After a few Facebook messages, I open Zoom and come face to face with my first film and media professor from Indiana University, Steve Krahnke. He sits in his cluttered office, I fondly remember going to office hours and having lunch with him many times, but the background is not what I’m focused on. Even the cicadas chirping next to me don’t bother me. I’m more focused on my ex-professor speaking about how it’s different being a man versus being a woman on a film set.
“You [women] have to actually say, ‘I’m not afraid of anything. If you have stuff that needs to get done, don’t be afraid to ask me.’ A man will never have to say that,” he says.
It’s a grim statement, but a true one. It seems so picture-perfect, but in reality, the film industry is gilded. Shiny on the outside, but corrupt on the inside. The seemingly perfect industry runs rampant with gender bias and discrimination. Its start and history rewritten by men in the industry, “Hollywood” has become filled with underpaid and stereotyped women.
“You get a lot of, and I think every woman has experienced it, that look. Where usually a man who is above you in paygrade, sometimes not even above you, but they’ll look at you and they will see someone incapable. That patronizing, size you up in one look stare,” Jessalyn says.
She’s the newest connection I’ve made in the industry, a set designer and dresser by trade, and we spoke for almost 2 hours about her experiences in the industry. I was sitting outside on my porch, slightly sweltering in the Florida heat as Jessalyn painted the picture for me.
“I was in Atlanta working on a project, and I tried to get ‘in’ with the group, but it was a boy’s team,” she says. I watch her dangly earrings sway as she speaks animatedly about this very niche part of the film industry and projects she has worked on.
“If you're not the best at your job by a mile, I feel like a lot of us [women] get glanced over.” The statement brings my mind back to something Professor Krahnke said during his interview.
“When everyone else stands back, you [women] need to come forward. It’s really a patriarchy thing,” he says. “The film industry is a collaborative industry. And to work together you need to respect each other. And not everyone is taught respect in the same way.”
It struck me in a weird way. We spoke more about how “the gentlemanly” thing might be seen as discrimination in certain settings. Opening a door for a woman or giving the heavy lifting job to a man instead, can make a woman feel isolated in the workplace or classroom. I almost got my degree in screenwriting. I spent two years taking film classes at IU, some with Krahnke, and amongst my male peers I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb, and I’m not the only one to feel this way.
Krahnke got me in touch with another IU film student, Amy. I hadn’t spoken to her since freshman year (2018) and since we last spoke, she’s gotten involved with multiple student shows and is graduating this year, so she’s entering the professional workplace.
“At one point I thought that sexism was reserved for professional workspaces and I learned really quickly that it happens everywhere especially college campuses,” she told me. She spoke of male-dominated writing rooms and sexist jokes being written for a late-night show she had helped direct. Even as a director, the one person everyone is supposed to respect, there’s still pushback against a woman doing the job versus a man.
I got another film student’s opinion on it, this time a man. Jarod, another student I met in a film class, FaceTimed me late on a Thursday night to speak to me. I took a few bites of my microwave mac and cheese dinner as Jarod started what turned into a 30-minute discussion about the “fetishization” of women in the film industry as we have so lovingly dubbed it.
“There’s not enough representation in the industry,” he says. I give him a deadpan look.
“Ok, yes, duh, but there’s not enough influence of women in film,” he continues. “You don’t see enough movies made by female directors, and if it is made by a woman, the only way it gets touted or talked about is like this, ‘Oh my God, it was directed by a woman’ voice. Just like everyone’s saying about “Nomadland” right now.”
A week later after our conversation, Nomadland won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, Chloé Zhao won Best Director, and thus Twitter blew up about her. Not about her film, just about how she’s the only woman of color to have won Best Director. It’s an amazing accomplishment, I cannot lie, but it’s also a perfect example of how female directors are held on a weird pedestal.
Amy also spoke about this, closer to the end of our interview. “Women in this industry just have to walk this fine line between being a ‘pushover’ and being a ‘bitch’,” she said, with emphasis on the air quotes. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar as my mom always says.
“Yeah, I think there’s this weird stereotype that women have to be ‘nice’,” I say. “Not that you shouldn’t be nice, but people take ambition and see it as aggression when it comes from a woman rather than a man.”
We both fall silent for a bit. Amy plays with her hair, frustration clear on her face. She pulls at her sleeves, an IU pullover, and I note how I have the same one, I tell her I stole mine from my ex. It lightens the mood and the interview really ended there, we did speak for another 15 minutes, but it was just anecdotal relationship stories (some being about other people in the film industry).
I had a few days to process all of these interviews before I completed the last two I had set up. It took a while to realize the weight of what I had been told so far. The film industry has so much testosterone flowing through its network that some people don’t even recognize sexism as it happens in front of their eyes. I figured my last two interviews would be lighter as they were with a costume designer and a stuntwoman. Two extremely niche parts of the industry. I was wrong.
Jade, one of my connections from when I interned for a professional TV show, answered the Zoom call from her car, on the way to her husband’s vaccine appointment. New York passed by the window next to her as she reminded me of things I had experienced and not even realized were happening on the set of the show we worked on together.
“There’s definitely favoritism for women who are attractive,” she says, her curly hair bouncing as she hits a small pothole in the road. “Women whose personal style is ‘different’ or maybe even ‘frumpy’, they don’t get pushed front and center. For example, they wouldn’t get to work with an A-list actor.”
Flashbacks of certain women on our costume team not ever being on set come to my mind. “In this day and age, hyper-sexualized beauty standards for women are set by the media: white, thin, long legs, toned abs, cleavage, and big hair. Sex sells” (Pinsky, 2014).
“What about men? Like do you think that would have ever happened to Drew?” I say, referring to one of the men we had worked with in the costume department.
“There’s almost this reverse sexism in costuming I think,” she says. “Because costuming is so female-dominated, men tend to be… overlooked in a way.”
I really thought about this for days after the interview. Although I had a plethora of women in my mind, I tried to come up with names of male costume designers in my head and I came up with blanks. Absolutely nothing. So there’s not only sexism from men against women, there’s sexism from women against women, men against men, and women against men.
Corissa, another woman trying to make it as a director in the industry, spoke of not being respected on set.
“The very first project that I was ever a part of, something I noticed was, they had these writer’s rooms. There would be between 7 and 15 writers and it would always be full of discussion and brainstorming that kind of stuff,” she says. She is sitting “criss-cross-applesauce” on her chair and motioning into the air. “They had their standard ‘crew’ of writers on staff and then they had these giant brainstorms where they would bring in outside writers to aid them and nobody on the regular crew was a woman.”
My jaw drops in shock at Corrissa’s story.
“Yeah, I know! I always thought it was weird,” she laughs a bit at my reaction. The story doesn’t even end there.
“They certainly engaged in way less conversation with me than my male
counterparts," she said. "There was only one time there was a female writer and when I walked into the room I was like, ‘What the fuck?!’ It was such a shock and when I took their lunch orders she was the only one who looked me in the eye. She actually looked at me and was like, ‘What’s your name?’ It was honestly really cool.”
The added boost of self-confidence from interactions like this creates a healthier workspace for everyone.
Jessalyn said something similar about how women care more about their coworkers.
“Women who end up in charge are more likely to take care of the people working for them, and understand their needs than a lot of the men who do the same jobs.”
It’s not even just in film that people feel this way, it’s everywhere. “Now, a new survey reveals that women-led organizations are also more likely to have engaged, inspired and satisfied employees than male-led firms. It turns out that companies led by women aren't just good for business; they are also good for employees” (Castrillon, 2019).
The day of my final interview arrives, it is ‘finals week’, I’m exhausted, but this was definitely the highlight of the whole week. Naomi, a stuntwoman, heard about my article through a mutual friend and I was eager to interview her once she asked. I sat in my bed, sweatpants on and my hair in a messy bun. It was 1 pm and I had woken up less than an hour before, a true testament to being a student. Naomi was in the same boat, but it was noon for her as she’s on Central Time.
Sleep was evident in her voice, but her thoughts were clear and only further expanded on what many of my other interviewees had also mused about.
“Sometimes I think like, well if I get cast as this role or make a connection, is it because they [a man] wants to sleep with me? Or is it because they genuinely like my talent?”
Jessalyn mentioned this as well. She spoke about the incestuous relationships in the film industry and the way advances from higherups get brushed off as “normal”. A ‘carefully’ placed hand, a passive-aggressive comment, a sneering glance. “These things get so normalized that no one bats an eye.”
Naomi also spoke about practicing stunts with others and having a supervisor ask if she didn’t want to hold a pad because a man would be kicking it.
“It’s like just freaking kick the pad! I’m not weak!”
“I feel like in instances like that, women are just seen as weak for some reason,” I say.
“And we are not! That’s why it’s frustrating,” Naomi says with a laugh.
“I feel like the consensus of all my interviews is that women are just underestimated in every aspect of film,” I say.
My last question for all of my interviews was, “How can this be fixed? Can it even be fixed?” A bit existential, but everyone was on the same wavelength for this. There’s been progress, but it’s not enough. There needs to be better representation in the industry and better role models. Professor Krahnke put it into words.
“Progress isn’t linear. Two steps forward sometimes means taking one step back.”
External References
Castrillon, C. (2019, March 26). Why women-led companies are better for employees. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecastrillon/2019/03/24/why-women-led-companies-are-better-for-employees/?sh=45d88d63264a
Pinsky, P. (2014, June 3). Don't Blame Girls for Their Own Sexualization.
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