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Thursday, January 7, 2010

For Your Consideration: Is Kathryn Bigelow a Female Director?

I saw this article on IndieWire and had to put the link here too. There is so much conversation at the moment about female directors, female films (by and about), etc., largely due to the success of Kathryn Bigelow's achievement with The Hurt Locker

It's a shame that it is inevitable that when a woman performs well and out of the box (by doing an action film) in Hollywood that her gender needs to be the core of the publicity. Yes, everyone: women are talented and we really can make successful films.

I really wish we could get away from making the discussions so much about gender. I sigh every time the discussion goes to gender. We are equals to men and we need to have our gender be a non-issue. What I do like is that Ms. Bigelow's success should help this goal of making gender a non-issue. Let's hope so because we should all be focusing on making great films no matter who is making them! 

In any event, I thought this was a good one to share. I read the headline and was immediately drawn to it with my angst of yet another article about gender. But Matthew Knott highlights the issue behind all of the gender discussion. Here you go: For Your Consideration: Is Kathryn Bigelow a Female Director?

2 comments:

Lyn Blue said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jentri said...

Thanks for the post, Jane. I completely agree with you. The part about her,"... using her muscle to promote other women both behind the camera and on screen" I get, but don't fully agree with - and I'm a female filmmaker. Part of us women being 'equal' is about being able to create whatever genre films we're drawn to with no further agenda. And if that is the case, whether it be an action movie, dramatic comedy, or with a special focus of promoting women, shouldn't we simply be celebrating the fact that it was a good film? Women promote other women by being true to themselves.