Making Dinner, Making Babies… …Making Culture?

October 10, 2011 at 7:59 PM · Filed under Art, Film, Life and tagged: culture, feminism, gender

A friend of mine shared this trailer today for Miss Representation, a film that “explores women’s under-representation in positions of power and influence and challenges the limited and often disparaging portrayals of women in media.” This caught my eye because one issue I’ve found most disconcerting over the past few years as an emerging filmmaker is how few women are involved in telling stories.

“Women comprise only 16% of all writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, and editors.” [from a longer version of this film trailer]

“Nearly 80% of TV programs in the 2007 to 2008 prime-time season had no women writers.”

Yikes.

AMC’s Mad Men is a striking exception—eight out of the show’s ten writers are women. But even in Mad Men, the story centers squarely on womanizing Don Draper, our heroic protagonist. And, let’s be honest, we are all still rooting for him.

I remember reading stories as a child and consciously identifying with the male protagonist. This happens all the time, actually. I may be a woman, but I can still sympathize with Don Draper’s personal and professional troubles or with Daniel Craig as the rugged James Bond on his mannish quest for truth. Everyone does this. But maybe (just maybe) I’m tired of being presented with a male protagonist, male counterparts, and a male villain while women are represented as either the mother or love interest (one exception here is that women are often the villain—we’ve got to remember Eve, the biblical ultra-villain, and every subsequent evil witch). I mean, that storyline is so tenth century Beowulf. Why do you think that our culture is so stuck on that story?

As you might imagine, it’s perplexing and a little disillusioning for a filmmaker to see so few of her fellow women participating in the production of culture. What exactly is the issue here? Are they trying to participate and failing in a patriarchal system or is something preventing them from even trying?

So, in the interest of participating, this is a short film I threw together yesterday for fun—well, “fun” is perhaps not the best word—for…a reminder that I am capable of creating a film project from start to finish all by myself (including cinematography, editing, sound, and color correction)…even if it’s only 2% of the running time of a feature. (fyi it looks best in HD on vimeo.)

Comments (3)