performance on screen is something that’s harder to make up as you go, as the floundering of some of the cast members in the Star Wars prequels and some other flashy, CGI-heavy films might indicate. Actors on many of these films are expected to create credible performances while looking at a green screen and people wandering around in mocap suits for 90% of their shoots; it’s a difficult job, and one which the right director might be able to elevator from horrendously difficult to at least doable, with the right attitude towards filming and rehearsal.
This is all just supposition on my part: I know nothing about why Marvel and Disney chose Jenkins over any other director who might have wanted the reins of Thor 2, and I assume there were many. Marvel’s made an unconventional choice in this vein before, by choosing karate enthusiast Lexi Alexander to create the gleefully crazy Punisher War Zone of 2008. That lost them quite a bit of money in the end, unfortunately, but then it was also a hard-R rated tale; Thor 2 comes with a built-in audience and bigger stars than Ray Stevenson and Julie Benz, with Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins both expected to return. Marvel took a flyer with Kenneth Branagh when they were looking for a director for Thor, and it worked out for them, with that film handily exceeding financial expectations.
So, my point, assuming I have one: it’s a good thing to see, even if it seems like it’s taken too long to happen, a woman chosen to direct not only a big-budget blockbuster special effects film, but a comic book movie to boot. And I'll go ahead and acknowledge that even bringing her Thor 2 casting into a wider discussion of women director's is probably insulting in and of itself; I doubt she really thinks of herself as having any different skills or capabilities as any other director working now. And before you can go accusing me of being a PC commie pinko liberal, I’ll clarify that I think studios should always hire the right person for the job. When slightly over half the population is female and only 10% of Hollywood films are directed by women, though, something tells me that that’s not always the case at the moment.
Why do you think so few women become film directors? Do you think anything should be done to fix that imbalance or should everything be left to balance itself out on its own, over time?
Thor was kinda cool, but the romance was the worst part.
I've got your answer Rorie:
Patriarchy.
I think it would be best if balance came naturally. Otherwise you're forced to implement rules like the Rooney Rule in the NFL which I find to be incredible weird. You end up in situations where people are forced to ask someone who clearly has no chance at the job, to come in for an interview solely because of their race (gender in this case). I can't imagine a more awkward interview for either party.
Does Joel Shumacher count?
Another definite factor in choosing her is price. Marvel has made no bones about trying to keep budgets in control on their films. Hence casting relative unknowns in a lot of key roles. Most of the known-name people they have hired both in front and behind the camera weren't coming of huge hits, so they weren't obsenely expensive. Iron Man basically resurrected Robert Downey Jr.'s career, for example.
Now, money isn't the only issue here. They have definitely looked for people that fit the project. The choices made for directors and casting have been surprisingly strong across so many of the recent Marvel productions. Similar to Billy Beane in Moneyball, they seem to seek out under-appreciated talent. I'm willing to bet that Patty Jenkins has a take on Thor that Marvel likes. Given her background (and yes, gender), I'm sure it's far more interesting that the Michael Bays and Roland Emmerichs of the world would bring. Kudos to Marvel for taking this chance.
I hope her film is both really good and a really big hit, since Hollywood cares about box-office moolah more than anything else, and women-directed films hitting it big will only lead to more women getting the same opportunity. If the Hurt Locker had brought in as much money as it did praise and awards, maybe we would have already seen another Kathryn Bigelow film. But hardly anyone went to see it, and so we won't see anything in theaters from the woman who won an Oscar in 2008 until 2012 at the earliest.
Rorie, please leave the Tony "G-Man" Guerrero headlines to him. These types of headlines are incredibly tacky, and you're a better writer than that.
This was an intriguing read all around, Rorie. I never really thought about how few female directors there are, but it's probably because I usually just pay attention to the movie itself before I start hitting the credits and such.
However, I think there's an inverse to the lack of female directors: the strength of female producers. You pointed out that 16% of executive producers were female and 23% of all production roles went to women. If anything, that sends the message that these women are producing the films...but when it comes to them attaching a director to the project, they are aiming to get male directors. I mean, I assume that attaching a director is the job of the producers. I could very easily be wrong about that, and therefore my argument would mean nothing. If it is the case, that would mean that females themselves are leaning towards men directing films, and in essence, I would come to the assumption that they feel male directors will be able to appeal to that specific target audience of pre-teen to teen males with less effort. Then again, we can look at Tamra Davis (Half-Baked, CB4, Billy Madison) and see that she knows how to hit that audience really well while also (and this may just be my own personal opinion) creating films that are remembered for years and years to come. Sure, she's pretty much stuck to TV episodes over the years since Crossroads flopped, but she created three great comedies and showed that she had a great flair for comedic directing. She also wasn't getting some type of big head billing, and neither do directors like Kathryn Bigelow or Patty Jenkins. Sofia Coppola does, but she's in the indie world for the most part.
I don't know. It's an interesting thought process and an even more interesting topic of discussion.
One thing I will say about the article: it needs a little more proofreading in a couple of spots. There seemed to be a few loose "and", "the", and a couple of other things here and there.
Someone is already adding "Girl, let me tell you: I believe that more women should direct" to your OKCupid profile first draft.
Also "I'm a PC commie pinko liberal".
Dividends, this will pay them.
I like this article.
If a man and direct movie like notebook, a woman can direct Thor 2. I guess the problem with lack of female director might be the same reason there are lack of female executives or engineers in other field - lack of female role model and lack of interest turns into a self sustaining recursive cycle. I think it's improving with the a new wave of female directors on notable films like Hurt Locker, KuFu Panda 2 and for better or worse - twilight films.
@eshchan said:
Interestingly enough, only the first Twilight was directed by a woman - the rest were all men.
It's a weird problem to think about. As @Manhattan_Project: pointed out, you can't exactly institute rules or anything to enforce equality in employment in private industry. I'm curious to see how it shakes out over the next few decades.
@TheGief said:
I'm not a big fan of question headlines either. Today was just me running around like a chicken with its head cut off because I was so busy, and I just defaulted to the easiest headlines I could come up with.
That said, I do reserve the right to ask a question in a headline if I'm genuinely curious to see what people have to say about an issue.
@Rorie said:
I agree enforcement should not be done by outside forces (i.e. government), but rather a push in the inside the industry. At least this is how the other industry are doing to promote women in higher position.
nope, the movie will suck and she will be shunned...
Fascinating read. I had never thought about it before, but now that I have, I'm noticing just how few successful women there are in the behind the scenes business. I have high hopes for Thor 2, as Monster was quite good, and with the charisma of the leading actors hopefully Jenkins can squeeze out some great performances
It's great to see that more women are being chosen as directors, but I hate the fact the fact that it's even something that's news. In an ideal world, this wouldn't even be an issue.
It would certainly be for the best.
"How many big-budget, CGI-heavy comic book films can you name that have been directed by a woman?"
To that I add: "How many big-budget films can you name that have been directed by a woman?" Yeah, Hollywood and the industry's been pretty lacking to be honest..
Nice article. I'd like to think as the years go on that these numbers and statistics will start to even out as more and more women enter Hollywood and are given opportunities.
Not to go totally off topic but I think an extension to this question is how many openly gay and minority directors/producers are out there for big budget movies like this as well? I can think of Justin Lin as a minority director for most of the Fast and Furious franchise, and the only openly gay producer I can think of is David Geffen.
Lexi Alexander actually just did a fantastic episode of the "How Did This Get Made?" podcast with Paul Scheer, June Raphael, Jason Mantzoukas, & Patton Oswalt. They spend the whole time dissecting Punisher War Zone, I'd highly recommend it as something as rib tickling as it was informative.