This is from a review about the new King Kong movie, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts. He directed Kings of Summer, which I adored.
Here’s what he said. “No one saw [Kings of Summer] which was heartbreaking…So I decided I wanted to make a big movie, because I wanted people to see the next film I made.”
Here’s what my #52womeninfilm project taught me. Women make movies all the time. And no one sees them. And they don’t get the choice of their next picture being a big film.
I’m happy for Vogt-Roberts being able to make a big film for his next movie. But I can’t help thinking about all the women directors who would also like their next movie to be a big film and don’t get that opportunity.
Then later, this list of “untested” directors. What do they have in common? 
“Vogt-Roberts says he landed the gig because the producers like how he had turned the woods in ‘The Kings of Summer’ into a veritable character in the film.”
And I would also venture to guess that the producers (four male, one female) liked him because he reminded them a little of themselves. Which is why Hollywood is the way it is.
Navel gazing at its finest! And damn the Patriarchy! It’s always messing things up for everyone, especially for women, though, of course! (Yep, that’s the current state of my PhD writing)
There’s a really fun editorial today in the paper in response to a local high school history teacher who wrote that he has never seen any evidence of “rape culture.” It was nicely worded.
Last night, while typing up another sci fi movie review in which I had to list the lone female lead character as the male lead character’s love interest because that was her only purpose in the film, I got frustrated and thought to myself, “My next film project will be movies that have a strong female lead!” So I started looking up lists of said movies, only to find that most movies with a “strong female lead” are either romance-based OR the woman is the villain. Le sigh.
It’s funny, though, that I really didn’t notice how shabbily women are treated in Hollywood until I started the sci fi project. Now that I notice it, I see it everywhere and bugs the crap out of me.
My awakening was the year I did the Bechdel score for every movie I watched. I was horrified to realize just how few movies scored even the lowest score (a film with two women).
I also started and quickly abandoned a project to watch all of a female actress’s movies. There isn’t much point, because mostly they are the batting-their-eyes girlfriend/wife (if young enough) or, if they are the lead, I find the actress to be fairly exploited as in the movie Jolene, which sank my Jessica Chastain project. I’d love to see all of Rosario Dawson’s work, because I think she is uniformly fabulous, but there are just too many girlfriend roles.
My movies directed by women project served me a little better than my usual film choices. People say things are changing, and they are, but it’s an incredibly slow change that drives me crazy, and also hurts my heart.