Though women at the very top of the food chain tend to think the battle’s as good as won, many beneath them–those who don’t make the annual power lists–are still pretty angry. Female film directors work roughly 5 percent of the days that all directors work. Roughly 13 percent of screenwriters are women. “Change,” says writer Robin Swicord (“Little Women”) “is moving at glacial speed.”
For female screenwriters, the big fight is to prove that they can write more than just “chick flicks.” Studio executives, they say, think women can write only about women–and films with female leads are still the exception rather than the rule. “My husband, [screenwriter] Nicholas Kazan, is never offered the dog movies and the sister movies [that I am],” says Swicord. “He gets gritty news stories and legal stories. He gets offered expensive books. I get books with girls in them.”
Female directors say they’re still laboring under the myth that women simply aren’t tough enough to handle the pressure that comes with a big-member crew and a $50 million budget. Despite the Nora Ephrons and Penny Marshalls of the world, and the dramatic inroad Kimberly Peirce has made with her Academy-nominated debut, “Boys Don’t Cry,” the directors’ ranks are still very much a male stronghold. “It’s the legacy of the ’70s auteur directors. You have Quentin Tarantinos and Paul Thomas Andersons, but it’s difficult for women to be christened the hot new director in the same way,” says Rachel Abramowitz, author of the forthcoming book, “Is That a Gun in Your Pocket? Women’s Experience of Power in Hollywood.” And women directors continue to battle the most backward stereotypes. “The arguments used against them are: Can she fight the boy’s game? Is she strong enough?” says James Ulmer, creator of the Ulmer Scale, which measures the bankability of actors and directors. “Will she have a nervous breakdown, will she scream on the set and be too emotional?”
Women who have made it in Hollywood tend to do it in production offices and executive suites. And it can seem to women on the creative side that women on the money side have no desire to go out of their way to help them. In fact, some female executives insist that they won’t give a woman special treatment; they hire, of course, on the basis of who’s right for the job. And they can find the whining from their younger counterparts just irritating. “These women are just looking for an excuse for their struggles,” says one top executive. They never had to face the really blatant sexism of 15 to 30 years ago, says legendary editor Dede Allen ( “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Wonder Boys”). “They think they can start at the top.”
Female executives might try to pretend they’re genderless purely as a matter of survival. There’s still a perception that girl movies don’t make as much money as boy movies, despite the recent successes of “You’ve Got Mail” and “Runaway Bride.” Action-adventure flicks can translate overseas in a way that romantic comedies don’t, and overseas box office is of increasing importance to a studio’s bottom line. (“Armageddon” made $353 million overseas; “Stepmom,” $69 million.) High-ranking female executives “don’t want their achievements to be considered women’s achievements,” says Abramowitz. “They think too much attention has been paid to this. To them, saying Hollywood is sexist is like saying the ocean is blue. Let’s just get on with life.” But for a writer or director struggling to get her next job, that’s exactly the problem. She can’t.
