While the description for the Women + Film panel discussion at the King Center on Sunday afternoon proposed a discussion about why women make up only 16% of all Hollywood directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors, the panel got started on a very different direction. Insightful moderator and film critic Karina Longworth began the discussion questioning why the qualifier "woman" was even needed when discussing ladies in the film industry. This topic was met with the thoughts of 2009 SDFF Rising Star Award recipient AnnaSophia Robb's assertion that we've moved on from sexism in the West, and our job now is to inspire the rest of the world. The 15-year-old actress (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Bridge To Terabithia) said she had never experienced opposition to her gender.
But what began as a discussion of how sexism is no longer present turned, by the end, into a revelatory conversation about the gender issues still plaguing Hollywood. Robb, who had previously said she hadn't experienced sexism, told of the film rights she and her parents have to a book about a young girl. They are having problems getting it made because the studios think the story needs "an adult male lead" to be successful at the box office. That's far from gender equality.
Despite this, most of the panelists still shy away from the label of "feminist." The question of identification with the f-word was met by Robb and director
Eva Lopez Sanchez with defiant no's and head shaking, and met with a vague "I don't know" from actress
Rachel Leigh Cook. Director
Emily Kuntsler went a little further, saying she is "anti-sexist."
Perhaps the most enlightening commentary came from DFS Membership & Volunteer Director Eileen O'Brien, who not only identified herself as a feminist, but commented on the importance of the history of women in film. She talked of the comments of director Robert Altman at Cannes in the mid-90s, saying that he didn't like working with women because, as he said, they get pregnant all the time. Her commentary, as well as Kuntsler's insight into the greater percentage of women in the documentary world and Longworth's interesting questions, made up the meat of the discussion.
And, while many of the other panelists skirted around issues and refused to take distinct stands, the panel ended on an optimistic note. When asked how to move forward from the step back the film industry seems to have taken (women as 19% in Hollywood in 2001 to 16% today), O'Brien said "One woman at a time." Added Cook, "We become so good that we cannot be denied." Hopefully, that will be enough.
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