I ♥ Female Directors

Dear Reader,

Every year there are studies and lists and think pieces about the lack of female directors working in television and film. And hey, we love studies and lists and think pieces as much as the next gal, but the numbers are soooo depressing and the problem is soooo entrenched and unchanging that reading about it starts to feel a lot like eating your vegetables if vegetables tasted like futility which they do.

We started iheartfemaledirectors.com because we think the biggest thing missing from the conversation about female directors is some good old-fashioned gushy fandom. We will not have achieved true equality until every film school student who ever jizzed himself talking about the exploration of violence and masculinity in Fight Club has also needed a change of pants after discussing the exploration of violence and masculinity in Beau Travail.

Yes, there are historically fewer female directors than male, but there have still been hundreds (thousands?) of great ones. And new female directors are being born and dismissed every minute! So while the major studios’ scientists toil away in their under-the-lot labs, manufacturing the single perfect, hireable female director*, we’ll be swooning over the ones who have already put amazing, love letter-worthy things into the world.  

So here’s our plan: every week we’ll put up a new love letter to a female director we’re obsessed with. And look, maybe that won't solve all of sexism in Hollywood. But it might get you to watch an Agnes Varda movie, and isn't that a close second?

Love,
Annabel, Laura & Charley

 

*Criteria:
• Experienced (but also fresh!)
• Works Constantly (but is always available)
• Commanding (but not emasculating)
• Will represent the wokeness and feminism of the studio (but won’t complain about institutionalized sexism)
• Has a unique voice (but wants to direct mediocre tentpoles)
• A visionary (but takes all notes)

Dear Lana Wachowski,

I was already crushing hard when Neo realized “there is no spoon” (The Matrix) but I knew my love for you was forever when Amanita flung her postcoital, glistening strap-on to the floor of her San Francisco loft (Sense 8). In that moment, as Amanita and Nomi moved on to after-thrust cuddles, my childhood quest was finally over. I mean, I’m no strap-on flinging lesbian but ever since I was a wee gaybe, I have longed to identify with someone like me on TV. Unfortunately the television gays of my formative years (side eye to you, Stanford Blatch) weren’t designed to express the full range of their sexuality or emotions and had little in common with the everyday gay man I was becoming. They were stereotypes wrapped in glitter, faggotry, and dialogue which felt more like what the real gay men writing them thought straight people wanted from their TV homos.

With Sense8, you brought together a family of fans whose mind holes were yearning for a sopping wet dildo of bold awkwardness and relatable failure on a whole new Kinsey scale of longing. And while likely few of your “fanily” are Chicago cops, billionaire Korean warriors, Icelandic DJs, Kenyan bus drivers, Indian chemical engineers, closeted Mexican superstars, German mafia heirs, beautiful trans hackers, or the fucking amazing DARYL HANNAH, you make us feel like we could be any of the above. Because even when Lito and Hernando are literally wrapped in glitter (and rainbows and not much else -- S2 E6), the relatability of what they fear and how they love saves them from stereotype and elevates them to human. My wish for you, Lana, is that your voice and vision are supported creatively, financially and never limited by anything but your imagination for the whole of your lifetime. And when my grandchildren ask how they got to live in a world where inclusion and love are the norm, I’ll teach them about bold visionary women like you.

Charley

Source: https://www.iheartfemaledirectors.com/lana...