Women Directed Just 16% of 2024's Top 250 Grossing Movies

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• brutallyhonestcritic@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Yeah! Let’s double down on nepotism and not picking the best person for the job!

  “I know he’s a famous, incredibly skilled, multiple Oscar winning auteur that produces nothing but box office hits, but does he HAVE A VAGINA?!?” /s

  To go further, I find it suspicious that less than 50% of all directors aren’t transsexual.

  Next year: “Even though only 2% of all filmmakers are transsexual, we really need to artificially inflate those numbers to 50%. The quality of their work be damned!”

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  Dunno about anyone else here but I’d rather just see good movies. I don’t give a flying fuck what the genitals or ethnicity of the people who make it are. I care about the QUALITY OF THE PROJECT. How many bad films and tv shows get made nowadays just because they decided to go with a female director despite lack of experience or passion for the project.

  I hate that hiring choices aren’t being made considering skill. They are being made by skin color and gender.

  I obviously want these minorities to have opportunities but I also don’t think it makes much sense in the art world where the product is a direct result of the talent of the director. By all means, artificially inflate the number of women that work in an office or some other white collar job but studios should stay the fuck away from this kind of thing when it comes to the film industry.

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  • spujb@lemmy.cafe ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    the concepts of DEI or equity based hiring are entirely absent from the post you are flaming. it’s just reporting the numbers and proposes no solution—it barely even implies judgement on the numbers themselves.

    you made up an entire narrative out of straw and are screaming and ranting that it was flammable. super embarrassing not gonna lie.

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    • brutallyhonestcritic@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      flaming

      I’m just speaking my mind. The headline is clearly alluding to an inadequacy in the amount of women hired to direct major motion pictures and TV.

      Otherwise, why would it even be mentioned?

      Watching Wicked, I thought to myself “this looks like shit! Why is this the case?” Then, I looked up who shot it and looked at her other projects and saw that she was obviously chosen based on her gender. Nothing more. She was also inducted into the ASC after only 10 years of shooting low budget projects. Clearly, she isn’t being promoted based on her skill or experience level. It is ALL artificial. I’m tired of it. By all means, have Ellen Kuras shoot it or some other incredibly talented female DoP, but having Alice Brooks shoot it STINKS of gender nepotism.

      Whether you want to shoot the messenger or not, I’m speaking my mind.

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  • realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    By all means, artificially inflate the number of women that work in an office or some other white collar job but studios should stay the fuck away from this kind of thing when it comes to the film industry.

    Why the film industry specifically? That doesn’t strike me as particularly consistent.

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    • brutallyhonestcritic@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      My thought hadn’t fully materialized to make much sense.

      Here’s another stab at it: What I mean is, entry level jobs are fine. But even in the world of engineering, artificially making choices based on ethnicity or gender for the top tier job can have very real consequences. I’m all for giving minorities more opportunities but I think putting them in charge or in the main role solely because of their gender, sexuality, or ethnicity can be a recipe for disaster.

      Minorities should obviously be considered with the same weight as white men but IMO that choice (especially at the top) should be made based on SKILL and qualifications. IMO, it’s fine to artificially inflate roles that aren’t the department head but department heads need to be decided on an OBJECTIVE BASIS.

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• realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  This happening despite “equity”-focused policies like DEI in corporate America surprises me. Something about the 2024 and 2025 film schedules seem a bit odd/thin, I wonder how much success women will have in 2026.

  Do y’all think this is a marketing issue, or women not getting enough opportunities in Hollywood, or audiences rejecting female filmmakers?

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  • plm00@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Audiences want good movies, and often don’t care who writes or directs them. It’d be a mistake to say the reason for the low percentage “is because sexism” on such a multifaceted situation. A quick web search says only about 15% of all filmmakers are women, so this statistic sounds about right. Either not enough women are interested, or not enough get the opportunity.

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    • realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      That’s a great point. I thought the initiatives would strive for a 50/50 balance which is why 16% surprises me so much.

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  • spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    It is the first teo for sure, maybe the third.

    We have the inertia of past directors being prinarily men. That means to pool of established directors that are likely to be picked for a bigger budget movie that will receive a ton of advertising will be men.

    Second, even with DEI the culture of most cultures simply defers to tall men for the most part, even when it is subconcious. So a pitch for a movie will just end up leaning towards men on top of the ratio of available directors because the people funding movies are likely older men who have concious or inconcious biases.

    I’m sure most people pay little attention to the director outside of well known names. The well known names tend to be men, because they have probably been making movies for a couple decades in the current environment. I’m sure there is a mix of people who are interested or turned away from a film if a woman is directing, but I have no idea how much of it is because it is a woman by iteself or because of being marketed as being directed by a woman. Barbie was a massive success, so it isn’t like being directed by a woman is a complete dealbreaker, but while big budget action movies that dominate the box office are directed by men who have become houshold names the ratio will stay skewed.

    Even if society leaned hard into DEI it woukd take decades to reach any semblance of balance.

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    • realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Amongst people who talk about directors, I find that most of them 1) talk about startlingly few directors and 2) don’t seem to mention female directors at all.

      After seeing Barbie I wanted to see Lady Bird, but I didn’t see a lot of videos talking about Gerta Gerwig as a director the way I see the same done for Christopher Nolan. Ofc the longer your career is the easier it is to do that, even if you’re getting trashed over mediocre media.

      How many women have made 6 or more full length feature films in their lifetimes?

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  • spujb@lemmy.cafe ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    afaik this 16% is far far better than it was a decade ago. DEI doesn’t really claim to be more than a palliative solution, so it’s only going to be expected that it will take some time before equity is reached, during which period things may vary and sway year to year.

    Do y’all think this is a A) marketing issue, or women B) not getting enough opportunities in Hollywood, or C) audiences rejecting female filmmakers?

    it’s certainly primarily a systemic issue as you suggest in B. marketing, A, might be a problem but i have no evidence for it. i find C to be the least likely. audiences anecdotally love women filmmakers.

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