Include the Arts in our National Recovery Plan!

In This Issue:

     Tell Your Senators Today to Support the Arts
     Our Hot Pink Pen Creates a Ruckus!
     Update on the “Slumdog Millionaire” Controversy

Our Hot Pink Pen

Creates A Ruckus

Chicago Film Critic
Jan Lisa Huttner

Jan Lisa Huttner, the Chicago film critic who is the co-founder of SWAN Day and WITASWAN, has created an international stir about the directing credits for the film, Slumdog Millionaire. She has been quoted in articles in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and several British papers.

Many of our readers wrote to the Golden Globes to ask why Loveleen Tandan was not nominated for an award as co-director of the film.

Click here to read the update on this issue.

Click here to read the review and interview Jan published on our site that started it all.

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Tell Your Senators Today to Include the Arts in Our National Economic Recovery Plan

The Obama administration is moving quickly on its economic recovery plan, and we need to advocate for artists to be included in as many programs as possible. Since women artists have traditionally been paid less than their male counterparts, we also need to make sure that women’s needs are met.Several initiatives have emerged in recent months, and on Wednesday the U.S. House of Representatives passed their version of the Economic Recovery Package by a vote of 244 to 188 which included $50 million in supplemental grants funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)! Now the package will go to the U.S. Senate, where they will start their debate on the bill today (Friday, January 30) and will continue through next week. The Senate Appropriations Committee did not include the arts funding provision in their version of the bill. We need to make sure that our Senators put it in.Take Two Minutes To Send An Email Now! Please take two minutes today to ask your legislators to support the arts in this Economic Recovery package. Americans for the Arts has set up a web page that makes it easy for you to email your legislators. You can use their text or paste in your own letter. Your help in this effort is critical. Click the link below or paste it in your browser:
http://www.artsactionfund.org/Americans for the Arts has also drafted a set of nine proposals for ways that the Obama administration should include artists in the economic recovery. Basically they recommend including artists in every federal program that receives recovery funds. Whether it is community development, economic development, rural development, transportation initiatives, job training programs, or aid to schools, they argue that artists can make important contributions. They are also asking Obama to create a senior level official in the President’s office to coordinate arts and cultural policy. You can read the full report here.Part of Obama’s platform was a proposal to create “an Artists Corps of young artists trained to work in low income schools and their communities.” The idea of hiring artists to work in the schools is great, but we see no reason to limit this to “young” artists. Many women artists have lost their teaching jobs in recent years due to budget cuts. We need to make sure that these excellent and experienced teachers have a chance to return to their classrooms.

Other Reading on Federal Arts Programs

NEA Statement – The National Endowment for the Arts has issued a statement about Arts and Economic Recovery that gives statistics about the economic impact of the arts and says, “The arts and culture industry is a sector of the economy just like any other with workers who pay taxes, mortgages, rent and contribute in other ways to the economy.” You can read the full statement at:
http://arts.endow.gov/news/news09/arts-and-economic-stimulus.html

National Campaign to Hire Artists to Work in Schools – The National Campaign is a 50 state effort to promote the use of federal funds to hire artists in the schools and community centers. They draw on the historical precedents of Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) jobs program of the 1930’s and the national Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) Arts Program of the 1970’s. Check out their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/36483884735/

Quincy Jones Requests a Secretary of the Arts – Grammy-winning music legend, Quincy Jones, is asking Obama to create a cabinet level “Secretary of the Arts.” Two New York musicians were inspired by Jones’ idea and set up an online petition which now has over 200,000 signatures. To sign the petition, go to:
http://www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html

“Slumdog Millionaire” Update

Danny Boyle was given the Best Director award at the Golden Globes for his work on the film “Slumdog Millionaire.” But Chicago film critic Jan Lisa Huttner noticed that IMDb.com (a highly respected film resource) and the film’s official press kits listed a woman named Loveleen Tandan as “Co-director (India)”. In an interview published on our website, Huttner asked Danny Boyle whether he considered Tandan the co-director, and he replied, “Yes, she deserves it! She’s a proper director.” (See https://www.womenarts.org/reviews/SlumdogMillionaire.htm)

When the Golden Globes nominated Boyle for “Best Director” but failed to mention Tandan, Huttner started a letter writing campaign asking the Golden Globes leaders to explain why they had not included Tandan with Boyle. Many of our readers joined the letter writing campaign, often adding touching stories of their own about not being recognized for their creative work.

The people at the Golden Globes never responded, but journalists in the U.S. and Great Britain picked up on the story including John Jurgensen of the Wall Street Journal, Prairie Miller of WBAI, Ramin Setoodeh of Newsweek, Melissa Silverstein of the Huffington Post, Amar Singh of London’s Evening Standard, Anita Singh of the UK Telegraph, & Sasha Stone of Awards Daily, and World Entertainment News Network published on IMDb News.

The Oscar nominations came out this week, and once again Danny Boyle was nominated for Best Director of “Slumdog Millionaire,” and Loveleen Tandan was not mentioned. The Oscars have a rule that only one director can be nominated per film, but waivers are occasionally granted, like in the recent case of brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, who both collected a directing Oscar for “No Country for Old Men.” Huttner argues that the one-director rule does not reflect the realities of modern filmmaking, especially on a large cross-cultural team projects like “Slumdog Millionaire.”

Tandan is trying to distance herself from the controversy. We will never know if it is because she truly does not think she deserves the credit or because she is worried about being labelled as a “difficult” woman. The “co-director” title is ambiguous, and the situation is complicated by race as well as gender issues. The reporter for Newsweek pointed out that the faces in the movie are brown, but the ones on stage accepting Golden Globe Awards were all white.

Huttner points out that in 81 years, only three women have ever been nominated for a Best Director Oscar – Lina Wertmueller, Jane Campion and Sofia Coppola, and none have ever won. Only two men of color have been nominated – John Singleton and Ang Lee, who won for Brokeback Mountain.

If Tandan had been nominated, she would have been the first woman of color ever to receive a Best Director nomination. Instead, the Academy nominated five men for Best Director for the 78th time in 81 years. Whether or not Loveleen Tandan should have been nominated this time, Huttner is right that there is something wrong with the big picture.

For ongoing updates about this issue, visit Huttner’s website at: http://www.thehotpinkpen.com

SWAN Day 2009 is supported by generous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Starry Night Fund of the Tides Foundation, the Leo S. Guthman Fund, and many generous individuals.

Please feel free to reprint any portion of this newsletter, but please give credit to The Fund for Women Artists. (©WomenArts.org 2009) This newsletter was originally published on January 30, 2009.