The English Language

This topic of women-in-movies has garnered a surprising amount of interest, so I'd like to address one point made by Kat earlier, the idea that white-male-movies are seen as universal whereas white-female-movies or any minority movies are seen as "niche." She believes my position reinforces this stereotype.

Without question and for historical reasons, movies have developed certain codes - 3-Act structure, continuity editing, 90min-2hr length, various genres, etc. Chief - and perhaps most problematic from any sort of question of fairness of these codes - is English as the primary language of cinema. Let's face it, when we're talking big time global influence, movie-stars, and the studio system, the English language is the only language.

Is this fair? No. Of course not. Does it represent the demographics of the world? Of course not. Is the English Language universal? Hardly. If we were just talking numbers, most movies should in Mandarin. My point - and forgive me for reducing to the absurd - is that the very existence of the studio system and movies themselves reinforce certain preexisting stereotypes and privileges and chief among those privileges is English as the primary language. Do I have a problem with this system? Not really. Am I upset the Japanese make great electronics or the Brazilians are awesome at soccer and the French make incredible cheese. Not really, no. In fact, I rather like things the way they are, for the most part. I enjoy the Brazilian soccer players, French cheese, and Japanese electronics, and I assume they rather like our movies.

Now, as for privileged white females clamoring for more representation and power in the movie business, I'll let Steve Buschimi speak for me -

"Do you know what this is? It's the world's smallest violin, playing just for the waitresses."

Privileged white females seeking more power within the movie business is no different from the comic book geeks seeking more power and no different from the "auteur generation" seeking more power or the horror fans more power or the agents seeking more power or the stars seeking more power or the writers seeking more power or any other self-interested group seeking more power.

As for the question of why there aren't more female directors...certainly, there is more room for females in the directing chair and part of the problem probably stems from a lack of female role models and opportunities available. But it is also true that in pure numbers - more men go into the film industry than women. And this isn't unique to the film industry - more men gravitate towards construction and manufacturing and more women gravitate towards healthcare and education. Maybe these numbers will shift around over generations, but even in a pareto optimal situation, certain industries are going to be favored by a certain gender. Thus, the pure-numbers analysis isn't quite telling an accurate story.