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Does Sex Still Sell?
From "pink ghettos," grassroots groups continue to fight for women to break through celluloid ceiling
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| Actress-producer Rosie Perez, producers Margo Lion and Jean Doumanian, actress Swoosie Kurtz and playwright Wendy Wasserstein at the New York Women in Film & Television’s 25th anniversary. |
Women have really come long way in the entertainment industry over the past few years…. Haven't they? Actually, the perceptions and the facts are alarmingly different.
“The Celluloid Ceiling,” a recent study by San Diego State professor Martha M. Lauzen, revealed some disturbing facts about the entertainment industry. Of the 250 domestic top-grossing films of recent years, men directed more than nine out of 10 and served as cinematographers on virtually all of them. Even if you believe that's less than shocking, considering that directors and DPs have always been male-dominated fields, it doesn't end there. Men also wrote and created eight out of 10 situation comedies and dramas airing on the broadcast networks. In fact, women comprised just 23 percent of all executive producers, producers, directors, writers, editors and DPs. What's worse, the study found that the number of women writers actually declined in recent seasons, dropping from 27 percent in 2001 to 19 percent in 2002.
“None of these statistics surprises me,” says Orly Ravid, who runs her own film distribution and consultation company, Film Huddle, in Los Angeles. “In the film industry, as in the rest of the world, men are less confident about women's abilities—and less inclined to give women the same chances as men… Women have to be twice as smart, talented and strong.”
For Paula Goldberg, a Los Angeles-based writer-director who has worked in both television and film, the entertainment industry is about building relationships, and “men tend to build stronger relationships with other men.” The key, says Goldberg, who now works as the creative director for a female boss at an online greeting card company called BeatGreets, “is simply for women to build better relationships with women.”
Women Make Movies, Women in Film and Television and Women in the Director's Chair exist for precisely these reasons. These organizations help women help each other succeed in an industry where even the most privileged men can sometimes fall flat.
Women Make Movies began in New York City in 1973, the year after NOW (National Organization of Women) formed, and during a time when women like Betty Friedan, Susan Brownmiller and Gloria Steinem were actively boycotting the sexism of mainstream media like The Miss America Pageant, Ladies Home Journal and Playboy. These same women knew that the media—who could promote their cause—held the key to women's liberation, and therefore were sure to invite the press to every boycott, protest and march.
Women Make Movies was the next logical step. For 30 years, the organization has worked to amend the “the under-representation and misrepresentation of women in the media industry” through its Production Assistance Program, which counsels women on how to successfully fundraise for projects. It also runs the Distribution Services Program, the leading distributor of women's films and videos in North America. Women Make Movies markets its 400-plus titles from New York City through its catalog of documentary, experimental, animation, dramatic and mixed media works. In the last five years alone, the catalog has earned women media makers more than $1 million.
Women in Film started in Los Angeles in 1973 after journalist Tichi Wilkerson-Kassel read a Hollywood Reporter story that reported that women had written just two percent of the television stories that year. The small group of women Wilkerson-Kassel organized in the wake of this abysmal statistic became the first Women in Film. The organization has since developed a local base of 2,400 members, along with a number of female empowering programs including a Film Finishing Funds, a college scholarship and a high school internship program.
There are also the more high-profile events such as the annual Crystal Awards and Lucy Awards (named for Lucille Ball) for outstanding achievements by women in film and television. The Dorothy Arzner Director's Award and the Martini Shot Mentor Awards celebrate the many outstanding men who have helped women shatter the celluloid ceiling.
In 1978, the New York chapter changed to include Women in Film and Television. Since then, the organization has become a global enterprise, with 40 international chapters (from Atlanta to Africa) and some 10,000 members worldwide. There are the annual conferences around the world, yet members operate mostly through their local chapters, which provide members with directories, seminars, workshops and other public events meant to help women network and community-build.
Women in the Director's Chair started in Chicago in 1981 to serve as a “resource for people committed to building a movement for social justice, and a forum for lively public dialogue on a wide range of critical issues.” Programs include a media literacy project that works with incarcerated youth, a video archive and library of over 700 tapes for educators and activists, a community center with a 100-seat venue for screenings and workshops and an e-mail list. The organization's largest project is its 10-day March media festival, which showcases more works by women than any other festival in the country.
Despite these organizations, women's progress in the entertainment industry, as surveys like “The Celluloid Ceiling” point out, is slow and uneven. While the women who founded them couldn't have imagined a Sherry Lansing, the first woman to run a studio, it now seems as if Lansing might go down as the only woman to ever do so.
For many, the problem is that these organizations operate in what could be described as a “pink ghetto.” While they can and do help women network with each other, they do so at a distance from the mainstream entertainment industry, where (white) men evidently still direct nine out of 10 of the top films. For lasting change to take place, women in large numbers will have to infiltrate the middle, where the gender hierarchy lives and breathes, and where those with unshakable power make the executive decisions.
There are also limitations within these organizations. As Ravid points out, “the women with power are usually not at the meetings. So networking is good to a point, but it's hard to get beyond a certain level.” This is not to say that these organizations are not worthwhile. As Ravid concludes, “you just have to be realistic about what can come of participating in them.”
Whatever achievements women in entertainment have made over the
late 30 years would likely have been impossible without organizations
like Women Make Movies, Women in Film and Television and Women
in the Director's Chair, which are still run by small groups of
tireless and idealistic volunteers. Maybe the key is to ask not
what these organizations can do for you, but what you can do for
these organizations? As one of the most powerful and respected
men in history once said, from there anything is possible. MM
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by Steve Kranz on 10/30/07 at 8:42 am
“In the film industry, as in the rest of the world, men are less confident about women’s abilities—and less inclined to give women the same chances as men… Women have to be twice as smart, talented and strong.”
Are you kidding me? Why do you base so much on men and competing with men? You’re oppressing yourself, and looking to cheat your way in. Everybody wants to be on easy street, so your plan is to keep nagging (whether you have skill or not) with some claim of being kept from your golden dreams by the males around you.
Why don’t you start doing good work, and stop being so selfish? Why don’t you stop whining and enjoy life a bit more - it isn’t all about you; not in 2003, not today!
- Comment by bre on 11/01/07 at 11:17 pm
“Are you kidding me? Why do you base so much on men and competing with men?”
Um… Because they happen to be the only other species on the planet that woman are competeing with when it comes down to getting a job.
Steve - your comment from beginning to end is so idiosyncratic - I can’t even continue. Are you twelve years old. That is the only way I can even hear that, it is so ridiculous.
This story was published in the Summer 2003 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Sex Still Sells (if You're a Man Looking for a Job in the Film Industry!) / From "pink ghettos," grassroots groups continue to fight for women to break through celluloid ceiling
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