Another day, another report on how poorly women are faring in Hollywood. I don’t have any control over who gets hired in the industry or which films get made, but I can keep underscoring how abysmal the position of women in the industry is, and how rarely women’s stories get told. Perhaps this will help those movie lovers who don’t seem to grasp how huge a problem this is to begin to understand.
So, as a follow-on to my 2015 Where Are the Women? project, for 2018 (and perhaps beyond), I’ll be adding quick visual icons to the top of each review that will indicate whether a film has a female director, writer, and/or protagonist. Which will manifest at the top of a review page like this, for example:
Or sadly most often like this:
See the first few reviews with this new feature:
• Molly’s Game
• All the Money in the World
• The Post
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A complete guide to the icons:
female director(s)
female/male codirectors
male director(s)
female writer(s)
female/male cowriters
male writer(s)
female protagonist(s) or predominantly female ensemble
female/male coprotagonists or mixed ensemble
male protagonist(s) or predominantly male ensemble
Yay for this, MaryAnn, I for one will find it very useful.
Love this decision. Could there be a space on the site for recommendations for films otherwise unmentioned here that fulfill most or all of the three green icons? To encourage people to check them out who might not have heard of them? Saw Women Who Kill this week and it’s a corker of a movie that’s green all the way.
Also glad to know I’m not the only one who slavishly codifies my viewing habits in this way. I’ve been labeling every film I watch for the last two years or so with similar markers. Well, in Japanese, since I’m studying the language at uni, so a female director is noted with 女監督 (“onna-kantoku” – woman director), and a female protagonist is noted with 女性の主人公 (“josei no shujinkou” – female lead).
I’ve just started highlighting new movies by and about women opening each week in the US and the UK: https://www.flickfilosopher.com/category/here-are-the-women (also linked in the menu bar at the top of each page)
I’ve just added new pages listing all the new films in cinemas in both the US and the UK that feature women somehow:
https://www.flickfilosopher.com/movies-by-about-women-cinemas-us-canada
https://www.flickfilosopher.com/movies-by-about-women-in-cinemas-uk-and-ireland
These do not include revivals, festivals, second-run (where these things still exist), IMAX science docs. Just the new films. And I’m sure I’m still missing some: there just are too many damn new movies.
I’m considering whether I can do this for the new DVD/VOD releases, but I think that may simply be too unwieldy. We’ll see…
How does it work for unscripted documentaries? Who is the writer then?
If writers are credited, I’ll go by the credits. If no writers are credited, I’ll consider the director(s) as the writer(s) as well.
Nothing like blatant sexism. Men = Red (Bad). Equality of sexes = Yellow (Bad but passible). All Women = Green (Good).
And yet she’s given positive green light reviews to many movies with male directors, writers, and protagonists like Ford vs. Ferrari just last week. Why, it’s almost as if these icons are meant to draw attention to a huge gender disparity in the filmmaking industry and are not meant to indicate the overall quality of a film.
Also, Pink = weak and sissy, Blue = cool and manly, has been a thing for about oh, around 80 years or so. I assume you’ve also been roaming the web yelling from virtual soapboxes about this pernicious example of color-based sexism.
Come to think of it, I seem to recall some other systemic inequality based on color that used to be an issue… what was it again? Something to do with cars, motor? Motorocity? Speedology? Eh, I can’t remember right now because I’m so fired up about the gross injustice of these traffic light icons… it’s probably not a big deal. The important thing right now is that white men are under attack.
My cousin told me there’s even… *looks both ways and lowers voice to a whisper* females infiltrating the government. They’re gonna force us all to sell our guns, wear pink dresses, and eat those little cucumber sandwiches with the crust cut off, and then they’re gonna try to maintain a livable climate on the planet and stop us from going bankrupt due to preexisting health conditions just you wait and see.
Oh, honey, you’re gonna need to back up your contention that I think movies by men are “bad.”