January 12, 2019 • 44 mins
When the Oscars snubbed 'Selma' director Ava DuVernay, it left many with a bigger question about the absence of black female directors in Hollywood. In this classic Oscar season episode, Cristen and Caroline search behind the camera for women of color.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, this is Annie, and you're listening to stuff never
told you. You may have heard recently about some controversy
surrounding Kevin Hart and the Oscars. Heart was all set
(00:27):
to host the Oscars until some homophobic tweets from his
Twitter account resurface, posted between two thousand nine and two eleven.
When called on to apologize by the Academy and the
public at large, Heart resisted at first, saying given the
choice to apologize or stepped down, he'd rather step down
than quote feed the internet rolls, and that he had
(00:48):
evolved and he wasn't sorry. He eventually did step down
and apologize, as in Eventually hours later, he issued this statement.
I have made the choice to step down from hosting
this year's Oscars. This is because I do not want
to be a distraction on a night that should be
celebrated by so many amazing, talented artists. I sincerely apologize
(01:09):
to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.
I'm sorry that I hurt people. I am evolving and
want to continue to do so. My goal is to
bring people together, not tears apart. Much love and appreciation
to the Academy. I hope we can meet again. As
of recording this, the Oscars have yet to find a
replacement host, and there's even talk that there won't be
(01:32):
a host at all, which would be for the first
time that's happened. Since I'm available, my rates pretty dang high,
and my jokes will be lame and outdated, so you know,
it's a mixed bag, but I'm throwing my hat in
the ring. I actually think personally that no one really
wants this job. But I'd love to see a person
of color, a queer person, a woman, someone otherwise, someone
(01:56):
like that take the job. And this is certainly not
the first time the Oscars have been subject of a controversy.
Oscars so white, the lack of women and diversity, and
many categories. In this classic episode, we take a look
back at the first female director, So please enjoy. Welcome
(02:18):
to Stuff Mob Never told you from how stupp Works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and it is oscar week on the podcast.
That's that's right. Last time, we talked about sort of
the history and evolution of women in the director's chair,
(02:42):
and that was fascinating. We learned so much incredible history
that I frankly had no idea about. But we also
wanted to focus today's episode on those trailblazing, groundbreaking African
American directors who were out there, both who laid the
groundwork back d hundred years ago, but also the women
who are working so hard in the industry today. Yeah,
(03:04):
because there was one issue with Monday's episode that came
out was that, yeah, we were talking about history, but
we were also covering three white women. And while there
are barriers unique to females in particular who want to direct,
there are even more barriers in place for women of
(03:25):
color who want to direct. And before we get into
the rather depressing statistics, to be honest, I just want
to establish the fact that yes, they are out there,
they are making their films despite these barriers, and there
are names that you should know. And I tweeted a
friend of mine, Lauren Shacker, who is in l A,
(03:47):
who is a totally badass feminist making films, and I
asked her for suggestions of women of color directors we
should give shout outs to, and the response from her
Twitter followers and other women in Hollywood making films was overwhelming.
And these aren't exclusively African American women in the director's seat,
(04:08):
which we're going to focus on in this episode. But
just to tea things off, we wanted to share some
of the names that we got from Twitter. Yeah, we
heard about women like Nima Barnett, Milicent Shelton, Jane's A Bravo,
Debbie Allen, Mina Schum, Alice Woo, Julie Dash, who will
talk about more in this episode. Yeah, I gotta tell you, Caroline,
I had a real celebrity feeling moment on Twitter when
(04:31):
Julie Dash retweeted our tweet, like, oh my god, we
connected to Julie Dash. And if you don't know who
Julie Dashes, you'll understand in a few minutes why that
was such a big moment. And that wasn't all. There
were even more names, Yeah, like Tany're right, Alma Assante,
who were about to mention, sa Ray Darnell, Martin Suki
and Lee and Marta Cunningham, just to mention a few. Yeah,
(04:54):
and we're gonna gather all of these up into a
gallery on stuff I've never told you com with links
to IMDb pages and films, so that if you didn't
catch all of those names, don't worry, you will be
able to find them on our website. So here's where
we get to the not so fun facts that, yes,
(05:15):
these women absolutely exist, they're doing incredible work. But in
our episode on Monday, we highlighted how there are in
Hollywood about fifteen point two four male directors to every
female director. Right, we pointed out that it was fifteen
men and a stations. Yes, the point two four pins.
(05:36):
But then if you narrow it down to female directors
of color, the number gets even tinier. And speaking to
the root director alma As Sante and she she directed
the movie Bell, which I went and saw when it
came out in theaters. She pointed out that black women
makeup just one percent of directors over all, one percent.
(05:58):
And consider this too. In the Nantes, only twenty eight
films were directed by black women, twenty eight feature films,
I should say, only three of those were released nationally,
and only one of those had a major Hollywood release.
So when we're talking about barriers in terms of women filmmaking,
this is a group that honestly probably faces the most
(06:20):
challenges in terms of getting a film made, especially in Hollywood. Yeah,
but this doesn't mean that there aren't some amazing women
out there. Obviously, as we've been trying to establish. You've
got women like Maya Angelou who directed Down in the Delta.
She had actually, as we'll talk about earlier, had wanted
to direct a previous screenplay that she'd written, but she
didn't get the opportunity. You've got Gina Prince Bythewood who
(06:43):
directed Love and Basketball, which was produced by Spike Lee,
and Casey Lemmons who directed Eve's Bayou, which is definitely
going into my Netflix queue. And then we have Cheryl
Dunier who directed the film Watermelon Woman, and Dannie is
actually the first openly gay Black female director and as
well talk about a more detail in just a minute.
(07:04):
The modern history of black women directing films is rather recent,
but what a lot of people might not know is
that even in those early days of film, there were
black female trailblazers like the women we were talking about
in Monday's episode, like the Alice Ki Bluches. Yeah, and
(07:28):
their goal was not only to direct movies, be involved
in the film industry, but also to really put forth
an effort to present a more accurate portrayal of the
lives of African Americans, that they weren't one dimensional characters
who were all servants or maids, that they had just
as rich an inner life as any other character on screen.
(07:50):
And so a lot of this information is coming from
media messages, what film, TV, and popular music teach us
about race um. And we also cannot emphasize an of
how great of a resource Columbia University's Women Film Pioneers
Project is. It's online and all of the women were
going to talk about are also profiled over there. And
(08:10):
the first one we want to talk about is Trussey Souders,
who in the Black Press named her the first black
woman director with the film A Woman's Error, which was
distributed by the Afro American Film Exhibitors Company based in
Kansas City, Missouri, and she also wrote the screenplay. And
what's interesting is that profile points out that in the
(08:33):
ninete city director city directory for Kansas City, Missouri, and
if you do any sort of family or history research,
you realize how important those city directories are to look
back at, but they listed her as a maid, and
so I think it's so interesting also to look at
the career path that these women take and still today
that these women take to get behind the camera, but
(08:53):
then that leads us to Eloy's King Patrick just She
was an independent businesswoman who also produced film lms with
her husband, so there's that same husband wife team connection
that we also talked about in the first episode. But
her films had a super strong moral bent for the
purpose of social uplift. For instance, her crime drama Verdict
(09:13):
Not Guilty is often screened by the Inn double a
c P and the interestingly titled hell Bound Train preached
temperance for her audience well, and thinking about Verdict Not
Guilty in today's context with all of the national conversations
going on regarding race relations. That was a film that
(09:35):
she was making in the silent era about the criminal
justice system and race. So films that are still relevant
today and just focused more on writing and editing than
actual directing. But she's still a really important figure who
is also acknowledged by the Library of Congress. Yeah, they're
actually putting in an effort, and I don't know how
(09:56):
far along they are in these efforts. I'd love to
hear an update if anybody has one. But they have
been working to edit and restore her films, which basically
were in shreds. I mean, you know, we've we talked
about the films of the women in our first episode,
that they were also damaged and super hard to find,
these early films, and that some of them were founded
(10:16):
in a state sale in a trunk. And so you
can just imagine what film from this era is like
if it's not cared for well. And apparently Verdict Not
Guilty was screened so often that that's one of the
reasons why it's in tatters, because it was just used
so so many times. But then we also have Maria P. Williams,
who was a social activist. Not surprising, I mean, it
(10:38):
seems like all of these women have um activism in
their blood. And she wrote the pamphlet My Work and
Public Sentiment in nineteen sixteen, so she was already getting
her voice out there. And she and her husband again
that that marriage tie right there. They operated a motion
picture theater and we're instrumental with the Western film producing
(10:59):
company any and Booking Exchange, and so that kind of
got her into this burgeoning industry. Yeah, and she produced, distributed,
and acted in her own film, The Flames of Wrath,
and so well, she isn't explicitly a lady director, She's
still an incredibly important figure. And it is important to
(11:20):
point out also that the term producer was sort of
used ambiguously back in those days. So basically, I think
it's fine to count her as a trailblazing filmmaker. Absolutely.
I mean, at the time, the Norfolk Journal and Guide
hailed her as the first quote colored woman film producer
in the United States, which clearly was an exciting moment,
(11:41):
so we wanted to We thought it was important to
establish that, yes, there is that early history right there.
Black women have been working in filmmaking since the beginning
of that technology. But here's the thing that the big
difference that jumped out to me in US tar thinking
about those early white female directors and this group of
(12:04):
black directors you still have. Even with white female directors,
there is definitely a gap in Hollywood, particularly post World
War Two, but when it comes to black female directors,
there's nothing in Hollywood. You have no Dorothy Arsner or
Ida Lupino equivalent in those earlier days of Hollywood, because
(12:24):
it's not until the late nineteen eighties that black women
even get behind the camera in mainstream Hollywood. Right, Yeah,
there is there is a line between the independent films
and the documentaries that women of color putting out and
actually getting to be behind the camera in Hollywood, like
you said, And so it's interesting to look at the
(12:45):
route that women take to becoming successful directors. And that's
something that Melvin Donaldson writes about in his book Black
Directors in Hollywood, specifically about how black women filmmakers have
consistent either by choice or by you know, financial necessity,
had to go the independent route and often gravitated toward
(13:08):
documentary filmmaking for that reason. And I mean there was
also a certain appeal to particularly when it comes to
documentary filmmaking, because they quote provide an opportunity for inscribing
the untold accounts of black public and private figures in
the historical record. Going back again to those early when
(13:29):
we talked about who weren't just making films for the
sake of making films, but making films that could accurately
portray black life and black community. Yeah, and you get
Jesse Maple in the early eighties, who was driven by
this need and desire to present more positive images of
the African American community. And so in n one she
becomes the first black female director of an independent feature
(13:52):
length film called Will and it focuses around a girl's
basketball coach who has a heroine problem, but who is
also mentoring a twelve year boy and it was shot
on just a twelve thou dollar budget. And what's so
interesting when you talk about the roots that people take
to to get where they're going. She actually didn't start
her career in film until after she worked as a bacteriologist,
(14:14):
and it was that desire to want to inject positive
images of black women and black men into the media
that that really drove her. But she was also the
first black woman to join the Filmmakers Union, which is interesting.
And she was highly influential in black cinema, starting twenty
West Home of Black Cinema in her basement in Harlem
(14:34):
in the nineteen eighties. That showcased the newest in black film,
and she would brag that they showed Spike Lee films
where anyone else showed Spike Lee films. But looking outside
of the independent route and looking to Hollywood, there's such
a dearth of black female directors because of a lot
of institutional factors that come up. Um obviously talented black
(14:58):
female directors exist, but they're likelier to quote sidestep the
frustrating studio system and complete low budget projects. Remember, people,
it always goes back to the money. But also that's
usually the go to factor in terms of white female
directors not getting these larger Hollywood scale projects. But there's
(15:20):
an added wrinkle when it comes to black female filmmakers
that it's the money, but also the content too, of
people being like, well, I don't know if these stories
need to be told about these black communities. Yeah, whether
they need to be told, or whether they'll translate to
a larger audience and national audience that is white or
an international audience that might not catch everything if it's
(15:42):
lost in translation. I mean, I'm not saying that, I'm
saying that those are a lot of the producers and
studio systems concerns. Yeah, that was my impression of the
studio talking like this very stiff. But then, as Melvin
Donaldson writes about again in black directors in Hollywood in
the nineties and they're late eighties, but really in the nineties,
(16:02):
some black women directors start getting a few more opportunities
to work, and I mean this is this is again
in contrast to white women directors, who again lots of barriers,
but still had more more access, and he attributes it
to a few factors. Starting in the nineteen eighties, he
(16:24):
mentions how black male directors kind of paved the way
just in the sense of telling the stories of people
of color and establishing that, hey, this is a valid
and important and also successful financially form of entertainment. Right.
And you also have the rise in black female authors
being published in the mid seventies onward, and then bringing
(16:47):
those literary characters alive on screen. For example, we had
Lorraine Hansberry and a Raisin in the Sun, Terry McMillan
and waiting to Exhale, Alice Walker and the color Purple.
Of course, a more recently Chimamanda Negoes The Adici and Americana, Yeah,
which I can't already can't wait to see. And in
addition to the importance of greater visibility of black women
(17:10):
in front of the screen, both the big screen and
the small screen. It's all about this process of normalizing.
It's just wild to me that we're talking about this
in the context of only the nineteen nineties, not the
eighteen nineties. The nineteen nineties. So why don't we talk
about some more contemporary trail blazers and women who were
(17:32):
breaking through those barriers to make their films. Yeah, well,
you know, mentioning my Angela again. She is the first
black woman to have a feature film screenplay produced with
ninety two Georgia Georgia, and she had wanted to direct
it but didn't and she ended up being unhappy with
the final product and she had to wait to sit
(17:54):
in the director's chair until down in the Delta. And
she has a great quote about, hey, books are my
old movies or your world. If I'm doing something that
seems odd or wrong, please pull me aside and we'll
go for a walk together and you can tell me
that way. Yeah. I had fun google imaging images of
Maya Angelou and the director's chair. Um, and it's as
(18:17):
it's exactly what you think. It looks like. It's Maya
Angelo and a director's chair. She looks like she's having
a good time. I didn't realize though, that she was
a director. And also, I mean, you know, the first
black woman to have a feature film screenplay produced. Yeah,
who knew? Well, that's why we're here. Kristen that's why
we're talking about this today exactly, hopefully spreading some knowledge. Um.
Then there's the amazing us and Policy. She's the first
(18:39):
black woman to direct a major Hollywood studio feature film,
the movie A Dry White Season in nine nine. It's
about apartheid and it's starring the A listers Donald Sutherland,
Marlon Brando, and Susan Surrandon. Brando actually came out of
retirement to work in this film, and he ended up
getting his final Oscar nomination four his role in her film.
(19:01):
And Policy is the only woman to ever direct Marlon Brando,
which is pretty interesting and other moment of celebrity Twitter excitement.
She also weighed in on the tweet about women of
color directors. Yes, yes, so I mean that right there.
The fact that that she and Julie Dash were hopping
(19:22):
on board of this conversation shows just how much activism
there still is around this specific issue. Um. And talking again,
we about her route into filmmaking. It started pretty early.
She was born on the island of Martinique and made
her first film in France at seventeen. Yeah, and in
(19:43):
three her first feature film, Sugarcane Alley, was presented at
the Venice Film Festival, and she became the first black
artist to win a Caesar and a Silver Lion Award
at Venice. And when it comes to the importance of
a Dry White Season, not only was it groundbreaking in
the sense of who was making it, but also its content.
It helped bring attention to apartheid and genocide happening in
(20:06):
South Africa. So I mean, clearly that just goes to
show the importance of getting these new and diverse perspectives
because they're the storytellers. Yeah. Well, now let's talk about
Julie Dash, who we've mentioned at the top of the podcast.
And people are probably like, Okay, you've mentioned Julie Dash
like five times, what is the day? Why are you
so obsessed with Julie Dash. Well, Julie Dash, listener friends,
(20:30):
was an independent filmmaker who ended up making the very
first general theatrical release directed by a black woman. About
that for a title, Yeah, that's Daughters of the Dust,
which explored the complexities of a black family with a
black female protagonist, and it was shot for eight hundred
thousand dollars on St. Helena Island off the coast of
(20:51):
South Carolina, and it it i This is another film
that I'm adding to my list of things that I
have to go see because it sounds just incredibly fascinating.
The way that it presents this multi generational look at
this African American family and the technique that it uses
to tell the story is so interesting, focusing on the
voice of an unborn child to sort of help bridge
(21:12):
those generations and look into the past at where the
families come from. It also look into the future and
where they're going. Yeah. And in Monday's episode on the
those pioneering Hollywood directors, we also mentioned at the top
of that episode the importance of sun Dance, the Sundance
Film Festival for showcasing um filmmakers of color and female filmmakers,
(21:35):
and that was where Daughters of the Dust first caught
people's attention. And in terms of film critique and analysis,
Donaldson writes that Dash reveals what no other Hollywood filmmaker
had done in the past, namely that black women possessed
physical and spiritual beauty as well as psychological diversity. Yeah,
(21:57):
and it's those representations that Dash is talking about in
Daughters of the Dust when she has this quote about
how it affects men male male viewers in the audience,
and she says, I think that for a lot of
white males and blackmails too, they get to go there
and assume the personality of the characters on screen. A
(22:18):
lot of people couldn't do that for Daughters of the Dust.
I mean, I've seen men run out of the theater
and I think that's so funny. She's she's presenting an
incredibly important voice and incredibly important perspective, but talking about
how some members of my audience just can't handle it well.
And that goes to to considering why it is important
(22:39):
to talk about female directors and that influence because what
is on screen is reflected on what's behind screen. And
we talked to all the time about the importance of
like representation and visibility and a lot of times, yes,
if if films are being exclusively made by white men
a lot of the times, then a lot of those times,
(23:00):
those are the stories that end up being told. And
not that there's anything wrong with those stories, but hey,
you know, we like we like to see ourselves, all
of ourselves reflected on screen. Yeah. But Dash points out
to Indy week dot Com that this film, and it's
incredibly important perspective ultimately proved a little bit limiting. She
says that Dadgers of the Dust, which was selected for
(23:24):
preservation in the National Film Registry in two thousand four,
by the way, gave her a reputation as an auteur
who specializes in the cinema of ideas, not words, making
the chances of her doing a sophomore feature close to nil.
So basically, here she's presenting this incredibly important film with
these perspectives that are really not represented anywhere else, and
(23:44):
people were like, oh, are you just gonna make movies
like that? This is so artsy? Yeah, okay, well, never mind.
And she hasn't made another theatrical release since her made
for TV film, The Rosa Park Story did earn her
a nomination from the Director's Skill for Outstanding Directorial Achievement
in Movies for Television, which yet again was a first
(24:06):
for a black woman. And she has been so vocal
about the need for more black female directors. Obviously she's
active on Twitter as well. Um so, even though she
hasn't yet had that sophomore film after Daughters of the Dust,
she has certainly been active. Yeah. Absolutely, And then you know,
(24:27):
speaking of first that leads us to Darnell Martin, who
was the first black woman to write and direct for
a major studio in her critically acclaimed I Like It
Like That came out from Columbia Pictures, and she really
didn't like the fact that during the promotion of the film,
people were paying so much attention to the fact that
(24:47):
she was not only a woman, but a woman of
color that that seemed to be like the huge selling
point almost in the marketing for it. And it's interesting that,
you know, she also directed the film Cadillac Records a
couple of years ago that had Adrian Brody and Beyonce
and it um, but you know, her gender and ethnicity
really didn't receive nearly the same attention that they did
(25:08):
when her film came out, And perhaps that's a good sign. Yeah,
not that not that attention shouldn't be called to it,
of course, but like, hey, I'm a director. She doesn't
have to preface it by saying I am a woman
of color director. Yeah, I mean, this is something that
comes up a lot on stuff, but I've never told you,
especially when we're talking about women in traditionally male dominated industries,
(25:32):
where it's like, just let me be a doctor. Just
let me be a director, Just let me be a
construction worker. It doesn't always have to be qualified, and
that is that will be probably a sign of progress
when this episode is just about directors, right exactly. But
then that brings us to Angela Robinson, who is the
highest grossing black female director for not the most artistic
(25:57):
or critically acclaimed film. It was her be Fully Low Did,
which did gross one million dollars worldwide on a fifty
million dollar budget, so and not lild And even though
as people point out, yeah, Herbie not the most impression
that that's not a film for the ages what however,
it is notable that this was the first time a
(26:17):
black woman was at the helm of such a huge
franchise film. And I think this is an incredibly important
point to bring up because not that we need the proof,
but here's proof that a woman and a woman of
color at that can helm a project that draws a
bajillion eyeballs, that people will want to go see a
(26:39):
film that has this great appeal regardless of who's in
the director's chair. If it's good, it's good and people
are gonna want to see it, and it it shouldn't
matter that the director is a woman of color. Well,
and at this point too, we've gone down the checklist
of all of these first of women of color proving
again and again like, yes, I can successfully direct a
fantastic film. What more do we need? And the and
(27:04):
the answer is more women of color directing films. And
we're going to talk more about that when we come
right back from a quick break. So in the first
half of the podcast, we focused a lot on the
women trailblazers, the first for African American female directors, and
(27:26):
there are a lot of incredible work has been done,
an incredible foundation has been laid. But when we look
at Hollywood, because keep in mind the differences between going
the independent route and Hollywood where the big bucks are,
where you don't have to, as some filmmakers have done,
sell your own possessions just so that you can make
a film because you're that passionate about it. There is
(27:47):
still such a dearth of black women directors. Yeah. Writing
about this over at the Griolmonia Brown says that since
Julie dash Break they have Daughters of the Dust, there
have been only ten Hollywood films directed by black women
released nationally and with a decent enough marketing campaign to
(28:07):
actually assist with its promotion. Yeah, and Brown goes on
to talk about um attending a panel that was helmed
by black women directors Nimo Barnett, Leslie Harris, Bridget Davis,
and Tania Hamilton's and in answering that question of well,
why aren't there more women directors, why aren't black women's
movies being made, they attributed the problem more to content
(28:30):
than funding. That it starts even even even before the
financing issue, with just the story itself and the characters
and the communities that the stories are examining. Right, So
producers and studios just being afraid that the voice in
the film, or the tone of the film or the
content will not attract enough eyeballs. Yeah, if we think that,
(28:52):
like a female ensemble lead film is considered niche just
considered taking down a few more notches for that a
film starring maybe a black female ensemble, Like, oh no, no,
not enough people will be interested in that. Certainly, certainly
there aren't enough people in the world who would be
interested in what black women have to say. And that
(29:13):
was something that acclaimed director de Reese experienced with her
film Pariah, which is about um a lesbians sort of
coming out process that came out in two thousand eleven,
which was hailed by people including Meryl Street, being like,
this woman is incredibly talented, she needs to make more films.
(29:34):
But when it comes to Pariah, for instance, it was
considered quote too black and too gay for Hollywood financing.
But which gets to that content issue of like, oh,
I don't know two things we could probably have maybe
pretty gay, maybe pretty black, but both of those I
don't know. Yeah, that's that's way too niche because we
don't have any people like that in the world. Make
(29:54):
another Transformers instead. But I think it is important to
get back to Julie Dash and her perspective on the
whole thing, considering she is such a big advocate and
agitator for women of color to get behind the camera.
She had a great quote in Indie Week talking about how, hey,
they're not enough of us. Let's say that they are
not enough of us working. We exist, we're here, they're here.
(30:17):
There are just not enough of us working. We need
work and would love to have the same opportunities everyone
else has, especially when it comes to telling all kinds
of stories, not just stories about African Americans, but all
kinds of stories. And that's important too to keep in mind.
I do think that these women get pigeonholed by their
(30:38):
ethnicity of people thinking, oh, well, you're a black woman,
so you're really only gonna want to tell stories about
other black women. Right when you think about it, I mean,
you have you have white men telling the stories of
women of all colors all the time. You know clearly
their gender and race is not inhibiting them in the
(30:59):
storytelling process. Um, so it's greed that she points that out.
I'm a sante who side note, won a BAFTA for
her debut film, A Way of Life. She was quoted
in The Roots saying, we I E. Black female directors
basically do not register on the scale when it comes
to black women. We are under one percent of directors overall.
(31:20):
It's tough being a woman of color director because I
am neither the color or the shape that some people
are comfortable with seeing in their directors, and that makes
it hard. Yeah, and I thought she had a really
good point beyond the women of color issue, just about
femininity and womanhood in general. She says the fact that
I use my femininity as a tool and not a
(31:41):
hindrance is not always comfortable to people, to be honest
with you, But I believe it's about creating a track
record that is undeniable and so in other words, like
who cares you know what I look like. The fact
that I am so incredibly capable and I have this
particular set of skills means that I can helm and
helm a great film but also tell a great story.
(32:03):
And it's absolutely worth noting that this is part of
the broader problem for women directors, even if they have
had a theatrical release, even if they've had their one
Hollywood film, it's far less common for female directors to
get their second or third chance for a theatrical release period,
(32:23):
regardless of the color of their skin. Yeah, you kind
of have to be a Catherine Bigelow. Basically, you're going
to be an exception to a rule if you are
a Catherine Bigelow. Yeah, I mean, and also think about
two And we've talked about her on the podcast before,
um and she is absolutely important. But it's also interesting
to think about the content of her films and it's
more kind of war zone tougher, shoot them up kinds
(32:46):
of stories, something that can appeal to a white male
audience essentially. But now we got to talk about the
game changer. And I have a feeling that podcast listeners
have been waiting for us to mention her name since
they probab we saw the title of this podcast, because yes,
she inspired this whole thing, and she has gotten a
lot of conversations started of late about black female directors.
(33:11):
And that is the one and only Eva Duvernet. And
she became the first black female director nominated for a
Golden Globe for Best Director for her film Selma. She
was beat by, of course Richard Linklater for Boyhood, but
Spike Lee for his film Do the Right Thing and
Steve McQueen for Twelve Years of Slave were the only
(33:31):
other black directors ever nominated for a Golden Globe. Yeah,
and also not bad for someone who is on their
third film, and also after making a mid career switch
from being in being a film publicist to being like, hey,
you know what, I want to actually make these films,
and she clearly has a knack for it. I mean,
(33:53):
Selma is not the first time d Rene has made headlines.
Her second feature, Middle of Nowhere, also retracted Rave reviews
also attracted successful sales and won her the Best Director
award at Sundance, which was huge. That was also a first,
she was the first black female director to ever snag
that award. Yeah, and her first feature film, I Will Follow,
(34:15):
came out inven So this is all pretty rapid fire.
I mean, she's she seems to be a prolific filmmaker
at this point so far. Um. Her actual directorial debut, however,
was a two thousand eight documentary This is the Life.
And I think I think that's interesting. I think that
goes back to what we established at the top of
the podcast as far as people who have different perspectives,
(34:36):
not just women of color directors, but women directors or
really any person of color. They almost have to enter
certain industries, certain fields through an alternative route in order
to get funding or to get the eyeballs on their projects.
And so she, like many other women directors of color,
started out in the documentary field and quickly going back
(34:58):
though to Sundance in the import of that platform, particularly
for UH filmmakers of color and women filmmakers. That so,
when Julie Dash was bringing Daughters of the Dust to
sun Dance back in the day that was when Richard
link Later was bringing slackers as well. So I mean
this is clearly you know, she was up against some
(35:21):
some tough competition. But then link Letter comes swoops back
and again beating out du Vernay years down the road
for Best Director at the Golden Globes for Boyhood, which
is a film I really enjoyed a lot as well. Um,
but we're not here to talk about Richard link Later,
and obviously we need to talk about the Oscar snub
that everybody's been talking about with DuVernay and her film Selma.
(35:45):
She does talk about how this not being nominated for
Best Director was something that she expected. She was talking
about this with Entertainment Weekly, and you know, she said
it would be lovely and when it happens to whomever
it happens to, it will certainly have meaning. But she
knew it wouldn't be her. She says, it's not me
being humble, it's math. And so when you look at
(36:07):
that math, we have to look at how the nominating branch,
the director's nominating branch of the Academy is uh, male, white, Yeah,
I mean, directors nominate directors, actors nominate actors and I mean,
and that's so the cards are kind of stacked against her. Mean,
(36:28):
she she said outright, she was like, I don't have
any allies within that group. That group is outside of
my network. And she also, though did not play politics publicly,
bristling at negative critiques of President Johnson's portrayal in Selma
where he is highly resistant to signing the Voting Rights Act,
(36:50):
and there was a lot of you know, or grumbling
about that, and she came out on Twitter and was like, I'm,
you know, basically saying this is ridiculous. Um, you know,
historical revisions just period happened in in any of these
kinds of films. But she was getting particularly lambassador, and
she she had nothing to do with it. And there
(37:11):
were some members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Science who were like, you know what, I didn't
like that. I really didn't like that. She should have
she should have played the politics better. Well, you know,
the speaking of the Academy, they do have their first
black female president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, and that, though did
not stop one anonymous Academy member from making a comment
(37:35):
to Entertainment Weekly about quote, it's almost like because she
is African American. We should have made her one of
our nominees. I think that's racist. Look at what we
did with twelve Years and that makes me like roll
my eyes so hard that they fall out of my head,
because there seems to be a really common perception that
just because Twelve Years of Slave was recognized for the filmmaking,
(37:59):
in the acting and the directing, that that should somehow
be enough. And then last year was the was the
year for a black director? Yeah, basically basically. But also
that leads us back to that whole discussion of but
is that the only story that we allow black directors
and writers to tell and black actors to portray only
(38:21):
stories about slavery? What about just modern stories about humanity?
You know? And you know, going back to Julie Dash's
film Daughters of the Dust, there are other stories to
tell that aren't just about slavery. And it does seem though,
like Darna is taking it completely in Destride. First of all,
she wasn't expected if she were even nominated. She knew
(38:44):
she was never gonna win, and she's taking cues at
this point from Katherine Bigelow and figuring out how to
be the very first black female director of her caliber.
She told Entertainment Weekly quote, I'm trying to be clear
and follow my own footsteps because because there is no
black woman's footsteps to follow. So I mean she she
(39:05):
could absolutely be the game changer. I mean, she's not
going to stop making films anytime soon. And she is.
I mean, she's the one. She could be early, she
could be the one. But the problem is, why is
there just the one? Yeah, Well, it's it's like we
talked about so much on the podcast around so many
different issues, and it's that issue of visibility. Normalizing an idea,
(39:29):
whether that's an idea about women in general, women in
color in this case, it's women in front of and
behind the camera. The more we say, look, a black
woman can tell a story that appeals to to wide
audiences and and or not or tell a story that's
very specific to a certain subset or community of people.
That's fine too, But you know, the fact that there
(39:52):
are so many hurdles to overcome is discouraging. But I
think someone like Duvernet is a great a year to
have in the news right now because it seems like
she's sort of kicking butt and taking names and I'll
tell you what like, and she's not the only one
in Hollywood doing that. Just judging off of the Twitter
(40:14):
reaction to a simple question of like, hey, who should
be shout out for this podcast episode and the enormous
response from that, it's clear that these women are I mean,
they're almost they're not blind to the barriers, but they're
working in spite of them, and they're not backing down
anytime soon, and they're active and their vocal and they
(40:35):
are banging down the doors. And we're hopefully doing our
part to spread the visibility and awareness around that. Yeah,
they're out there, they're making films, and they're important films
to watch and important directors to watch out for. Yeah,
so please please listeners right in and tell us your
favorite directors, women, women of color, anyone who has created
(40:57):
films that have meant a lot to you. And we'd
also like to hear recommen nations along these same lines
for films that we should be watching. Some of these
movies that were listed in our research I had never
heard of but can't wait to watch. So email us
mom Stuff at how Stuff Works dot com is our
email address. You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast,
and if you're on Twitter and want to stay in
(41:17):
the loop on what women of color are up to
behind the camera, I highly recommend that you follow the
hashtag kickstart diversity and don't forget. You can always message
us on Facebook as well, and we've got a couple
of messages to share with you right now. I have
(41:39):
a letter here from Searn that is not necessarily about
a particular episode that Kristen and I published, more about
a an unfortunate verbal vomiting issue that we have And
I wrote her back and I thanked her for pointing
this out. But okay, let's get to it. She says,
I really enjoyed listening to your podcast. Before I started listening,
(42:01):
I would have never thought myself a feminist, but listening
has made me realize how it is a positive thing
to be. However, I do have a small point to make.
When discussing issues affecting women outside of the USA, you
often interchange UK and British with England and English. As
I'm sure you know the UK is made up of England, Wales,
Scotland and Northern Ireland. When you discuss issues that affect
(42:24):
British women, but use the word English you were ignoring
several million women with devolution of certain powers to local
governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is possible
when you discuss certain issues, it may be something which
may affect English women only, but the majority will be
issues affecting British women. Keep the podcast coming, So thank you,
(42:46):
thank you, thank you so much to our Welsh fan
Sharn for pointing this out. Yes, in the process of
citing all of the studies that we do site in
every episode, we trip up sometimes, so thanks for thanks
for really finally pointing this out. We love kind corrections
are the best kind of corrections. I've got a letter
here from Mary Rose about our Gay Best Friend episode,
(43:08):
which we have been hearing so much about, and these
letters are fantastic. Keep them coming, she writes. After listening
to your podcast on the Gay Best Friend, I wanted
to put my two cents in regarding lesbians and friends
and my experience. Both myself and most lesbians that I
know have straight women as our bfs. I do have
some lesbian friends, but as I imagine happens with straight people,
(43:29):
there can be tension there sometimes which can lead to drama,
which is not fun. I know many lesbians do remain
friends with their exes, but that's probably a whole other podcast.
I also have gay male friends that I enjoy immensely,
and a few straight male friends, but my closest friends
are straight women. I do think that most lesbians tend
to be closer to women overall, regardless of they're gay
(43:52):
or straight or somewhere in between. So thanks Mary Rose
and everybody else who's written into us. Mom. Stuff at
how stuffworks dot com is our email all address and
for links to all of our social media as well
as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, as well
as our list of women of color behind the camera
that you should pay attention to. Head on over to
(44:13):
stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com.
Hey, this is Annie, and you're listening to stuff never
told you. You may have heard recently about some controversy
surrounding Kevin Hart and the Oscars. Heart was all set
(00:27):
to host the Oscars until some homophobic tweets from his
Twitter account resurface, posted between two thousand nine and two eleven.
When called on to apologize by the Academy and the
public at large, Heart resisted at first, saying given the
choice to apologize or stepped down, he'd rather step down
than quote feed the internet rolls, and that he had
(00:48):
evolved and he wasn't sorry. He eventually did step down
and apologize, as in Eventually hours later, he issued this statement.
I have made the choice to step down from hosting
this year's Oscars. This is because I do not want
to be a distraction on a night that should be
celebrated by so many amazing, talented artists. I sincerely apologize
(01:09):
to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.
I'm sorry that I hurt people. I am evolving and
want to continue to do so. My goal is to
bring people together, not tears apart. Much love and appreciation
to the Academy. I hope we can meet again. As
of recording this, the Oscars have yet to find a
replacement host, and there's even talk that there won't be
(01:32):
a host at all, which would be for the first
time that's happened. Since I'm available, my rates pretty dang high,
and my jokes will be lame and outdated, so you know,
it's a mixed bag, but I'm throwing my hat in
the ring. I actually think personally that no one really
wants this job. But I'd love to see a person
of color, a queer person, a woman, someone otherwise, someone
(01:56):
like that take the job. And this is certainly not
the first time the Oscars have been subject of a controversy.
Oscars so white, the lack of women and diversity, and
many categories. In this classic episode, we take a look
back at the first female director, So please enjoy. Welcome
(02:18):
to Stuff Mob Never told you from how stupp Works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and it is oscar week on the podcast.
That's that's right. Last time, we talked about sort of
the history and evolution of women in the director's chair,
(02:42):
and that was fascinating. We learned so much incredible history
that I frankly had no idea about. But we also
wanted to focus today's episode on those trailblazing, groundbreaking African
American directors who were out there, both who laid the
groundwork back d hundred years ago, but also the women
who are working so hard in the industry today. Yeah,
(03:04):
because there was one issue with Monday's episode that came
out was that, yeah, we were talking about history, but
we were also covering three white women. And while there
are barriers unique to females in particular who want to direct,
there are even more barriers in place for women of
(03:25):
color who want to direct. And before we get into
the rather depressing statistics, to be honest, I just want
to establish the fact that yes, they are out there,
they are making their films despite these barriers, and there
are names that you should know. And I tweeted a
friend of mine, Lauren Shacker, who is in l A,
(03:47):
who is a totally badass feminist making films, and I
asked her for suggestions of women of color directors we
should give shout outs to, and the response from her
Twitter followers and other women in Hollywood making films was overwhelming.
And these aren't exclusively African American women in the director's seat,
(04:08):
which we're going to focus on in this episode. But
just to tea things off, we wanted to share some
of the names that we got from Twitter. Yeah, we
heard about women like Nima Barnett, Milicent Shelton, Jane's A Bravo,
Debbie Allen, Mina Schum, Alice Woo, Julie Dash, who will
talk about more in this episode. Yeah, I gotta tell you, Caroline,
I had a real celebrity feeling moment on Twitter when
(04:31):
Julie Dash retweeted our tweet, like, oh my god, we
connected to Julie Dash. And if you don't know who
Julie Dashes, you'll understand in a few minutes why that
was such a big moment. And that wasn't all. There
were even more names, Yeah, like Tany're right, Alma Assante,
who were about to mention, sa Ray Darnell, Martin Suki
and Lee and Marta Cunningham, just to mention a few. Yeah,
(04:54):
and we're gonna gather all of these up into a
gallery on stuff I've never told you com with links
to IMDb pages and films, so that if you didn't
catch all of those names, don't worry, you will be
able to find them on our website. So here's where
we get to the not so fun facts that, yes,
(05:15):
these women absolutely exist, they're doing incredible work. But in
our episode on Monday, we highlighted how there are in
Hollywood about fifteen point two four male directors to every
female director. Right, we pointed out that it was fifteen
men and a stations. Yes, the point two four pins.
(05:36):
But then if you narrow it down to female directors
of color, the number gets even tinier. And speaking to
the root director alma As Sante and she she directed
the movie Bell, which I went and saw when it
came out in theaters. She pointed out that black women
makeup just one percent of directors over all, one percent.
(05:58):
And consider this too. In the Nantes, only twenty eight
films were directed by black women, twenty eight feature films,
I should say, only three of those were released nationally,
and only one of those had a major Hollywood release.
So when we're talking about barriers in terms of women filmmaking,
this is a group that honestly probably faces the most
(06:20):
challenges in terms of getting a film made, especially in Hollywood. Yeah,
but this doesn't mean that there aren't some amazing women
out there. Obviously, as we've been trying to establish. You've
got women like Maya Angelou who directed Down in the Delta.
She had actually, as we'll talk about earlier, had wanted
to direct a previous screenplay that she'd written, but she
didn't get the opportunity. You've got Gina Prince Bythewood who
(06:43):
directed Love and Basketball, which was produced by Spike Lee,
and Casey Lemmons who directed Eve's Bayou, which is definitely
going into my Netflix queue. And then we have Cheryl
Dunier who directed the film Watermelon Woman, and Dannie is
actually the first openly gay Black female director and as
well talk about a more detail in just a minute.
(07:04):
The modern history of black women directing films is rather recent,
but what a lot of people might not know is
that even in those early days of film, there were
black female trailblazers like the women we were talking about
in Monday's episode, like the Alice Ki Bluches. Yeah, and
(07:28):
their goal was not only to direct movies, be involved
in the film industry, but also to really put forth
an effort to present a more accurate portrayal of the
lives of African Americans, that they weren't one dimensional characters
who were all servants or maids, that they had just
as rich an inner life as any other character on screen.
(07:50):
And so a lot of this information is coming from
media messages, what film, TV, and popular music teach us
about race um. And we also cannot emphasize an of
how great of a resource Columbia University's Women Film Pioneers
Project is. It's online and all of the women were
going to talk about are also profiled over there. And
(08:10):
the first one we want to talk about is Trussey Souders,
who in the Black Press named her the first black
woman director with the film A Woman's Error, which was
distributed by the Afro American Film Exhibitors Company based in
Kansas City, Missouri, and she also wrote the screenplay. And
what's interesting is that profile points out that in the
(08:33):
ninete city director city directory for Kansas City, Missouri, and
if you do any sort of family or history research,
you realize how important those city directories are to look
back at, but they listed her as a maid, and
so I think it's so interesting also to look at
the career path that these women take and still today
that these women take to get behind the camera, but
(08:53):
then that leads us to Eloy's King Patrick just She
was an independent businesswoman who also produced film lms with
her husband, so there's that same husband wife team connection
that we also talked about in the first episode. But
her films had a super strong moral bent for the
purpose of social uplift. For instance, her crime drama Verdict
(09:13):
Not Guilty is often screened by the Inn double a
c P and the interestingly titled hell Bound Train preached
temperance for her audience well, and thinking about Verdict Not
Guilty in today's context with all of the national conversations
going on regarding race relations. That was a film that
(09:35):
she was making in the silent era about the criminal
justice system and race. So films that are still relevant
today and just focused more on writing and editing than
actual directing. But she's still a really important figure who
is also acknowledged by the Library of Congress. Yeah, they're
actually putting in an effort, and I don't know how
(09:56):
far along they are in these efforts. I'd love to
hear an update if anybody has one. But they have
been working to edit and restore her films, which basically
were in shreds. I mean, you know, we've we talked
about the films of the women in our first episode,
that they were also damaged and super hard to find,
these early films, and that some of them were founded
(10:16):
in a state sale in a trunk. And so you
can just imagine what film from this era is like
if it's not cared for well. And apparently Verdict Not
Guilty was screened so often that that's one of the
reasons why it's in tatters, because it was just used
so so many times. But then we also have Maria P. Williams,
who was a social activist. Not surprising, I mean, it
(10:38):
seems like all of these women have um activism in
their blood. And she wrote the pamphlet My Work and
Public Sentiment in nineteen sixteen, so she was already getting
her voice out there. And she and her husband again
that that marriage tie right there. They operated a motion
picture theater and we're instrumental with the Western film producing
(10:59):
company any and Booking Exchange, and so that kind of
got her into this burgeoning industry. Yeah, and she produced, distributed,
and acted in her own film, The Flames of Wrath,
and so well, she isn't explicitly a lady director, She's
still an incredibly important figure. And it is important to
(11:20):
point out also that the term producer was sort of
used ambiguously back in those days. So basically, I think
it's fine to count her as a trailblazing filmmaker. Absolutely.
I mean, at the time, the Norfolk Journal and Guide
hailed her as the first quote colored woman film producer
in the United States, which clearly was an exciting moment,
(11:41):
so we wanted to We thought it was important to
establish that, yes, there is that early history right there.
Black women have been working in filmmaking since the beginning
of that technology. But here's the thing that the big
difference that jumped out to me in US tar thinking
about those early white female directors and this group of
(12:04):
black directors you still have. Even with white female directors,
there is definitely a gap in Hollywood, particularly post World
War Two, but when it comes to black female directors,
there's nothing in Hollywood. You have no Dorothy Arsner or
Ida Lupino equivalent in those earlier days of Hollywood, because
(12:24):
it's not until the late nineteen eighties that black women
even get behind the camera in mainstream Hollywood. Right, Yeah,
there is there is a line between the independent films
and the documentaries that women of color putting out and
actually getting to be behind the camera in Hollywood, like
you said, And so it's interesting to look at the
(12:45):
route that women take to becoming successful directors. And that's
something that Melvin Donaldson writes about in his book Black
Directors in Hollywood, specifically about how black women filmmakers have
consistent either by choice or by you know, financial necessity,
had to go the independent route and often gravitated toward
(13:08):
documentary filmmaking for that reason. And I mean there was
also a certain appeal to particularly when it comes to
documentary filmmaking, because they quote provide an opportunity for inscribing
the untold accounts of black public and private figures in
the historical record. Going back again to those early when
(13:29):
we talked about who weren't just making films for the
sake of making films, but making films that could accurately
portray black life and black community. Yeah, and you get
Jesse Maple in the early eighties, who was driven by
this need and desire to present more positive images of
the African American community. And so in n one she
becomes the first black female director of an independent feature
(13:52):
length film called Will and it focuses around a girl's
basketball coach who has a heroine problem, but who is
also mentoring a twelve year boy and it was shot
on just a twelve thou dollar budget. And what's so
interesting when you talk about the roots that people take
to to get where they're going. She actually didn't start
her career in film until after she worked as a bacteriologist,
(14:14):
and it was that desire to want to inject positive
images of black women and black men into the media
that that really drove her. But she was also the
first black woman to join the Filmmakers Union, which is interesting.
And she was highly influential in black cinema, starting twenty
West Home of Black Cinema in her basement in Harlem
(14:34):
in the nineteen eighties. That showcased the newest in black film,
and she would brag that they showed Spike Lee films
where anyone else showed Spike Lee films. But looking outside
of the independent route and looking to Hollywood, there's such
a dearth of black female directors because of a lot
of institutional factors that come up. Um obviously talented black
(14:58):
female directors exist, but they're likelier to quote sidestep the
frustrating studio system and complete low budget projects. Remember, people,
it always goes back to the money. But also that's
usually the go to factor in terms of white female
directors not getting these larger Hollywood scale projects. But there's
(15:20):
an added wrinkle when it comes to black female filmmakers
that it's the money, but also the content too, of
people being like, well, I don't know if these stories
need to be told about these black communities. Yeah, whether
they need to be told, or whether they'll translate to
a larger audience and national audience that is white or
an international audience that might not catch everything if it's
(15:42):
lost in translation. I mean, I'm not saying that, I'm
saying that those are a lot of the producers and
studio systems concerns. Yeah, that was my impression of the
studio talking like this very stiff. But then, as Melvin
Donaldson writes about again in black directors in Hollywood in
the nineties and they're late eighties, but really in the nineties,
(16:02):
some black women directors start getting a few more opportunities
to work, and I mean this is this is again
in contrast to white women directors, who again lots of barriers,
but still had more more access, and he attributes it
to a few factors. Starting in the nineteen eighties, he
(16:24):
mentions how black male directors kind of paved the way
just in the sense of telling the stories of people
of color and establishing that, hey, this is a valid
and important and also successful financially form of entertainment. Right.
And you also have the rise in black female authors
being published in the mid seventies onward, and then bringing
(16:47):
those literary characters alive on screen. For example, we had
Lorraine Hansberry and a Raisin in the Sun, Terry McMillan
and waiting to Exhale, Alice Walker and the color Purple.
Of course, a more recently Chimamanda Negoes The Adici and Americana, Yeah,
which I can't already can't wait to see. And in
addition to the importance of greater visibility of black women
(17:10):
in front of the screen, both the big screen and
the small screen. It's all about this process of normalizing.
It's just wild to me that we're talking about this
in the context of only the nineteen nineties, not the
eighteen nineties. The nineteen nineties. So why don't we talk
about some more contemporary trail blazers and women who were
(17:32):
breaking through those barriers to make their films. Yeah, well,
you know, mentioning my Angela again. She is the first
black woman to have a feature film screenplay produced with
ninety two Georgia Georgia, and she had wanted to direct
it but didn't and she ended up being unhappy with
the final product and she had to wait to sit
(17:54):
in the director's chair until down in the Delta. And
she has a great quote about, hey, books are my
old movies or your world. If I'm doing something that
seems odd or wrong, please pull me aside and we'll
go for a walk together and you can tell me
that way. Yeah. I had fun google imaging images of
Maya Angelou and the director's chair. Um, and it's as
(18:17):
it's exactly what you think. It looks like. It's Maya
Angelo and a director's chair. She looks like she's having
a good time. I didn't realize though, that she was
a director. And also, I mean, you know, the first
black woman to have a feature film screenplay produced. Yeah,
who knew? Well, that's why we're here. Kristen that's why
we're talking about this today exactly, hopefully spreading some knowledge. Um.
Then there's the amazing us and Policy. She's the first
(18:39):
black woman to direct a major Hollywood studio feature film,
the movie A Dry White Season in nine nine. It's
about apartheid and it's starring the A listers Donald Sutherland,
Marlon Brando, and Susan Surrandon. Brando actually came out of
retirement to work in this film, and he ended up
getting his final Oscar nomination four his role in her film.
(19:01):
And Policy is the only woman to ever direct Marlon Brando,
which is pretty interesting and other moment of celebrity Twitter excitement.
She also weighed in on the tweet about women of
color directors. Yes, yes, so I mean that right there.
The fact that that she and Julie Dash were hopping
(19:22):
on board of this conversation shows just how much activism
there still is around this specific issue. Um. And talking again,
we about her route into filmmaking. It started pretty early.
She was born on the island of Martinique and made
her first film in France at seventeen. Yeah, and in
(19:43):
three her first feature film, Sugarcane Alley, was presented at
the Venice Film Festival, and she became the first black
artist to win a Caesar and a Silver Lion Award
at Venice. And when it comes to the importance of
a Dry White Season, not only was it groundbreaking in
the sense of who was making it, but also its content.
It helped bring attention to apartheid and genocide happening in
(20:06):
South Africa. So I mean, clearly that just goes to
show the importance of getting these new and diverse perspectives
because they're the storytellers. Yeah. Well, now let's talk about
Julie Dash, who we've mentioned at the top of the podcast.
And people are probably like, Okay, you've mentioned Julie Dash
like five times, what is the day? Why are you
so obsessed with Julie Dash. Well, Julie Dash, listener friends,
(20:30):
was an independent filmmaker who ended up making the very
first general theatrical release directed by a black woman. About
that for a title, Yeah, that's Daughters of the Dust,
which explored the complexities of a black family with a
black female protagonist, and it was shot for eight hundred
thousand dollars on St. Helena Island off the coast of
(20:51):
South Carolina, and it it i This is another film
that I'm adding to my list of things that I
have to go see because it sounds just incredibly fascinating.
The way that it presents this multi generational look at
this African American family and the technique that it uses
to tell the story is so interesting, focusing on the
voice of an unborn child to sort of help bridge
(21:12):
those generations and look into the past at where the
families come from. It also look into the future and
where they're going. Yeah. And in Monday's episode on the
those pioneering Hollywood directors, we also mentioned at the top
of that episode the importance of sun Dance, the Sundance
Film Festival for showcasing um filmmakers of color and female filmmakers,
(21:35):
and that was where Daughters of the Dust first caught
people's attention. And in terms of film critique and analysis,
Donaldson writes that Dash reveals what no other Hollywood filmmaker
had done in the past, namely that black women possessed
physical and spiritual beauty as well as psychological diversity. Yeah,
(21:57):
and it's those representations that Dash is talking about in
Daughters of the Dust when she has this quote about
how it affects men male male viewers in the audience,
and she says, I think that for a lot of
white males and blackmails too, they get to go there
and assume the personality of the characters on screen. A
(22:18):
lot of people couldn't do that for Daughters of the Dust.
I mean, I've seen men run out of the theater
and I think that's so funny. She's she's presenting an
incredibly important voice and incredibly important perspective, but talking about
how some members of my audience just can't handle it well.
And that goes to to considering why it is important
(22:39):
to talk about female directors and that influence because what
is on screen is reflected on what's behind screen. And
we talked to all the time about the importance of
like representation and visibility and a lot of times, yes,
if if films are being exclusively made by white men
a lot of the times, then a lot of those times,
(23:00):
those are the stories that end up being told. And
not that there's anything wrong with those stories, but hey,
you know, we like we like to see ourselves, all
of ourselves reflected on screen. Yeah. But Dash points out
to Indy week dot Com that this film, and it's
incredibly important perspective ultimately proved a little bit limiting. She
says that Dadgers of the Dust, which was selected for
(23:24):
preservation in the National Film Registry in two thousand four,
by the way, gave her a reputation as an auteur
who specializes in the cinema of ideas, not words, making
the chances of her doing a sophomore feature close to nil.
So basically, here she's presenting this incredibly important film with
these perspectives that are really not represented anywhere else, and
(23:44):
people were like, oh, are you just gonna make movies
like that? This is so artsy? Yeah, okay, well, never mind.
And she hasn't made another theatrical release since her made
for TV film, The Rosa Park Story did earn her
a nomination from the Director's Skill for Outstanding Directorial Achievement
in Movies for Television, which yet again was a first
(24:06):
for a black woman. And she has been so vocal
about the need for more black female directors. Obviously she's
active on Twitter as well. Um so, even though she
hasn't yet had that sophomore film after Daughters of the Dust,
she has certainly been active. Yeah. Absolutely, And then you know,
(24:27):
speaking of first that leads us to Darnell Martin, who
was the first black woman to write and direct for
a major studio in her critically acclaimed I Like It
Like That came out from Columbia Pictures, and she really
didn't like the fact that during the promotion of the film,
people were paying so much attention to the fact that
(24:47):
she was not only a woman, but a woman of
color that that seemed to be like the huge selling
point almost in the marketing for it. And it's interesting that,
you know, she also directed the film Cadillac Records a
couple of years ago that had Adrian Brody and Beyonce
and it um, but you know, her gender and ethnicity
really didn't receive nearly the same attention that they did
(25:08):
when her film came out, And perhaps that's a good sign. Yeah,
not that not that attention shouldn't be called to it,
of course, but like, hey, I'm a director. She doesn't
have to preface it by saying I am a woman
of color director. Yeah, I mean, this is something that
comes up a lot on stuff, but I've never told you,
especially when we're talking about women in traditionally male dominated industries,
(25:32):
where it's like, just let me be a doctor. Just
let me be a director, Just let me be a
construction worker. It doesn't always have to be qualified, and
that is that will be probably a sign of progress
when this episode is just about directors, right exactly. But
then that brings us to Angela Robinson, who is the
highest grossing black female director for not the most artistic
(25:57):
or critically acclaimed film. It was her be Fully Low Did,
which did gross one million dollars worldwide on a fifty
million dollar budget, so and not lild And even though
as people point out, yeah, Herbie not the most impression
that that's not a film for the ages what however,
it is notable that this was the first time a
(26:17):
black woman was at the helm of such a huge
franchise film. And I think this is an incredibly important
point to bring up because not that we need the proof,
but here's proof that a woman and a woman of
color at that can helm a project that draws a
bajillion eyeballs, that people will want to go see a
(26:39):
film that has this great appeal regardless of who's in
the director's chair. If it's good, it's good and people
are gonna want to see it, and it it shouldn't
matter that the director is a woman of color. Well,
and at this point too, we've gone down the checklist
of all of these first of women of color proving
again and again like, yes, I can successfully direct a
fantastic film. What more do we need? And the and
(27:04):
the answer is more women of color directing films. And
we're going to talk more about that when we come
right back from a quick break. So in the first
half of the podcast, we focused a lot on the
women trailblazers, the first for African American female directors, and
(27:26):
there are a lot of incredible work has been done,
an incredible foundation has been laid. But when we look
at Hollywood, because keep in mind the differences between going
the independent route and Hollywood where the big bucks are,
where you don't have to, as some filmmakers have done,
sell your own possessions just so that you can make
a film because you're that passionate about it. There is
(27:47):
still such a dearth of black women directors. Yeah. Writing
about this over at the Griolmonia Brown says that since
Julie dash Break they have Daughters of the Dust, there
have been only ten Hollywood films directed by black women
released nationally and with a decent enough marketing campaign to
(28:07):
actually assist with its promotion. Yeah, and Brown goes on
to talk about um attending a panel that was helmed
by black women directors Nimo Barnett, Leslie Harris, Bridget Davis,
and Tania Hamilton's and in answering that question of well,
why aren't there more women directors, why aren't black women's
movies being made, they attributed the problem more to content
(28:30):
than funding. That it starts even even even before the
financing issue, with just the story itself and the characters
and the communities that the stories are examining. Right, So
producers and studios just being afraid that the voice in
the film, or the tone of the film or the
content will not attract enough eyeballs. Yeah, if we think that,
(28:52):
like a female ensemble lead film is considered niche just
considered taking down a few more notches for that a
film starring maybe a black female ensemble, Like, oh no, no,
not enough people will be interested in that. Certainly, certainly
there aren't enough people in the world who would be
interested in what black women have to say. And that
(29:13):
was something that acclaimed director de Reese experienced with her
film Pariah, which is about um a lesbians sort of
coming out process that came out in two thousand eleven,
which was hailed by people including Meryl Street, being like,
this woman is incredibly talented, she needs to make more films.
(29:34):
But when it comes to Pariah, for instance, it was
considered quote too black and too gay for Hollywood financing.
But which gets to that content issue of like, oh,
I don't know two things we could probably have maybe
pretty gay, maybe pretty black, but both of those I
don't know. Yeah, that's that's way too niche because we
don't have any people like that in the world. Make
(29:54):
another Transformers instead. But I think it is important to
get back to Julie Dash and her perspective on the
whole thing, considering she is such a big advocate and
agitator for women of color to get behind the camera.
She had a great quote in Indie Week talking about how, hey,
they're not enough of us. Let's say that they are
not enough of us working. We exist, we're here, they're here.
(30:17):
There are just not enough of us working. We need
work and would love to have the same opportunities everyone
else has, especially when it comes to telling all kinds
of stories, not just stories about African Americans, but all
kinds of stories. And that's important too to keep in mind.
I do think that these women get pigeonholed by their
(30:38):
ethnicity of people thinking, oh, well, you're a black woman,
so you're really only gonna want to tell stories about
other black women. Right when you think about it, I mean,
you have you have white men telling the stories of
women of all colors all the time. You know clearly
their gender and race is not inhibiting them in the
(30:59):
storytelling process. Um, so it's greed that she points that out.
I'm a sante who side note, won a BAFTA for
her debut film, A Way of Life. She was quoted
in The Roots saying, we I E. Black female directors
basically do not register on the scale when it comes
to black women. We are under one percent of directors overall.
(31:20):
It's tough being a woman of color director because I
am neither the color or the shape that some people
are comfortable with seeing in their directors, and that makes
it hard. Yeah, and I thought she had a really
good point beyond the women of color issue, just about
femininity and womanhood in general. She says the fact that
I use my femininity as a tool and not a
(31:41):
hindrance is not always comfortable to people, to be honest
with you, But I believe it's about creating a track
record that is undeniable and so in other words, like
who cares you know what I look like. The fact
that I am so incredibly capable and I have this
particular set of skills means that I can helm and
helm a great film but also tell a great story.
(32:03):
And it's absolutely worth noting that this is part of
the broader problem for women directors, even if they have
had a theatrical release, even if they've had their one
Hollywood film, it's far less common for female directors to
get their second or third chance for a theatrical release period,
(32:23):
regardless of the color of their skin. Yeah, you kind
of have to be a Catherine Bigelow. Basically, you're going
to be an exception to a rule if you are
a Catherine Bigelow. Yeah, I mean, and also think about
two And we've talked about her on the podcast before,
um and she is absolutely important. But it's also interesting
to think about the content of her films and it's
more kind of war zone tougher, shoot them up kinds
(32:46):
of stories, something that can appeal to a white male
audience essentially. But now we got to talk about the
game changer. And I have a feeling that podcast listeners
have been waiting for us to mention her name since
they probab we saw the title of this podcast, because yes,
she inspired this whole thing, and she has gotten a
lot of conversations started of late about black female directors.
(33:11):
And that is the one and only Eva Duvernet. And
she became the first black female director nominated for a
Golden Globe for Best Director for her film Selma. She
was beat by, of course Richard Linklater for Boyhood, but
Spike Lee for his film Do the Right Thing and
Steve McQueen for Twelve Years of Slave were the only
(33:31):
other black directors ever nominated for a Golden Globe. Yeah,
and also not bad for someone who is on their
third film, and also after making a mid career switch
from being in being a film publicist to being like, hey,
you know what, I want to actually make these films,
and she clearly has a knack for it. I mean,
(33:53):
Selma is not the first time d Rene has made headlines.
Her second feature, Middle of Nowhere, also retracted Rave reviews
also attracted successful sales and won her the Best Director
award at Sundance, which was huge. That was also a first,
she was the first black female director to ever snag
that award. Yeah, and her first feature film, I Will Follow,
(34:15):
came out inven So this is all pretty rapid fire.
I mean, she's she seems to be a prolific filmmaker
at this point so far. Um. Her actual directorial debut, however,
was a two thousand eight documentary This is the Life.
And I think I think that's interesting. I think that
goes back to what we established at the top of
the podcast as far as people who have different perspectives,
(34:36):
not just women of color directors, but women directors or
really any person of color. They almost have to enter
certain industries, certain fields through an alternative route in order
to get funding or to get the eyeballs on their projects.
And so she, like many other women directors of color,
started out in the documentary field and quickly going back
(34:58):
though to Sundance in the import of that platform, particularly
for UH filmmakers of color and women filmmakers. That so,
when Julie Dash was bringing Daughters of the Dust to
sun Dance back in the day that was when Richard
link Later was bringing slackers as well. So I mean
this is clearly you know, she was up against some
(35:21):
some tough competition. But then link Letter comes swoops back
and again beating out du Vernay years down the road
for Best Director at the Golden Globes for Boyhood, which
is a film I really enjoyed a lot as well. Um,
but we're not here to talk about Richard link Later,
and obviously we need to talk about the Oscar snub
that everybody's been talking about with DuVernay and her film Selma.
(35:45):
She does talk about how this not being nominated for
Best Director was something that she expected. She was talking
about this with Entertainment Weekly, and you know, she said
it would be lovely and when it happens to whomever
it happens to, it will certainly have meaning. But she
knew it wouldn't be her. She says, it's not me
being humble, it's math. And so when you look at
(36:07):
that math, we have to look at how the nominating branch,
the director's nominating branch of the Academy is uh, male, white, Yeah,
I mean, directors nominate directors, actors nominate actors and I mean,
and that's so the cards are kind of stacked against her. Mean,
(36:28):
she she said outright, she was like, I don't have
any allies within that group. That group is outside of
my network. And she also, though did not play politics publicly,
bristling at negative critiques of President Johnson's portrayal in Selma
where he is highly resistant to signing the Voting Rights Act,
(36:50):
and there was a lot of you know, or grumbling
about that, and she came out on Twitter and was like, I'm,
you know, basically saying this is ridiculous. Um, you know,
historical revisions just period happened in in any of these
kinds of films. But she was getting particularly lambassador, and
she she had nothing to do with it. And there
(37:11):
were some members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Science who were like, you know what, I didn't
like that. I really didn't like that. She should have
she should have played the politics better. Well, you know,
the speaking of the Academy, they do have their first
black female president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, and that, though did
not stop one anonymous Academy member from making a comment
(37:35):
to Entertainment Weekly about quote, it's almost like because she
is African American. We should have made her one of
our nominees. I think that's racist. Look at what we
did with twelve Years and that makes me like roll
my eyes so hard that they fall out of my head,
because there seems to be a really common perception that
just because Twelve Years of Slave was recognized for the filmmaking,
(37:59):
in the acting and the directing, that that should somehow
be enough. And then last year was the was the
year for a black director? Yeah, basically basically. But also
that leads us back to that whole discussion of but
is that the only story that we allow black directors
and writers to tell and black actors to portray only
(38:21):
stories about slavery? What about just modern stories about humanity?
You know? And you know, going back to Julie Dash's
film Daughters of the Dust, there are other stories to
tell that aren't just about slavery. And it does seem though,
like Darna is taking it completely in Destride. First of all,
she wasn't expected if she were even nominated. She knew
(38:44):
she was never gonna win, and she's taking cues at
this point from Katherine Bigelow and figuring out how to
be the very first black female director of her caliber.
She told Entertainment Weekly quote, I'm trying to be clear
and follow my own footsteps because because there is no
black woman's footsteps to follow. So I mean she she
(39:05):
could absolutely be the game changer. I mean, she's not
going to stop making films anytime soon. And she is.
I mean, she's the one. She could be early, she
could be the one. But the problem is, why is
there just the one? Yeah, Well, it's it's like we
talked about so much on the podcast around so many
different issues, and it's that issue of visibility. Normalizing an idea,
(39:29):
whether that's an idea about women in general, women in
color in this case, it's women in front of and
behind the camera. The more we say, look, a black
woman can tell a story that appeals to to wide
audiences and and or not or tell a story that's
very specific to a certain subset or community of people.
That's fine too, But you know, the fact that there
(39:52):
are so many hurdles to overcome is discouraging. But I
think someone like Duvernet is a great a year to
have in the news right now because it seems like
she's sort of kicking butt and taking names and I'll
tell you what like, and she's not the only one
in Hollywood doing that. Just judging off of the Twitter
(40:14):
reaction to a simple question of like, hey, who should
be shout out for this podcast episode and the enormous
response from that, it's clear that these women are I mean,
they're almost they're not blind to the barriers, but they're
working in spite of them, and they're not backing down
anytime soon, and they're active and their vocal and they
(40:35):
are banging down the doors. And we're hopefully doing our
part to spread the visibility and awareness around that. Yeah,
they're out there, they're making films, and they're important films
to watch and important directors to watch out for. Yeah,
so please please listeners right in and tell us your
favorite directors, women, women of color, anyone who has created
(40:57):
films that have meant a lot to you. And we'd
also like to hear recommen nations along these same lines
for films that we should be watching. Some of these
movies that were listed in our research I had never
heard of but can't wait to watch. So email us
mom Stuff at how Stuff Works dot com is our
email address. You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast,
and if you're on Twitter and want to stay in
(41:17):
the loop on what women of color are up to
behind the camera, I highly recommend that you follow the
hashtag kickstart diversity and don't forget. You can always message
us on Facebook as well, and we've got a couple
of messages to share with you right now. I have
(41:39):
a letter here from Searn that is not necessarily about
a particular episode that Kristen and I published, more about
a an unfortunate verbal vomiting issue that we have And
I wrote her back and I thanked her for pointing
this out. But okay, let's get to it. She says,
I really enjoyed listening to your podcast. Before I started listening,
(42:01):
I would have never thought myself a feminist, but listening
has made me realize how it is a positive thing
to be. However, I do have a small point to make.
When discussing issues affecting women outside of the USA, you
often interchange UK and British with England and English. As
I'm sure you know the UK is made up of England, Wales,
Scotland and Northern Ireland. When you discuss issues that affect
(42:24):
British women, but use the word English you were ignoring
several million women with devolution of certain powers to local
governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is possible
when you discuss certain issues, it may be something which
may affect English women only, but the majority will be
issues affecting British women. Keep the podcast coming, So thank you,
(42:46):
thank you, thank you so much to our Welsh fan
Sharn for pointing this out. Yes, in the process of
citing all of the studies that we do site in
every episode, we trip up sometimes, so thanks for thanks
for really finally pointing this out. We love kind corrections
are the best kind of corrections. I've got a letter
here from Mary Rose about our Gay Best Friend episode,
(43:08):
which we have been hearing so much about, and these
letters are fantastic. Keep them coming, she writes. After listening
to your podcast on the Gay Best Friend, I wanted
to put my two cents in regarding lesbians and friends
and my experience. Both myself and most lesbians that I
know have straight women as our bfs. I do have
some lesbian friends, but as I imagine happens with straight people,
(43:29):
there can be tension there sometimes which can lead to drama,
which is not fun. I know many lesbians do remain
friends with their exes, but that's probably a whole other podcast.
I also have gay male friends that I enjoy immensely,
and a few straight male friends, but my closest friends
are straight women. I do think that most lesbians tend
to be closer to women overall, regardless of they're gay
(43:52):
or straight or somewhere in between. So thanks Mary Rose
and everybody else who's written into us. Mom. Stuff at
how stuffworks dot com is our email all address and
for links to all of our social media as well
as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, as well
as our list of women of color behind the camera
that you should pay attention to. Head on over to
(44:13):
stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com.
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