By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

Women’s Media Center Video Spotlights Serious Gender Disparity in Film Industry

Posted Monday, January 31st, 2011 - Comments Off on Women’s Media Center Video Spotlights Serious Gender Disparity in Film Industry
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – January 31, 2011

NOTE: Most WMC Sundance coverage is available for reposting with permission and the following disclaimer, as well as a link to the post: This article originally appeared on the Women’s Media Center Blog

New York City: The Women’s Media Center (WMC) released a video it produced during the Sundance Film Festival to spotlight the serious gender disparity in media.  The video highlights stark gender statistics from the news and entertainment industries, and features the team of girl journalists that the Women’s Media Center sent to Park City, Utah to cover the Sundance Film Festival.  Dar Williams’ song “Cool As I Am” underscores the message of the video.

Julie Burton, President of the Women’s Media Center, explained, “We produced the video to highlight the serious gender disparity in the film and news industries.  Most people are surprised to learn that of the top grossing 250 films of 2009, only 16% had women in leadership roles as directors, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors.  Fewer than 25% of Op-Eds are written by women, and only 3% of decision-making positions in the media are held by women.  The goal of this video is to raise awareness of the status of women and girls in media and film and to catalyze a movement for change.”

Gloria Steinem, Co-Founder of the Women’s Media Center, noted, “From watching movies, girls and women come to believe we can only be ornaments, not instruments.  Movies shape our dreams, but they are mostly missing the talents of the female half of the country.”

WATCH HERE: The video starring Progressive Girls’ Voices journalists at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival

Interviews and blog posts from the Women’s Media Center team of girl journalists can be seen at the Women’s Media Center site:  http://www.womensmediacenter.com

The Women’s Media Center’s team of girl journalists blogged, tweeted, and interviewed notable leaders, including Sundance Institute Founder Robert Redford, Academy Award Winning Actor and Advocate Geena Davis, Author and Activist Gloria Steinem, Humanitarian and Actor Danny Glover, and several film directors including Jennifer Siebel Newsom (Miss Representation), Tiffany Shlain (Connected), Lynn Hershman Leeson, (!Women Art Revolution), David Weissman (We Were Here).

The Women’s Media Center was founded in 2005 by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem to make women visible and powerful in media.

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Women’s Media Center was founded in 2005 by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem to positively impact the visibility of women in the media, amplify women’s voices on key issues in the national dialogue, fight sexism and bias against women in the media, and increase professional opportunities for women across all forms of media. Through training, advocacy, and the development of original content, WMC is changing the conversation in the media so that media more accurately represents the perspectives, positions, and priorities of women.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon