Women in Film Los Angeles is encouraging a simple pledge for 2016. Their goal is to get as many people as possible to watch 52 films made by women in 2016. Sign up, then share the films you watch on social media. That's it. It's as simple as that. There is a significant gender disparity in Hollywood, and it's been clear for decades that the Hollywood machine is not going to correct that itself. It doesn't matter how often a film directed by a woman or written by a woman becomes a big critical or commercial hit; the films that gain the most attention by and large come from men. Hollywood offers the big franchises to men. Hollywood rewards male directors with their highest accolades, rarely even nominating women for directing at the Academy Awards.
While preparing my Best of 2015 list, I was actually shocked by how few women were represented behind the camera in my own viewings. Though women make up just over 50% of the population in the United States, only 13% of the 2015 films I watched were directed by women. The ratio is significantly worse if I look at all the films I would have liked to watch based on awards chatter and word of mouth.
So what can be done? We have to put work in ourselves. If we want more women to have a voice in Hollywood, we need to support the work they put out. We need to see these films in theaters, stream them on Netflix, buy them for ourselves, and talk about them. The more money they make, the clearer the support for women in film.
We shouldn't stop there. People of color and LGBTQ people are also significantly underrepresented in mainstream cinema. Choosing to support women in film does not abdicate us of the responsibility to allow other ignored voices to go unheard. As hard as it is for a woman to find mainstream success behind the camera in Hollywood, it's even harder for a woman of color or a queer woman to find even that limited success.
Signing the 52 Films by Women pledge is a way to start correcting course in the industry. It might not seem like one person can make a big difference in the entertainment industry. All those individual voices add up with dollar signs if we actually vote for change with our money.
So far in 2016, I've watched Advantageous and What Happened, Miss Simone?. Only 50 more weeks to go.
Will you join me and sign the pledge?
