Ever since the last Twilight installment came out and "shocked" the Hollywood prognosticators, I have been reading blogs and articles by sister filmmakers giddy about the glimmer of hope for women in film because the female audience is finally getting noticed and we think--this time--it might stick!
I, however, have been fairly guarded in my response, partially because I'm not convinced that the fare which females are flocking to the theaters for is truly, well, worthwhile--I mean, is it really to be considered "progress" for our gender when a bunch of drooling school girls pay to see a hunky guy take his shirt off? After all, most of the females I know in this industry are actually concerned with art and content (gasp) and I'm still not convinced that the studios are going to rush to fund *that* kind of thing when they can just put a pretty boy up on the screen, manipulate every girl who longs to find her meaning as a man's "personal brand of heroin," and rake in a fortune.
Another reason I'm not getting caught up in the girl-power rally yet is the fact that I'm not even convinced that there is such a thing as a homogeneous "female audience." If the studios take notice of the Twilight phenomenon, and try to use it as a template for the wooing of the elusive "female audience," we will not have progress. It will just be more of the same pandering and dumbing down, and large segments of the art-house hungry female population will continue to be unrepresented in the calibrating of the filmmaking machinery. (Note that while the first Twilight film was directed by a female, the second was not... I didn't follow the politics of the hiring, but I couldn't help but wonder: did they think they had figured out the formula & just revert back to the status quo?)
I'm just saying that I'm not in a hurry to trust the powers-that-be in Hollywood to make intelligent conclusions from the complicated connections between what female audiences choose to spend their money on (given what is offered to them at the box office), and what females who work in the industry know and have to offer. I think that in playing it safe with the status quo (which includes hiring male directors 90% of the time regardless of whether honest accounting supports the choice), studios--and even a lot of smaller production companies--are seriously limiting their own potential to reach broader audiences.
Yes, there is a vast audience of females out there, hungry for film with which we can identify. But, no, we are not to be grouped in a simple clump and satisfied by formulaic entertainment "product" designed by those who only *think* they understand the complexity of their newly targeted viewers. I wonder sometimes at the logic of some who are considered experts at "business." I think of myself as more of an artist than a business mind, and yet even I understand that hiring those who ARE members of a target audience just might help in the production of stuff that appeals to the target audience.
That is definitely not to say that just because one is a member of a particular group, that they are not able to appeal to those outside that group. Sometimes the infusion of an "outside" influence in the creation process can invigorate the entire team and bring about something that is fresh and interesting to everyone. I've worked with male co-creators who actually jump at the opportunity to work on female-led projects because they find the energy and atmosphere "different and refreshing" after years of working on male-dominated sets.
Last week, Manohla Dargis wrote an insightful analysis of the situation of women in film for the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/movies/13dargis.html
I'd love to hear your thoughts, too.
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