Do you think there's discrimination against female film/television directors?

[notashark]

In shocking news, OP discovered that most women in Hollywood prefer to be in front of cameras than behind them.

 

[Newway12]

When i was in film school I had a teacher who use to be a producer at one of the big movie studios. He flat out told the class that the big studios have no interest in male or females out side of a few stereotypical demo graphics (males 18-35) and teenage girls(thus all the young adult novel adaptions recently). He said it's because Hollywood believes those are the demographics with the most disposable income, and the fact that most other demographics will go see movies aimed at those demographics but not the other way around.

All these tent pole genre films are all that is holding Hollywood up right now, so they aren't really in the mood to start doing a lot of experimenting with them.

 

[Charli]

I once made a topic asking why there weren't many female directors. Now there is apparently a federal investigation concerning the lack of female directors in the field.

Do any of you believe there is serious discrimination against women in directorial roles?

Yes. They receive less funding, less support, aren't nearly as respected on set and a pretty much built up to fail to continue to 'prove' to people who want to keep it that way that they can't do the job. It's a vicious cycle that's kept in motion underneath all the glitz.

There's no getting around this one. Directing is seen as the mans job, because it requires being extremely authoritative. There's a number of misogynistic people who won't 'be directed' by a woman, so they're seen as inefficient for the job rather than making it the ones who disrespect women's fault.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I think the problem with the whole sexism situation is that people choose their battles entirely wrong. For instance, i think it's perfectly fine and inevitable to view another person in a sexual light, but to many, that's sexism, it's objectification, when i think that serialization is probably the most benign form of objectification there is, i think people treating women like children is much more damaging overall than people treating women like sex objects.

No reason people can't care about both issues. In any case, it's generally not that someone is seen in a sexual way that is being complained about, it's usually something about the double standards, or viewing them solely in a sexual way.

I think this has to do with the fact that agency is a bit of a double-edged sword. If we treat women like adults (like we really really need to and should) then women loose a lot of power.

They'll lose being assumed to have no power, same as children. I'd say that's not quite the same thing. They'd be given responsibilities that come with having power.

 

[Bat Vader]

I suppose on a case by case basis there possibly might be discrimination. We don't really know how studios or producers think so sure one of them could be discriminatory towards women. I doubt that's why there are fewer female directors. I've never seen it but The Hurt Locker is a critically acclaimed movie and that was directed by a woman. Big was directed by Penny Marshall, Lost in Translation by Sofia Copploa, etc.