Women directors face celluloid ceiling

By Rob Woollard, in Hollywood for AFP Published: 1:38PM GMT 03 March 2010

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Kathryn Bigelow, 58, is one of usually 4 women to ever be nominated for Best Director in the Academy Awards. Photo: Paul Grover

But Bigelow"s approaching feat for her Iraq War play The Hurt Locker masks a extraordinary gender imbalance inside of the movie industry that researchers have dubbed the "Celluloid Ceiling."

Bigelow, 58, is one of usually 4 women to be nominated for the majority appropriate executive prize, following Lina Wertm|ller for Seven Beauties in 1976, Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993; and Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation in 2003.

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The scarcity of womanlike film-makers to consequence approval at the Oscars reflects an industry-wide trend, according to Martha Lauzen, head of the Center for the Study of Women In Television and Film at San Diego State University.

Lauzen"s annual inform on women in the movie industry not long ago referred to that of the tip 250 tip grossing drive-in theatre in North America in 2009, usually 7 per cent were destined by women, a dump of dual per cent from a year earlier.

The imbalance is additionally reflected in alternative areas of the movie business. In 2009 usually eight per cent of credited writers on the tip 250 drive-in theatre were female.

"There is a lot of rejection per women"s stream place in the movie business," Lauzen said.

"I"ve listened editors of vital traffic publications as well as the heads of studios simply contend there is no problem.

"They"ll possibly contend no celluloid roof exists or they"ll clap off 4 or five names of high form directors who occur to be women and afterwards with a shrug contend "See - there"s no problem." Well that"s incredibly misleading.

"Just since you can name 4 or five women directors doesn"t meant no complaint exists. If you don"t think there"s any complaint afterwards you"re not going to be seeking for a solution. And that perpetuates the standing quo."

Lauzen is discreet about what Bigelow"s expected success on Sunday will mean. "I think it will give a lot of courtesy to the issue in the short term, that is welcome," she said. "But we have to have picturesque expectations of what the really well-deserved accomplishments of a singular lady mean.

"Attitudes about gender are really confirmed and when they shift they shift really slowly. So I think this could go down a integrate of opposite ways.

"If Kathryn Bigelow wins, media stories could speak about how all has altered right away and that women are equal. And that would be unfortunate."

Bigelow, who has already done story this year by apropos the initial lady to win the Directors Guild of America"s tip honour, has downplayed the stress of her gender during the endowment deteriorate debate trail.

However after claiming the directing esteem at the Bafta awards in London last month - again the initial lady to do so - she referred to the "constant struggle" faced by women in the industry.

" ... so if this can be a guide of light, then, wonderful," she said.

Ironically, Bigelow has fake her repute by a array of drive-in theatre important for their sincere masculinity, either it"s the sharp 1991 movement movie Point Break, the moving Cold War-era chief submarine play K-19: The Widowmaker or her nail-biting Oscar contender The Hurt Locker.

Jeremy Renner, the Oscar-nominated star of The Hurt Locker, scoffed at suggestions that Bigelow"s strong welfare for testosterone-fueled movies was unusual.

"What does carrying a set of ovaries have to do with directing a film?" Renner told CBS television"s 60 Minutes. "It"s by her eyes that she sees, not by her mammaries or anything else."

Bigelow"s ex-husband James Cameron, who is nominated for majority appropriate executive for his scholarship novella blockbuster Avatar, pronounced he believed his former associate was preoccupied by "war and conflict".

"I think she additionally takes honour in the actuality that she can out-gun the guys - that only in conditions of pristine technique, pristine game, she"s got some-more diversion than majority of the masculine directors out there," Cameron said.