Are You Kidding Me Right Now? Woman Didn’t Get Job Because “Lead Actor Hates Female Directors”

I’d love to know which show she was describing.

Anyone else checking imdb right now? “House” and “24″ had exclusively male directors for their first seasons.

Why did she not file a discrimination suit?

I’m sorry but women GENERALLY (and YES there are exceptions) just don’t respond to visuals in the same way men do, and this is why its a male dominated profession. Visual storytelling just doesn’t generally come as naturally to the female brain as verbal storytelling. Bret Easton Ellis said as much about Mary Harron. Why does every profession have to have a 50/50 split when fewer women are interested or able? Equality of opportunity doesn’t mean equality of outcome.

Prison Break did too

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’re a man.

If so: please explain exactly why you think you know so much about what does and does not “come naturally to the female brain” when you don’t even have one.

It said there was one female director in the first season. And that she wasn’t invited back. So it’s season 2 onwards that would have been male only, if I’m getting that right.

http://www.bps.org.uk/news/men-respond-strongly-visual-stimuli

There’s a TON of research that has found men respond more to visual stimulus than women do, is it such a stretch to see this as a reasonable explanation why there are fewer women attracted to film making, comics etc when compared to, say, prose fiction? If there is a big gender imbalance in a profession, the obvious solution isn’t necessarily ‘misogyny’, the evil males just don’t want them around etc. In this case, it is likely that more men than women are wired to think visually.

Essentialist much? Also if it’s the show I think it is (see above) it had a primarily female audience so even if you were right, the show should want a woman’s vision.

You’re talking about a sex commonly stereotyped for widespread obsession with fashion, make-up/beauty, decor, and general looking at stuff, right?

I’m just thankful it wasn’t Bones, I’ve beard Boreanaz can be a #$%@#

So then I think it was The O.C. It had 1 woman director its first season.

But you’re commenting on a story about a woman who does have this interest, where specific conditions on the ground kept her from an opportunity!

There’s a difference between wishing for a 50/50 split everywhere and being outraged by someone not getting a job they are qualified for just because their bits don’t dangle.

Whoa, but the point of this article was that a woman who won a prestigious directing award–beating out plenty of men, I have no doubt–was not offered the same opportunities as a man who won the same award in a later year. So she clearly does have talent, but she wasn’t given a chance because of blatant misogyny. Apparently the lead actor had a bad experience with a female director, but it is completely ridiculous to conclude that, therefore, all female directors are bad to work with. Not giving a proven talent a chance solely because of her gender, and drawing conclusions about a person based on the actions of a totally unrelated person who just happens to be the same gender–that’s sexist. African Americans are a similarly underrepresented group in directing, but how would it sound if the guy had said, “Sorry, the lead actor doesn’t like working with black directors. We had a black guy once and it didn’t go well, so never again!” It would sound horribly racist. Because it would be.

Are you kidding me? This study talks about what people responds to in their relationship. It has nothing to do with how good they are at finding the right shot for the right scene.
Besides, if your overall point makes some sense, that 50/50 in every domain would be unrealistic, the balance currently stand at 89/11. Don’t you find that proportion a bit suspicious? You’re gonna tell me that women out there don’t have the “visual flair” of a Brett Ratner or a Joel Schumacher?

Your link cites just one person, a “relationship psychologist” who claims that men respond more strongly to visual stimuli than women. Um…

First off, I am a female Art Director for a game production studio and I paint and draw comics on the side. I regularly draw, animate and design at my job, and half the designers with me are female gamers and artists (they were all hired by our male boss who saw more potential in their artistic sensibilities than many male contenders).

Nothing in my experiences with artists and filmmakers has suggested that men are any more visually apt or creative than women. But the film industry was originally dominated by men, so it will take a while to balance out and represent the artistic views of the other half of the human population…

Really? Two-thirds of my University’s visual, fine, advertising, and performing arts departments are comprised of female students. Maybe they should quit now because their brains don’t process visual images as efficiently as their 1/3 of their male counterparts. Also, prose fiction is a genre still dominated by male authors. Should these male authors cease publishing because they would be better suited to making visual images?
Agreed with calling out this gendred point of view as essentialist and sexist.

Because she didn’t actually apply for the position.

Well, Boris…no. There is a reason why there are so many female artists and picture-book artists. We respond to visuals as deeply as men. Let’s see what happens when women take the helm of films: ‘The Hurt Locker’, ‘The Proposition’, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, ‘The Prince of Tides’, ‘Pay It Forward’, ‘The Virgin Suicides’, ‘Lost In Translation’, ‘Chocolat’, tons of stuff by Penny Marshall, and yes, ‘American Psycho’. Even ‘Wayne’s World’ and ‘Real Genius’, for crying out loud. All women. I could go on. I could also start mentioning famous films from France and Germany, or Korea and Japan. But I’ll leave it here.

If like Ellis you don’t enjoy Rom-Coms, or ‘American Psycho’, fine. I don’t either. I also hate the ‘Transformers’ franchise with a fiery passion, and think that movies that go around blowing things up right and left are stupid. That doesn’t mean I think all men suck at making movies. I think if the old rich white guys holding Hollywood’s purse strings would nut up and allow women directors take interesting projects we’d all be pleased with the results (although there will continue to be ocasional stinkers, just as there are with male directors).

There are no words. All I can possibly say is, please provide sources that state that Men are better at Visual Storytelling because that is something that i have NEVER heard of. If you’re referring to the fact that men are more likely to be visually stimulated then you got your theories screwed up as that does not denote any sort of bias in terms of actually being able to be more CONCEPTUALLY creative since that’s what you need to be good at in this industry.

Cause.

You know.

It’s a concept that you bring to life.

I shouldn’t bother with an anwer but why not? First of all the female director was not told she is not good enough because of the faux science you are claiming, she was told she won’t be hired because she is famale. Second… “Feldman, who is co-chair of the The Women’s Steering Committee of the Directors Guild of America, points out that USC’s School of Cinematic Arts student body is currently half female — women studying to direct” more on that on http://jezebel.com/5949307/most-of-the-women-on-tv-are-being-directed-by-men

There have been numerous studies that found women are better at multitasking than men are. Since directors need to be in charge of many things at the same time, it seems that women are better suited to directing than men are. Studies show that women are better at picking up facial queues than men are, so any scene in which facial expressions are going to be important should have a female director, who would be better able to see if they come out right. Another study I read recently shows that men are better at perceiving detail and depth in the center of their field of vision, while women are better at seeing details farther to their periphery. So really, we’ll get the best movies if men direct everything happening in the center of the screen and women direct everything happening around it.

First of all, studies like these need to be taken with a grain of salt, because sometimes another study will come out with opposing conclusions, or there were too many other factors that weren’t accounted for, etc. But more importantly, basing an entire gender’s suitability for a complex and highly varied occupation on one small reported difference can lead you to some strange conclusions. Until we see a study titled “1000 children raised in bubble from birth and treated exactly the same way have short film contest 25 years later: 9 out of the top 10 films directed by men”, I don’t think we can really draw any conclusions about how innately well suited women vs. men are to directing.

Just because men like to ogle at boobs (cause that is was your link is basically about) doesn’t make them want to be story tellers. Seeing as there are many many many women interested in visual story telling (not just film but also comics, etc.) and the fact that feminism is a relatively recent invention (compared to centuries of discrimination) I’d rather go with “culturally induced misogyny”.

Welp… my two years at university to do Film Studies have clearly been a waste of time if this is what I’m going to come up against. May as well quit now, settle down and get married(!) SERIOUSLY WHAT THE HELL?! I hope she kicked up a fuss and I really want to know which show shes talking about.

Google-Fu preliminary results: there are only 5 Fox Dramas that had had at least one season under their belts in 2006 (when she won her award) 2 are Bones and the O.C. that have both had a few female directors, 1 is House (which has had female directors, and is the one her friend worked on) 1 is Prison Break, which only had one female director, but she directed multiple episodes over multiple seasons (the first in the second season (2006). The last one is 24, which appears to never have had a credited female director.

Let the speculating begin!

So Bones, House and O.C. are ruled out due to them having various female directors. This leaves 24 and Prison Break, in my mind anyway.

Yeah well let’s hope this Actor ends up washed up in the near future for that comment

Maybe the actor should be fired for not being able to handle 52% of the population.