On Sunday, April 24, 2005, The New York Times ran an article on the cover of its Arts and Leisure section with the title, Hollywood’s New Old Girls’ Network by Nancy Hass.
The article pointed out that four of the six major movie studios in Hollywood have women in the top creative decision-making roles – Gail Berman as president at Paramount; Stacey Snider, chairman of Universal; Amy Pascal, chairman of Sony Pictures; and Nina Jacobson, president of Walt Disney Company’s Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group.
This is wonderful news and we applaud the accomplishments of these women. However, Hass goes on to generalize as follows:
“Though men still figure most prominently in the corporate echelons of the media companies that own the studios, and talent agencies like William Morris and Creative Artists Agency are still male dominated, these women, who over the years have fought and fostered one another as part of a loose sisterhood, have finally buried the notion that Hollywood is a man’s world. So striking is the change that some now see Hollywood as a gender-balanced model for the rest of corporate America.”
No Way!
Martha Lauzen, a professor at San Diego State University, has been issuing annual studies of women’s employment in Hollywood. Year after year, she has found evidence of substantial barriers to women’s employment in big-budget films and prime-time television. In The Celluloid Ceiling 2003, she found the following:
“Men directed more than 90% of the 250 top-grossing films released in 2003, and 20% of the films employed no women directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers or editors.”
To read letters that Professor Lauzen and other experts have written in response to The New York Times article, just click on their names below:
- Martha Lauzen, Professor, School of Communication, San Diego State University
- Terry Lawler, Executive Director, New York Women in Film and Television
- Catherine Wyler, Artistic Director, High Falls Film Festival in Rochester, New York
- Sarah Browning, Associate Director, The Fund for Women Artists
Also, you can read studies about job discrimination against women in film, television, theatre and other art forms in the Employment Issues page of our web site.
Our thanks to Tara Veneruso at www.MoviesByWomen.com for sending us copies of the letters by Martha Lauzen, Terry Lawler, and Catherine Wyler.
From Martha Lauzen, Professor, San Diego State University
To the Editor:
Having tracked women’s representation as directors, writers, producers, cinematographers, and editors in film and television for the last decade or so, I read the article by Nancy Hass, “Hollywood ‘s New Old Girls’ Network,” (4/24/05) with great interest.
While it is true that a number of very talented women now hold high–profile positions at the studios and on movie sets, it is inaccurate to conclude that we are witnessing a gender “revolution” or that the film business is no longer “a male preserve.” The article correctly points out that “men still figure prominently in the corporate echelons of the public companies that own the studios.”
In fact, a 2003 study conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania entitled “The Glass Ceiling Persists: The 3rd Annual APPC Report on Women Leaders in Communication Companies,” examined the gender of executives working at communication companies in general and entertainment companies more specifically. The researchers found that women comprised only 13% of the top executives working at 11 entertainment companies including Fox, MGM, Viacom, and Walt Disney.
Unfortunately, when the article focuses on the employment of women at the film studios owned by these entertainment companies, it comes to a series of erroneous conclusions based on anecdotal evidence. The article focuses exclusively on the career achievements and recent promotions of just a handful of high-profile women. Citing no quantitative data, the article somewhat remarkably proclaims that the film studios now provide “a gender balanced model for the rest of corporate America.” However, an informal count of the top executives working at the major studios listed in The Hollywood Creative Directory reveals that women comprise only 33% of those individuals filling the business suites. While women executives do fare better at the studios than in the larger entertainment companies, the findings of this informal survey directly contradict the article’s claim that women now “predominate” in Hollywood.
Moreover, my own annual study of the top 250 domestic grossing films found that women comprised only 16% of all producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, and editors in 2004. This represents a decline of three percentage points since 2001. Further, women accounted for only 5% of directors in 2004. This represents a decline of 6 percentage points since 2000 when women accounted for 11% of all directors. In other words, in 2004 the percentage of women directors was slightly less than half the percentage in 2000.
The quantitative data cited in this letter suggest that while a number of women now occupy powerful positions at film studios and on movie sets, we are not witnessing the kind of sea change suggested in the article.
Finally, I find it extremely troubling that the Hass story containing erroneous information appeared above the fold on the front page of Sunday’s Arts & Leisure section ensuring that it would receive wide readership. This letter — if it runs at all — containing accurate information will be buried in the letters to the editor section. As a result, a great many of your now misinformed readers will not have the opportunity to correct the misperceptions created by the original article. Does the Times provide any other forum for those wishing to provide accurate information to your readers?
Sincerely,
Martha M. Lauzen, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Communication, San Diego State University
From Terry Lawler, Executive Director, New York Women in Film & Television
Dear Editor:
Women have been directing films since 1896 (Alice Guy, The Cabbage Fairy).
Nancy Hass’ article paraphrases unnamed executives who assert that women do not have what it takes to be directors. That’s blaming the victim. Women have experienced persistent, pervasive sexism that has excluded them from directing jobs in both film and television. Many talented women directors have made important, award-winning films, only to be regularly passed over for less accomplished men. Surely, Ms. Haas realizes that the argument that women, by temperament, cannot do a specific job is as old as the hills. It has been used against women who wanted to be doctors, lawyers, athletes, studio heads and president of the United States . Enough already.
We respect and admire women leaders of Hollywood studios and applaud those companies that employ them. But to say that the film business is a “gender-balanced model” ignores the fact that women are still dismally under employed in the film industry. Study after study shows that women fill only a small fraction of creative and executive Positions–far fewer than our 51 percent representation in the population.
We are making progress, but the industry is not a model. To get a sense of how far we still have to go, Ms. Haas may want to check recent studies. She can find them on our website, www.nywift.org
Sincerely,
Terry Lawler, Executive Director
New York Women in Film and Television
From Catherine Wyler, Artistic Director, High Falls Film Festival, Rochester, NY
Dear Editor:
The High Falls Film Festival in Rochester, New York, debuted in October 2001, with the express intention of bringing attention to women filmmakers working in all creative areas behind the camera, because the imbalance of employment between men and women in the industry continues to be severe. While the press focuses on a thin layer of top producers and studio heads, statistics show that women directors, writers, cinematographers, editors and production designers find even less employment today than they did five years ago. And when did you last see the name of a woman composer on the big screen?
Each film we show highlights the exceptional work of a woman in a creative role behind the camera, but each year we find that many fine films cannot be selected for screening because their creative team is all male. To dismiss this issue as resolved because a few studio executives are women is simply missing the point–women are still a tiny minority where it really counts in the movie-making process. The real question is: when are these female executives going to use their power to help redress this imbalance?
This November 9-13, we will again bring talented women in film together to show the world their fine work and to help get them their fair share of the employment pie.
Sincerely,
Catherine Wyler, High Falls Film Festival
Rochester, New York
From Sarah Browning, Associate Director, The Fund for Women Artists
To the Editor,
While we are always delighted to see women making gains in the arts and entertainment worlds, “Hollywood’s New Old Girls’ Network” (by Nancy Hass, April 24, 2005) was misleading at best. Some women have attained positions as producers in Hollywood, but their new prominence has had virtually no effect on the multiplex. Research by Martha Lauzen at San Diego State University proves what any audience member could tell us: Women’s visions are missing from our movie screens. In fact, men directed more than 90% of the 250 top-grossing films released in 2003, and 20% of those films employed no women directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, or editors.
In other words, these female producers aren’t hiring female writers and directors. Why does this matter? Women writers and directors are much more likely to tell women’s and girls’ stories – stories that audiences want to see. Amy Pascal, chair of Sony Pictures, is quoted in the article as saying that when she first became a producer she really wanted to make movies about girl bands. “I still do,” she says. And yet she hasn’t – no girl band movies from Sony. Women directors are graduating in large numbers from film schools and are struggling to find financing for their projects. Some are quietly building an impressive body of independent work. But they are few and far between and rarely are they given the opportunity to present their visions to the wide audience that Hollywood studios offer.
Moreover, the problem is not just in the world of film and video. Women artists are underrepresented in all the artistic disciplines. Readers can see the many studies in the Employment Statistics section of our website at www.WomenArts.org.
When the artistic voices of half the population are missing from our cultural life, we are all poorer. We urge your readers to support films by women and we urge the New York Times to give a more realistic picture of what’s going on in the pictures.
Sarah Browning
Associate Director, The Fund for Women Artists