Criterion One

Why is directing perceived to be a male pursuit?

In March 2011, an article in the main section of the Observer had

the headline, “Where are all the women film directors?” The writer

of the article, actress Kerry Fox, explained, “I think it is a lack of

confidence that stops women directing, the need for a strong sense

of self and an innate sense of the right to be a director.” Nicola Lees

of Women in Film and Television (WFTV) agrees. She runs a

mentoring programme for women, set up when Skillset research in

2009 revealed 5000 women had left UK media industry employment

since the recession, compared to just 750 men. The research also

confirmed that women were over-qualified, overworked and

underpaid in comparison to their male counterparts. Nicola says the

number of women leaving the industry in their early 30s and the

shortage of female directors is often attributed to childcare but

that’s not always the case. “I have 20 women on the WFTV

mentoring scheme. Some have children. Some don’t. It’s about

women lacking confidence. Women need to look at their

achievements and experience. Men don’t feel that they don’t

deserve to be there.”

Skillset’s UK findings are reflected in the research of Professor

Martha Lauzen of San Diego State University. She carries out an

annual “Celluloid Ceiling” study of women working behind the

scenes on the top 250 domestic grossing films. Her 2010 findings

show women comprised 16% of all directors, executive producers,

producers, writers, cinematographers and editors. Women

accounted for just 7% of directors in 2010, the same percentage as

in 2009 and a decline of two percentage points from 1998. Lauzen

has also cited confidence as a reason. She says reporters have told

her that, “when they talk to the guys, they can’t shut ‘em up. But

when they talk to the women, it’s like pulling teeth…. Women have

to promote themselves, but when they do, it’s seen as being

unfeminine.” (quoted in Kira Cohrane article)

The idea that behaviour is either ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ can be

linked to how people have come to see the role of the director on a

film set. The director is considered to be the boss and when the

boss is male it seems very natural that he should lead. In her 1992

speech for Women in Film Crystal Awards, Barbara Streisand made

reference to the inequalities in the industry and in particular how

language is used to transform traits seen as positive in a male

director into negatives when displayed by his female counterpart.

She says for example a male is “uncompromising” while a female is

a “ball breaker”, a man is “assertive” yet a female is “aggressive”

and when a male is said to have demonstrated “great leadership” a

female will be described as “controlling.” (We are the Girlz in the

Hood, Premier….. 1993)

Also consider for example the coverage given to the winner of the

Oscar for Best Director in 2010, Kathyrn Bigelow. It is quite a

challenge to find press coverage which doesn’t mention her gender

yet we don’t hear or read about the ‘male director’ because the role

of the director is gendered as male. Streisand was presenting the

award for Best Director at the Oscars in 2010 and her first sentence

was, “From among the five gifted nominees tonight, the winner

could be, for the first time, a woman.” On opening the envelope she

announced, “Well the time has come. Kathryn Bigelow!” Bigelow

does not refer to gender in her acceptance speech and instead said,

“I think the secret to directing is collaborating and I had truly an

extraordinary group of collaborators.” This comment is of particular

interest when compared to the comments made by Brad Pitt about

Quentin Tarantino as part of his nomination clip. Pitt said, “It’s a

director’s medium. It starts with the director and ends with the

director. The set is church, he is God and no heretics allowed.”

Pitt’s comments reflect the idea of the director as ‘author’ of a film.

Film is one of the few art forms which is not the work of a single

author but the result of the collaborative efforts of a very large

team. As the main collaborators, the scriptwriter, producer and the

director of photography are often given some credit in Oscar

acceptance speeches and during a film’s promotion but it is the

director to whom authorship is attributed. This idea of director as

author can be traced back to the French film critics of the late 1940s

and 50s and their debates in French and later British and American

magazines about the artistic value of cinema. Critic Peter Graham

suggests that an article by Alexandre Astruc, ‘The birth of a new

avant- garde: La caméra-stylo’ (Écran Français 144, 1948), is the

first to suggest that the director should be the author and the artist.

Astruc writes, “Direction is no longer a means of illustrating or

presenting a scene, but a true act of writing. The film-maker/author

writes with his camera and as a writer writes with his pen.” (Graham

(ed), The New Wave, p.15.)

This idea was taken up by the young French film critics writing for

the magazine Cahiers du Cinema as a way to revive French

mainstream cinema which they felt had become stale and

uncinematic. They enjoyed the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Howard

Hawks and John Ford and used these directors as examples of

artists who could achieve a distinct personal style while working

within the constraints of a studio system. The idea was first referred

to as a theory by American film critic Andrew Sarris in 1962. In his

article, “Notes on the Auteur Theory”, he sets down the criteria for

the auteur. A director had to possess a certain degree of technical

competence, a personal style and what Sarris termed an interior

meaning or ‘subtext’ to qualify as an auteur. These criteria laid the

foundations for what would be one of the most debated theories in

the academic study of film for the next few decades. The issue for

young women now is that female directors were excluded from

these debates. They were not discussed as auteurs and as a result

of not being part of the most debated theory as film studies as an

academic discipline developed; they were hardly discussed at all.

This presents a problem in 2011 because young women seem to

have no females in the history of film to look to for inspiration. They

seem to accept that directing is a job for men and personally I’ve

never heard a female student say, “I want to be a director.” They

are influenced by the statistics because they see the industry as

male dominated and as Lees and Lauzen stated, they lack the

confidence to visualise themselves in that role and buck the trend.

They need roles models and they need to know they have the

qualities and the skills needed to make it as a director. As Kate

Kinninmont of WFTV says, “Films should be made about people and

the best person should be doing the job whether a man or a woman.

It doesn’t make sense that only a fraction of women are good

enough to be at the top – look at school and college results.”

The artefact I produce will introduce the statistics for female

directors and will suggest a link between these statistics and auteur

theory. The main point I want them to take away is that there have

been and there are female film directors, they just don’t know about

them. I also want them to see the connection between the exclusion

of females in the development of auteur theory and the perception

of directing as a job for men. The artefact must be limited to making

this one point even though the topic is vast and has many

possibilities for exploration. This artefact aims to be a conversation

starter for students and while primarily aimed at a female audience I

believe young females will also benefit from male students being

part of the audience because as the title of this essay suggests, it is

all about perception. They need to see women as equals when it

comes to leadership roles in the industry. This is also why I’ve

chosen to feature the Oscar win of Kathryn Bigeow in the film. She is

only one of a number of great female directors but she will stand out

for students because she has directed successful films in the action

genre as opposed to drama or romantic comedy. While equality can

only really ever be achieved when female directors are no longer

referred to as female directors, it’s fairly impossible to make a shift

in the perception of young people without an exploration of the

past. That is what this artefact sets out to do.

References here……