Gender bias still plays a sinister role in Hollywood, says 'This Changes Everything' director Tom Donahue. (via latimesopinion)
That “dream factory” label they put on Hollywood is a lot more about the “dream” part than the “factory” part. And while Hollywood’s labor concerns look to be a long way and several decimal points from the tasks and the paychecks of millions of Americans, its images and its examples influence every day how women and girls are regarded and treated, in the workplace and in the world.
When I started to do this movie, I had learned about the story of Maria Geise and her battle for equality among female directors, and that was what initially attracted me — not to mention Patricia Arquette getting up at the Oscars and talking about equal pay, and what we learned from the Sony hack about the pay disparity on “American Hustle.
Unlike a lot of working Americans today, Hollywood has unions. Where are the unions been in addressing these problems? The Geena Davis Institute did a study about background extras and found that on average 83% of background extras were male. I started interviewing casting directors to try to get to the bottom of what happens -- how do casting directors who cast extras end up hiring more men than women? And nobody could give me a straight answer. Nobody could admit that they were the ones doing it.
She said, you know, before I did the interview with you, I never would have thought twice about it. I just would have put up with it. But your interview made me realize the abuse I was taking and how I was just shutting it out without really thinking about it. That was Will Hays, the former postmaster, who brought in what some people thought of as a more puritan sensibility to Hollywood.
What’s interesting, though, is they didn’t even focus on gender, because there were so few women working in Hollywood behind the scenes. They focused mainly on people of color. They came up with a bunch of things I think they wanted the studios to be compliant about, but all of that kind of drifted away and nothing had any teeth.There were these six incredible women called the “original six” of the Directors Guild women’s committee, who were not getting work.
They went to the national board of the Directors Guild, and the Directors Guild started talking to the studios and tried to get the studios to change these hiring practices. And then the studios stopped meeting with them. What you really need are the John Landgrafs of the world [Landgraf is the chair of FX Network and FX Productions]. Even though voluntary compliance is not the way to make change, I think in this environment, with this government, it may be the only choice that we have right now.
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