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The Curious Case of the Missing Women in Film Criticism

January 19, 2016 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Jeanne Phan for Variety

Jeanne Phan for Variety

Film criticism’s demise has been eulogized by endless film festival panelists — mostly male, mostly white. Yet, that waning power still goes largely unshared with women (and people of color).

“Film criticism is in the exact same position as latenight talkshow hosts,” says B. Ruby Rich, UC Santa Cruz professor of film and digital media. “The hiring of Stephanie Zacharek at Time is positive. Manohla Dargis reviews for the New York Times and Ann Hornaday is at the Washington Post. And, yet, female critics who barely got a toe-hold anyway are often the last hired, first fired.”

And there has been a decided brain drain among the few, the strong that once had industry stature. Where have the heavyweight professional critics Janet Maslin, Carrie Rickey, Caryn James, Leah Rozen, Eleanor Ringel, Lisa Schwarzbaum, Susan Wloszczyna, Claudia Puig, Christy Lemire, Lisa Kennedy and Katherine Monk gone, once they took the buyout or got shifted from their perch? Most are still writing, but their perspectives are harder to find as they navigate the passage into the digital seas and, in many cases, the loss of salary and benefits.

Martha Lauzen, executive director, Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, has been tracking the profession for years. “Because men make up the vast majority of critics — 78% of the top critics appearing on the Rotten Tomatoes website in spring 2013 were male — films with male directors and/or writers receive greater exposure from critics,” she says.

Melissa Silverstein, founder, website Women and Hollywood, says, “We need women and people of color’s opinions on movies on all topics. However, it is vitally important that we have more women’s voices reviewing and commenting on women’s stories and on women directors because women have a different perspective than men. Not better, not worse, just different. We have our own lens in how we see the world and that makes our perspective vital.”

“Women have a different perspective
than men. Not better, not worse, just different. We have our own lens in how we see the world and that makes our perspective vital.” Melissa Silverstein

Director Karyn Kusama, (“Girlfight”) says, “To me it’s the question of female directors, writers, cinematographers, designers, editors, actors and critics. If you have substantially fewer of them in the world, then we’re missing a crucial human perspective, and the world suffers for it.”

Another problem is ingrained bias, conscious or not.

Clem Bastow, culture writer at Guardian Australia, says, “The critical response to ‘The Intern’ was fascinating. There’s a subset of male critics that clearly see Nancy Meyers as code for chick flick and react with according bile. What’s very interesting, though, is that I think female critics, working in an industry that is coded as very male, if not macho, often feel the need to go hard on certain films for women, presumably because they worry that they’ll be dismissed, critically speaking, if they praise a film like ‘The Intern,’ as though they’re only reviewing it favorably because they’re women.”

Rickey, long-time Philadelphia Inquirer critic currently at truthdig.com, says, “The lion’s share of the daily and weekly reviewers is male. Are they sexist? I think not. But are they more enthusiastic about female characters seen from a male perspective, i.e. Todd Haynes’ ‘Carol?’ Possibly.”

According to the Gender at the Movies study of top critics on Rotten Tomatoes, men account for 91% of those writing for movie/entertainment magazines and websites such as Entertainment Weekly; 90% of those writing for trade publications and websites; 80% of critics writing for general interest magazines and sites such as Time and Salon; 72% of those writing for newspaper sites; and 70% of critics writing for radio outlets and sites such as NPR.

There is no evidence that gender equity is improving within the profession. According to Lauzen, “In 2013, 78% of the top critics on Rotten Tomatoes were male and 22% were female. I repeated the study at the beginning of 2015 and the numbers were the same.”

Despite the increased awareness, a reversal of the trend is not imminent.

“Unless they get the system of shaming to work against studios, agents, distributors and critics I don’t believe there will be any solution from enhanced information,” Rich says.

“Until somebody is willing to bankroll a lot of women directors, until someone is willing to payroll a critic, change will not happen,” Lauzen says.

So what keeps the industry from calling out critics on their white male majority?

“People who live in glass houses have to be very careful about casting stones,” Lauzen says. “Every corner of the film industry lacks diversity, from the executive suites, to the behind-the-scenes creative community, to those working on screen. The seamlessness of this largely closed system is astounding.”

[This article first appeared in Variety]

 

Filed Under: Movies & TV Tagged With: B Ruby Rich, Carrie Rickey, Clem Bastow, film criticism, gender equality, Hollywood boycott, Karyn Kusama, Martha Lauzen, Melissa Silverstein, SDSU, the Guardian, The Intern, Variety

Adams on Reel Women: The Cannes Sex Scandal

May 25, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Cannes Sex Scandal (by Danny Martindale)’

 (note: I have migrated my column from AMC Filmcritic.com to Yahoo! Movies where I’m Contributing Editor)

Fact: Men directed all 22 films in competition for the Palme d’Or at the 65th Cannes International Film Festival. Fact: The only woman to win that coveted prize was Jane Campion for “The Piano” in 1993 — and that was a joint victory. Cannes, we’ve got a problem — and when I say “we,” I mean women and men who love film.

Four weeks ago, I first raised this controversy in my column “Thelma Adams on Reel Women” at AMC Filmcritic.com, a site that has since folded. At that time, I wrote, “I love David Cronenberg, whose ‘Cosmopolis’ has been welcomed into the competition and who headed the Cannes jury in 1999. I was a champion of his cerebral period drama ‘A Dangerous Method,’ which had a terrific star turn by Keira Knightley. But, really, not a single film by a woman? I’m just gobsmacked.”

Now that I’ve migrated my column to Yahoo! Movies, the world’s most viewed movie site, I want to expand the debate for our larger audience. In Cannes, where the festival opened last Thursday and will run through Sunday, the quotes on the gender controversy have been surprisingly subdued from the country that decapitated Marie Antoinette as part of its revolution.

[Related: Wes Anderson’s ‘Moonlight Kingdom’ earns raves at Cannes]

The head of the boys’ club: The Boys Are All Right

Festival Artistic Director Thierry Fremaux explained: “I don’t select films because the film is directed by a man, a woman, white, black, young, an old man. … It wouldn’t be very nice to select a film because the film is not good but it is directed by a woman.” Fremaux lacks the self-awareness that his lock-hold on selecting the films may impact which movies get rewarded and which get tossed back. In every society, the gatekeepers determine the definition of quality.

The female director on the jury: Could it be Stockholm syndrome?

As the sole female director on the nine-person competition jury, British filmmaker Andrea Arnold (“Fish Tank”) got to field the “woman question.” While she decried the “pity” of gender inequality, she told a Cannes press conference, “I would absolutely hate it if my film got selected because I was a woman. I would only want my film to be selected for the right reasons and not out of charity because I’m female.” What she was doing, having achieved her spot in the inner circle (congrats!), was echoing Fremaux’s sentiment about the evils of “positive discrimination.”

The academic apologist: The glass is half-full

Columbia University professor and Cannes fixture Annette Insdorf took a wait-and-see approach: “For me, the question is less ‘How many women filmmakers are selected?’ than ‘Do the films illuminate female experience?'” After mentioning such Cannes projects as Marion Cotillard (“Rust and Bone”), Kristen Stewart (“On the Road”), and Jessica Chastain (“Lawless”), Insdorf continued: “It may turn out that the ‘female auteur’ presence in Cannes this year is the prolific international actress.” Having already seen Chastain in “Lawless,” a strong, well-made testosterone-driven film that showcases Tom Hardy and Shia LaBeouf, I can say that Chastain plays a runaway dancehall girl with a heart of gold. She’s great, but really, Annette, I’m not pinning any hopes on this role as a gender game changer.

[Related: Cannes’ buzziest movies]

Meanwhile, there has been an outcry from the French feminist group La Barbe (translation: The Beard), which published a satirical letter in the French newspaper Le Monde. The letter and attached petition accused the festival of sexism while joking, “Is it not enough for them [women] to aspire to be mistress of ceremonies someday during the festival’s opening night?” Clearly not, as La Barbe members in bright beards continue to protest on the Cannes red carpet.

Melissa Silverstein of Women and Hollywood took a more straightforward approach in the e-petition she drafted (and which I signed). In part, it stated: “We call for Cannes, and other film festivals worldwide to commit to transparency and equality in the selection process of these films. We judge films as human beings, shaped by our own perspectives and experiences. It is vital, therefore, that there be equality and diversity at the point of selection.” In pushing for transparency in the decision-making process, Silverstein’s petition strikes at the heart of the issue: the gatekeepers.

The point is not to assign quotas for women in film — to present films by women because they are by women. The underlying problem is: Why are women so drastically underrepresented among filmmakers, jurors, and entrants? Why do women with a record of success as filmmakers find it so hard to get projects produced, while men, even after significant failures, can still get the green light for their next projects? If there is nothing “special” about women filmmakers and writers, then there should be nothing “special” about either their presence OR their absence.

Unfortunately, it’s their absence that is special.

Again, the answer is not quotas for women. It avoids addressing the real problem. The answer is that, given the absence of any normal distribution in their selection process, the programmers, the selection committees, the gatekeepers are biased, not for quality or talent — since we all agree there’s a pretty good chance that that’s not gender-specific — but on gender.

If we all agree that quality and talent are not gender-specific, and the results of the gatekeepers’ selections is so gender-specific, then it must be the gatekeepers themselves who are at fault. They can’t see past the sex. Lacking any therapeutic insight into their problem, they should be removed and replaced by those who can, in fact, make judgments on talent and quality — and leave gender issues to those situations when gender selection matters. Like “birthin’ babies,” or finding a date.

 

Filed Under: Celebrity, Criticism, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: AMC filmcritic.com, Cannes Film Festival, La Barbe, Melissa Silverstein, Sexism, Women, Yahoo! Movies

What “The Hunger Games” Owes to Milla Jovovich, Kate Beckinsale, and Sigourney Weaver

March 28, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Blame the alien bitch for the bad perm

 

With all the buzz surrounding The Hunger Games and the anticipation for its three sequels to come, there’s been plenty of shock and awe that a female-driven action movie has this kind of box office clout. And while some (like Melissa Silverstein on the must-read Women and Hollywood blog) have asked whether The Hunger Games will be the first real female franchise, I have a definitive answer: No. It can’t be. Because it’s not the first.

Though they’ve been oft-overlooked by the Hollywood establishment — and critics, too — at least three women-driven franchises have commanded the box office: Resident Evil‘s soon-to-be-five installments, anchored by Milla Jovovich, represent the most successful video-game movie series ever; Kate Beckinsale’s leads the four Underworld movies; and the grandma of the bunch, Sigourney Weaver, kicked extraterrestrial butt as Ripley in Alien and its sequels.

Violent Video-Game Vixen –[Read the full column on AMC filmcritic.com via Thelma Adams on Reel Women]

Filed Under: Essay, Movies & TV Tagged With: Alien, AMC filmcritic.com, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Beckinsale, Katniss, Melissa Silverstein, Milla Jovovich, Resident Evil, Sigourney Weaver, Strong Women, The Hunger Games, Thelma Adams on Reel Women, Underworld, Women and Hollywood

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