Why are there so few female film directors?

actually I was just wondering the other day, are there any female orchestra conductors?

The conductor of the Key West Symphony is a woman; she's the only one who instantly leaps to mind.

its spelled frances, jeff

martina scorsese

marin alsop of the baltimore symphony is a lady

marin scorsese

considering how alpha-male assholish most film sets are, film studios probably prefer to have another alpha-male type on set to "handle" the stars (especially the male ones) and it's believed that women couldn't do it. it's tough for even the best female directors to get work; if you're a female director and you have a couple of hits in a row, you'll be okay, but if you have a single flop you're in trouble. a male director can have five flops in a row and still get work. there's pretty much no excuse for someone like kathyrn bigelow to find it difficult to land projects considering the fact that she's one of the best directors in her genre (unless she's just someone who takes her time working on projects.)

― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, May 26, 2009 8:03 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ ya otm

I really do think getting to a position to secure enough money and resources to make a feature film is one of the biggest obsctacles here, though how gender works in all that is kinda complicated. With the other three fields you mention, a person can work with much less money and/or by herself to create something.

― Tuomas, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 8:07 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol no. you can write/paint a book/symphony/painting on your own but you can't get it printed/performed/exhibited solo. you have to play the game just as you do in movies -- sure there's *less* money, but it still involves people with jobs and kids to feed at some point in the process. if anything though, publishing especially seem to be relatively female-dominated, at least at the medium-power level if not the top.

i saw Marin Alsop conduct last week in Baltimore (and a few months prior in NY)

i like how Shakey's question was really easy to answer so we sat around with nothing better to do than name some female directors and try to bait gabbneb and shit

thanks reggiano

i'm pretty sure McG is a unisex name so maybe she is a woman.

ban parmesan-reggiano

weI sat around with nothing better to do than name some female directors and try to bait gabbnebthe rest of ILX and shit

To me it seems no coincidence that the most female-dominated arts seem to be the ones where you usually create things by yourself (literature and visual arts), and with "collective arts" women are more likely to be found in the lower end of the hierarchy than the upper end. In Finland, for example, there are more female classical instrumentalists than male ones, but the positions in conducting and leading the orchestras are still dominated by men.

Criminally, I don't think I'd heard of Marin Alsop before 3 minutes ago. (My excuse is that I only know conductors I've sung with.)

stephanie speilburg

also tho omar's point is a good one - film sets are some of the last place's u can treat ppl with open contempt w/o censure i think atmosphere maybe a good partial explanation. also i guess the subject matter of many hollywood films - comics, dude comedies, sci fi shit obv gender stereotyping female director's dont seem to have as much trouble getting work helming mama mia or w/e but fewer of those movies get made?

xpost dan the only reason i've heard of her is b/c of Washington Post articles, not because i'm into the classical music scene

people have been conducting in one form or another since the middle ages, so I don't think you can blame "young art form"

there's actually a documentary about the rarity of women conductors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman_Is_a_Risky_Bet:_Six_Orchestra_Conductors

^released in finland as hey! we're conducting

LOL

film sets are some of the last place's u can treat ppl with open contempt w/o censure

this is SO true. The stuff I hear from my film industry buddies would never fly in 99% of other workplaces

comics, dude comedies, sci fi shit obv gender stereotyping female director's dont seem to have as much trouble getting work helming mama mia or w/e but fewer of those movies get made?

eh I dunno about that - have you heard of this little genre called romcoms

there's gotta be at least a dozen of those a year

lol no. you can write/paint a book/symphony/painting on your own but you can't get it printed/performed/exhibited solo. you have to play the game just as you do in movies -- sure there's *less* money, but it still involves people with jobs and kids to feed at some point in the process.

True, but in writing or painting you at least have the chance to try to break through even if you don't have much initial financing, whereas in film this is less likely, because the whole process of making you art swallows much more money.

"Get in here, Lloyd, I want to make out with you"

^released in finland as hey! we're conducting

^^^well done

I know the only woman director I can think of who did all the shit herself was Nina Paley (of 'Sita Sings the Blues') who couldn't have done it before computer-based animation, and took four years of her own time/$$$ doing it and STILL can't get the damn thing released.

There's a difference between not finding the resources to get your product marketed and not even having a product because of the lack of resources.

(xxx-post)

basically the entertainment industry is too alpha-male for anyone but the female directors who have "proved themselves", and by that i mean they've proved themselves more times over and on a higher level than their male compatriots. plus the industry on a whole is one where males can still call women cunts on set and get away with it and the women will basically be told to get over it, can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen, etc

"actually I was just wondering the other day, are there any female orchestra conductors?

Emmanuele Haim, Jane Glover

eh I dunno about that - have you heard of this little genre called romcoms

u r missing my argument which is maybe not good but goes like this - there is basically a 0% chance of a chick getting 2 direct terminator, dude comedies &c and a larger but still not huge % chance of her directing girl movies like romcoms. and the majority of movies made right now are going 2 be of the 1st type rather than the 2nd skewing the # of opportunities for female directors even lower

also and its interesting i think that there is a decent # of female execs, agents &c in hollywood none of whom seem particularly comfortable dealing w/ female directors

Agnes Jaoui, Kira Muratova, Agnieszka Holland, slab of ham, penis penis penis

"Mr. and Mrs. Penis, you have a lovely daughter. What will you name her?"
"We have the most beautiful name picked..."

Tuomas is pretty much OTM this thread so far.

Editing seems to be a a pretty female friendly profession in the film industry

In the early days of cinema it was primarily women editing film.

I want to say it was for some totally sexist reason like 'they have such little hands and can spend hours and hours cutting up film!'

don't know if this was mentioned upthread, but sight and sound had a Spirit of '68 issue last May where they interviewed a few contemporary french directors including Catherine Breillait about he legacy of the Paris riots and she kinda said, whatever it was just something else for all the boys to rally around, it didn't really affect anyone outside of that except make one more myth to live up to. Totally paraphrased and tangential but I kinda think its relevant somehow. Peace.

considering how alpha-male assholish most film sets are, film studios probably prefer to have another alpha-male type on set to "handle" the stars (especially the male ones) and it's believed that women couldn't do it.

Or rather, the woman who is capable of managing a film production, and behaves in the manner of the "alpha male," is perceived as a "ballbreaker" and thus a "threat" to the male stars.

Also, Hollywood operates very much on name recognition--stars who are able to "open" a movie or "properties" that already have a following are more likely to make it through the production process. Other than maybe Sofia Coppola, I can't think of any American female directors who have this level of name recognition.

I want to say it was for some totally sexist reason like 'they have such little hands and can spend hours and hours cutting up film!'

Or in the days before cinema became AN ART, women provided cheaper labor.

Somewhat tangential, but the more I read about Ida Lupino (and the more I see of her films), the more amazing I realise she must have been to be a director when she was.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/20/profile-women-film-directors

I love Diane Keaton's Heaven. Totally disorienting cut-up sampledelic documentary on beliefs concerning the afterlife. She even samples a lot of the same materials as Negativland, and used 'Walter Westinghouse' by the Residents as soundtrack the section on Hell.

I kind of assumed there'd be at least one rave blog review of how ahead that film was, but just found some withering NYT review, who at least had the virtue of being completely wrong, but was shocked to see coverage hasn't caught up to that one

i remember seeing her promote that on Letterman.

In the early days of cinema it was primarily women editing film.

― tokyo rosemary, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 8:01 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I want to say it was for some totally sexist reason like 'they have such little hands and can spend hours and hours cutting up film!'

― tokyo rosemary, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 8:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's just a different form of sewing

the edit bay is the kitchen of the entertainment industry

guys, i feel like it's almost evenly matched when it comes to documentaries

this year women swept sundance doc awards

because documentaries are less about the "vision" (i.e. the ego) of the director?

or at least, they should be.

Editing seems to be a a pretty female friendly profession in the film industry

In the early days of cinema it was primarily women editing film.

― tokyo rosemary, Wednesday, May 27, 2009 2:01 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I want to say it was for some totally sexist reason like 'they have such little hands and can spend hours and hours cutting up film!'

― tokyo rosemary, Wednesday, May 27, 2009 2:02 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

iirc also lots of women in other important branches, especially scenario-construction, and script-girling, though not direction* so much.

though it should be said that editors were not credited as such for a looooong time, and it wasn't seen as a creative act for a looooong time. but e.g. alma reville, who married hitchcock, was an editor/scenario-editor senior to him... until he overtook her lol.

*lot of early directors were the producers: it was only in the 1920s that 'director' properly caught on as a thing. could be another long-term historical factor in this.

Maybe a little earlier in Germany? Peeps like Murnau or Wegener were directing in the 1910s when the producer role was owned by the studio I think.

oh yeah i just mean the word "director" rather than the function. the two words co-existed for quite a while.