Study shows sharp discrepancy between men, women in Hollywood

When Sara Jane Kennedy looked up directors currently working in Hollywood, she found more than 200 men and only 12 women listed.

Kennedy (senior-women's studies and film) used that example when she began her presentation Monday for her Current Feminist Issues class senior project, titled Girls vs. Boys: A Look at Directors in Hollywood Films.

Because the director is involved in the whole movie process from screenplay through editing, she said, they should also "be responsible for the images they are promoting."

Clips of four films were shown during the presentation. Kennedy chose the films at random and examined the positive and negative qualities of the male and female characters to demonstrate her point.

Clueless provided an intriguing look at a young woman. The main female character was seen initially as superficial, but eventually proves to be resourceful and intelligent. Clueless went against Hollywood's typical portrayal of love-at-first-sight romances, Kennedy said.

"Clueless took time to develop the main character's relationship right from the beginning of the film, which is something Hollywood usually doesn't have patience for," Joelle Grover (senior-women's studies) said.

Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives dealt with the disintegration of two couples' relationships due to the men's unfaithfulness.

Allen is an atypical male director, Kennedy said.

"Allen mostly has women as main characters who are not just a sexual presence, but make you think about them," she said.

She also noted many of the male characters in Allen's movies -- often those played by Allen himself -- are portrayed as inept and nerdy.

The other films she studied at random, Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider and Martin Scorsese's King of Comedy, did not provide much for Kennedy's study.

Easy Rider focused on two white men of the same class and did not have any prominent female characters.

King of Comedy's two "heroes," a man and a woman, are portrayed as delusional, but Kennedy said the audience ends up sympathizing with them nonetheless.

In the many other films Kennedy examined, she also noted several other general points:

• Male directors mainly make dramas while female directors mainly produce comedies.
  

• In nude scenes it is almost exclusively a woman being shown rather than a man.

Kennedy also explained one can not make generalizations about a director based just on his or her sex, but rather it is important to examine directors individually.

She used Kathryn Bigelow as an example, citing her film Strange Days as extremely violent and misogynistic. The film contained scenes of graphic brutality and sexual assault against women.

Kennedy's presentation in the Women's Studies conference room in Sparks was the first in a series of projects to be delivered by students of the Women's Studies 492 class.