The Glass Ceiling that 'Yentl' Cracked
Filed under: Executive shifts, Celebrities and Controversy
While skimming my feeds, I came across a post at THR about a Stanley Kramer celebration called "Films That Changed the World." It immediately got me thinking of world-changing cinema, and how much a film can impact us. But try as I might, I couldn't come up with films that changed my world, and instead, kept going back to the story. See, this new series is celebrating the films connected with the iconic filmmaker that were socially conscious. First up: Yentl.It wasn't so much the film that kept grabbing me, but a quote by Kramer's daughter, Kat: "The history-making film, the first major studio production ever produced, directed and co-written by its female star, shattered Hollywood's glass ceiling like no other film ever did." I wish I could say that it shattered that glass ceiling. If it did, we wouldn't have such abysmal percentages of women in the industry -- both in it and writing about it. Last year, 25 years after Yentl, women didn't even hit 20% of all directors, producers, writers, and the rest of the big behind-the-scenes roles in the industry. We couldn't even hit 10% of all directors. Not even a quarter. Not even a tenth.
That's not a shattering of the glass ceiling, it's a crack in the glass that few women survive when they try to pull themselves through. It's monumental when a woman directs a big, supernatural romance (Twilight), and sadly not surprising when she's then pulled from it. More specifically, it was monumental for a woman to helm it from the pens of other women, even though the film is geared towards the girls itching for a little dark, vampiric action. Women directing for girls? Shocking!
The only way to stretch that crack, and just possibly create that shattered ceiling Kat Kramer was talking about is to do it again. And again. And again. Sadly, it can't just be with solid, noteworthy work. For every wonderful Protagonist, there needs to be a ceiling shake by Amy Heckerling, or a solid kick by Kathryn Bigelow, or Mary Harron -- blockbusters, hits, action, and horror that prove we're not all clumsy romance fiends and fashion victims. It's a fact that seems to be forgotten much too often.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-07-2009 @ 9:44AM
Kevin said...
I happen to agree with you when you say that there is sex discrimination in hollywood, but the evidence you use is awfully weak. Statistics showing that woman don't make up the right percentage of directors, producers, etc. are fairly meaningless. You have to show that capable women have tried to get those jobs and been blocked. Theres got to be plenty of instances of that, but you don't mention one. The closest you came was with Twilight, but they fired the director because they didn't like the style of film, not because she was a woman. Having seen the movie I agree with not bringing her back for the sequel. If that story didn't have a huge following to begin with then the movie would not have been the massive success that it was. It just wasn't a good film. Following your logic one could conclude that the NFL is one of the most sexist organizations out there because its players, coaches, etc. are 100% male. Where are all the female offensive lineman and running backs? Like I said, I agree with your position, but you haven't provided any support of its existence.
Reply
4-13-2009 @ 11:02PM
Safron said...
The glass ceiling isn't entirely about clearcut cases of employment discrimination. There isn't just one mechanism for sexist employment patterns. I don't think you need to provide evidence of individual sexist hiring decisions to prove that there is a problem. The statistics are reasonable proof, especially since employers aren't going to provide you all their thought processes and hiring patterns. Even if they did that wouldn't capture the full effect, since the glass ceiling is partly about social expectations like women not feeling as if certain careers are possible for them.
It is good enough evidence to point out that we live in a very patriarchal society which has only begun to improve in recent generations. In this society, highly desirable, prestigious and powerful positions are still dominated by men. There is nothing surprising about this and it doesn't need to be proved with individual hiring decisions. Statistics work well when you don't fully know how to quantify the underlying mechanism.
4-15-2009 @ 8:19PM
Kevin said...
Safron, my point was that I agree with the conclusion, but the premises offered are terrible evidence of it. Those statistics actually don't prove anything. Its like the stats that show that woman make somewhere around 90 cents on the dollar for every man. Seems like its a horrible sexist system until you examine the reasons why thats the case (for example, men, on average, who work full time jobs work 3 more hours every week then woman do). So that statistics merely demonstrate a phenomenon, but they do nothing whatsoever to explain the reasons for it. Woman working 2% of all hollywood jobs would not necessarily mean hollywood is sexist (I pulled that 2% outta my ass just to make this point). It would only be sexist if capable woman who were qualified and as experienced as men were being turned away from jobs simply because they were woman. If thats not the case then its merely a stat that shows the situation. Who knows, maybe 98% of all applicants for jobs were men, or even 99.5% were men, in which case you could argue that the hiring practices were unfairly skewed towards woman. So statistics don't "Work well when you don't fully know how to quanitfy the underlying mechanism" but, rather, they work well to propagate an argument that you don't have enough facts to make logically.