Glamour Women of the Year Awards Push for Female Directors
When I was a teenager I read a lot of magazines, especially People, Entertainment Weekly, and Popular Science. Glamour was the first instance of letting me engage in an adult world that I was not yet a part of. Every issue dealt with subject matter that I had never been privy to, including sex, fashion, and self-empowerment. I no longer read this publication, but I still believe that out of all the magazines to choose from, Glamour is the best option for young women, and often provides a bit of guidance, while other mags fruitlessly try to relate to stereotypical caricatures of women, interested in the catty and trashy aspects of our culture.
One of the best aspects of the magazine was the women that it championed. Every year the magazine related the stories of women who had truly triumphed in the face of opposition and strife. These were women who had founded charities, given brilliant performances in some of my favorite films, and changed the world for the better. This year marked the 25th annual Glamour Women of the Year awards ceremony, and some of the phenomenal past winners have been in multiple categories, with people ranging from everyone from Hillary Clinton to Julia Roberts. This year’s winners spanned everyone from head of Planned Parenthood Cecilia Richards to ballerina Misty Copeland.
One of the best bits of news from the empowering ceremony was that each honoree had a short film about them at the ceremony, and every single one of them had been directed by a woman. This is a phenomenal, wonderful thing to do, because in reality women aren’t given the same amount of opportunities that male directors get. According to the Center for the Study of Women in Film and Television, only 7% of directors working in the industry were women. That’s up a whopping one percent from last year. Women only accounted for 11% of writers as well, which means that female driven stories are few and far between. The female driven storylines that do exist are often seen in independent film, like in the films of Lynn Shelton, Kris Swanberg, and Miranda July.
This point was well brought to light further in the ceremony when honoree Reese Witherspoon took the stage. Witherspoon has been a great advocate for female directors, having founded a film production company with the sole goal of making more female driven faire. In 2014 she released “Gone Girl,” (adapted by Gillian Flynn) and “Wild,” (based on the book by Cheryl Strayed) to great critical and commercial success. In her speech Witherspoon points out that there isn’t much for female characters to do in films besides saying, “What do we do now?” “I’m serious,” she laughed. “Go back and watch any movie, you will see this line over and over.” She also spoke on her Elle Woods role in “Legally Blonde” by saying she was inspired by the work of Gloria Steinem.
It shouldn’t be revolutionary for a ceremony to have all female directors for short films about women, but that’s what the industry has us believe. Not just here, but everywhere, women get the short end of the stick when it comes to opportunities to tell our stories. Many studios believe that these are niche films that only appeal to a small audience, but that simply isn’t true. Women getting to tell their stories are a new trend and it’s good for our society, which doesn’t understand the extent of female issues. With education comes understanding, and this century it’s time for women to have the same rights to be in the room as men. “What do we now?” We fight, and never give up.
