Kristen Stewart is now part of a group of female directors, yet she finds it hard to feel celebratory about it.
Stewart is in the process of creating her debut feature film, adapting the 2011 book "The Chronology of Water" by Lidia Yuknavitch. In a chat with Porter about the project, she expressed, "[It's about] this idea that we can tick off checkboxes and then abolish the patriarchy, how we're all a part of it."
"They'll be like, 'Check out this movie starring Maggie Gyllenhaal or Margot Robbie.' And you're like, 'Alright, cool.' You've selected four... And I'm in awe of them, I adore them, but it feels fake. If we're patting each other on the back for widening perspective, when we haven't made enough progress, we stop widening our horizons," Stewart stated.
Research supports Stewart's sentiments.
"Out of the top 100 highest-grossing films in 2023, only 30 featured a female or woman in a primary or co-primary role. This is a big drop from 2022 when 44 films had a female/woman lead," noted a February analysis by USC Annenberg that evaluated the gender, race/ethnicity, and age of the leading and co-leading actors for every movie.
"This is a major setback for girls and women in film. In the past 14 years, we've been tracking advancement in the industry, but to observe this retreat is both alarming and conflicting with the rhetoric surrounding 2023 as the 'year of the woman,'" Smith stated. "These numbers are more than just a measurement of how often girls and women hold lead roles. They show the job possibilities presented to women in the entertainment industry. This year, we found that these opportunities have significantly shrunk."
The report also examined "how frequently directors of films with females and underrepresented leads/co-leads belonged to the exact same group identity."
"Of the 30 movies with a female or woman in a lead/co-lead role, 36.7% were directed by women while 63.3% were directed by men. And in 51.3% of the 37 films with an underrepresented lead/co-lead, the director was also from an underrepresented background, whereas 48.7% were not. In contrast, just 4.3% of films lacking a female/woman lead had a female director and 9.5% of movies without an underrepresented lead had an underrepresented director."
Stewart's latest film, "Love Lies Bleeding," premiered in March.
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Source: edition.cnn.com
