February 18, 2015 • 42 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 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 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From House top
Works dot Com. Hello to Welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline and it is oscar week on
the podcast. That's right. Last time, we talked about sort
of the history and evolution of women in the director's chair,
(00:26):
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 hundred hundred years ago, but also the women
who are working so hard in the industry today. Yeah,
(00:48):
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
(01:09):
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,
(01:31):
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,
(01:53):
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, Janasa 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
(02:16):
Julie Dash retweeted our tweet. We connected to Julie Jash
And if you don't know who Julie Dashes, you will
understand in a few minutes why that was such a
big moment. And that wasn't all. There were even more names, Yeah,
like Tan You'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, and we're gonna
(02:40):
gather all of these up into gallery on stuff I've
never told you dot 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, these women absolutely exist.
(03:02):
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 and point two four chins. But then if you
(03:22):
narrow it down to female directors of color, the number
gets even tinier. And speaking to the root director Ama
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, and consider this too. In
(03:44):
the nineties, only twenty eight films were directed by black women.
Twenty 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 on making, this is a group that
honestly probably faces the most challenges in terms of getting
(04:07):
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 directed Love and Basketball,
(04:29):
which was produced by Spike Lee, and Casey Lemons who
directed Eve's Bayou, which is definitely going into my Netflix queue.
And then we have Cheryl Danier 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. The modern history of black
(04:51):
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 Blaches. Yeah, and their goal was not
(05:14):
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 and inner
life as any other character on screen. And so a
(05:35):
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 enough 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 the first one we want
(05:56):
to talk about is Truscy Stouters, who 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
(06:17):
points out that in the nine City Directory 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 then that leads us to
(06:39):
Eloy's King Patrick just she was an independent businesswoman who
also produced films 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 Not Guilty is oft screen by
(07:00):
the inn Double a CP 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 she was making in the silent era
(07:22):
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 far along they are in these efforts. I'd love
(07:42):
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
in a state sale in a trunk, and so you
(08:03):
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
(08:23):
seems like all of these women have 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 Company and
(08:45):
Booking Exchange, and so that kind of got her into
this burgeoning industry. Yeah, and in Nree she produced, distributed,
and acted in her own film, The Flames of Wrath,
and so well, she is an ex ly a lady director.
She's still an incredibly important figure. And it is important
(09:05):
to 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,
(09:26):
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 talking about
those early white female directors and this group of black
(09:49):
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 it's not
(10:10):
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 route that
(10:31):
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 consistently, either by
choice or by you know, financial necessity, had to go
the independent route and often gravitated toward documentary filmmaking for
(10:55):
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 we talked about
who weren't just making films for the sake of making films,
(11:18):
but making films I 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 nine one she becomes the first black
female director of an independent feature length film called Will
(11:39):
and it focuses around a girl's basketball coach who has
a heroine problem, but who is also mentoring a twelve
year old boy. And it was shot on just a
twelve thousand 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, and it
was that desire to want to inject positive images of
(12:03):
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 in
the nineteen eighties. That showcased the newest in black film,
and she would brag that they showed Spike Lee films
(12:25):
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. Obviously, talented black female
directors exist, but they're likelier to quote sidestep the frustrating
(12:48):
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 an
added wrinkle when it comes to black female filmmakers that
(13:08):
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 lost
in translation. Yeah, I mean I'm not saying that, I'm
(13:29):
saying that those are a lot of the producers and
studio systems concerns. Yeah, that was my impression of the
studios right, talking like this very stiff. But then as
Melvin Donaldson writes about again in black directors in Hollywood
in the nineties and the very late eighties, but really
in the nineties, some black women directors start getting a
(13:49):
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 mentions how black male directors kind
(14:10):
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 those literary characters alive on screen.
(14:34):
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
Negozi 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 in front of the screen,
(14:57):
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 breaking through those barriers to
(15:19):
make their films. Yeah, well, you know, mentioning Maya Angela again.
She is the first black woman to have a feature
film screenplay produced with nineteen seventy 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 in the director's chair until
(15:40):
down in the Delta. And she has a great quote about, hey,
books are my world, 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 that's exactly what you think. It looks like.
(16:03):
It's my Angelo and the director's 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
(16:23):
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 for his role in her film.
(16:46):
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
(17:07):
on board of this conversation shows just how much activism
there still is around this specific issue. Um, and talking
again 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
(17:28):
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 if he was making it, but also its
content it helped bring attention to apartheid and genocide happening
(17:50):
in South Africa. So I mean, clearly that just goes
to show the importance of getting these new and diverse
perspectives because they're the retellers. 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 date? Why
are you so obsessed with Julie Dash. Well, Julie Dash
(18:13):
listener friends, 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 Daughters of the Dust,
which explored the complexities of a black family with a
black female protagonist, and it was shot for eight hundred
(18:33):
thousand dollars on St. Helena Island off the coast of
South Carolina, and 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
(18:54):
of an unborn child to sort of help bridge those
generations and look into the past where the families come from.
It also look into the future and where they're going. Yeah,
And in Monday's episode on those pioneering Hollywood directors, we
also mentioned at the top of that episode the importance
of sun Dance, the Sunday's film festival for showcasing um
(19:17):
filmmakers of color and female filmmakers, 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
(19:38):
as well as psychological diversity. Yeah, and it's those representations
that uh 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 black
males too, they get to go there and assume the
(19:59):
person alley of the characters on screen. A 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
(20:19):
that goes to to considering why it is important 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
(20:42):
lot of the times, then a lot of the times,
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 andy week dot Com that this film um and
it's incredibly important perspective, ultimately proved a little bit limiting.
(21:04):
She says that Daughters of the Dust, which was selected
for 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
(21:25):
these perspectives that are really not represented anywhere else, and
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 Guild for Outstanding Directorial Achievement
(21:47):
in Movies for Television, which yet again was a first
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,
(22:12):
speaking of first, that leads us to Darnel Martin, who
was the first black woman to write and direct for
a major studio and 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
(22:32):
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
(22:53):
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 I've never told you,
especially when we're talking about women in traditionally male dominated industries,
(23:16):
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
(23:42):
or critically acclaimed film. It was Herbie Fully Loaded, which
did gross one million dollars worldwide on a fifty million
dollar budget, so and not the Live 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
(24:02):
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
(24:24):
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 answer
(24:49):
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 and now back to the show.
So in the first half of the podcast, we focused
a lot on the women Trailblazers, the first for African
(25:10):
American female directors, and 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
(25:30):
that you can make a film, because you're that passionate
about it. There is still such a dearth of black
women directors. Yeah. Writing about this over at the Griolmonia
Brown says that since Julie dash break there of Daughters
of the Dust, there have been only ten Hollywood films
directed by black women released nationally and with a decent
(25:52):
enough marketing campaign to actually assist with its promotion. Yeah.
And Brown goes on to talk about um attending a
panel that was filmed by black women directors name of Burnett,
Leslie Harris, Bridget Davis, an 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
(26:14):
problem more to content 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
(26:35):
the film or the content will not attract enough eyeballs. Yeah,
if we think that like a female ensemble led film
is considered niche just considered taking down a few more,
not just for that of 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
(26:55):
in the world who would be interested in what black
women have to say. And that was thing that a
claimed 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
(27:18):
incredibly talented, she needs to make more films. 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
(27:39):
people like that in the world. Make 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, there
are not enough of us let's say that they're not
(28:00):
enough of us working. We exist, We're here, they're here.
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.
(28:20):
I do think that these women get pigeonholed by their
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
(28:42):
their gender and race is not inhibiting them in the
storytelling process. Um, so it's greed that she points that out.
I'm a Sante who side note on a BAFTA for
her debut film, A Way of Life. She was quoted
in the Roots saying, we I E. Black female to
rectors basically do not register on the scale when it
(29:03):
comes to black women. We are under one percent of
directors overall. It's tough being a woman of color director
because I am either 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
(29:25):
fact that I use my femininity as a tool and
not a 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
(29:46):
and helm a great film but also tell a great story.
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,
(30:09):
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 of stories,
(30:34):
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 the podcast listeners have been
waiting for us to mention her name since they probably
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. And that
(30:58):
is the one and only Eva du Vernet. 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 link Later for Boyhood, but
Spike Lee for his film Do the Right Thing and
Steve McQueen for Twelve Years of Slave were the only
(31:18):
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,
(31:40):
Selma is not the first time d Rene has made headlines.
Her second feature, Middle of Nowhere, also attracted rave reviews,
also attracted successful sales, and won her the Best Director
award at sun Dance, 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,
(32:01):
I Will Follow, came out inn 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
(32:22):
have different perspectives, 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
(32:44):
and quickly going back though to Sundance in the importance
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 A,
that was when Richard link Later was bringing Slackers as well.
(33:04):
So I mean, this is clearly you know, she was
up against some 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
(33:26):
about the Oscar snub that everybody's been talking about. With
Duvernet and her film Salma. 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
(33:46):
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 that math, we have to
look at how the nominating branch, the director nominating branch
of the Academy is uh, male, white. Yeah, I mean,
(34:07):
directors nominate directors, actors nominate actors. And I mean and
that's so the cards are kind of stacked against I mean,
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,
(34:33):
where he is highly resistant to signing the Voting Rights Act,
and there was a lot of you know, or grumbling
about that, and she came out on Twitter and was like,
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 lambassad for
(34:55):
and she she had nothing to do with it. And
there 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
(35:17):
not stop one anonymous Academy member from making a comment
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
(35:41):
just because Twelve Years of Slave was recognized for the
filmmaking and the acting and the directing, that that should
somehow be enough, right, 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
(36:02):
black directors and writers to tell and black actors to
portray only 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 Dusk, there are other
stories to tell that aren't just about slavery. And it
(36:23):
does seem though like Durna is taking it completely into stride.
First of all, she wasn't expected if she were even nominated.
She knew 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
(36:44):
be clear and follow my own footsteps because there is
no black woman's footsteps to follow. So I mean, she
she 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, 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
(37:07):
about so much on the podcast around so many different issues,
and it's that issue of visibility normalizing an idea, 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
(37:30):
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 are
so many hurdles to overcome is discouraging, but I think
someone like Duvernet is a great figure 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
(37:53):
what like and and she's not the only one in
Hollywood doing that. Just judging off the Twitter reaction to
a simple question of like, hey, who should we 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
(38:17):
spite of them, and they're not backing down anytime soon,
and they're active and their vocal and they 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
(38:37):
listeners right in and tell us your favorite directors, women,
women of color, anyone who has creative films that have
meant a lot to you. And we also like to
hear recommendations 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
stuffworks dot com is our email address. You can also
(39:00):
tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast. And if you're on
Twitter and want to stay in 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 a letter here from Searn
(39:23):
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, I would have never
(39:44):
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 englandh as. I'm sure you
know the UK is made up of England, Wales, Scotland
and Northern Ireland. When you discuss issues that affect British
(40:07):
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,
(40:29):
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 kindly pointing this out. We love kind corrections
are the best kind of corrections. I'm gonna let her
here from Mary Rose about our Gay Best Friend episode
(40:51):
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 bff. I do have
some lesbian friends, but as I imagine happens with straight people,
(41:12):
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
(41:34):
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 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. That on over to stuff
(41:56):
Mom Never Told You dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
dot com
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From House top
Works dot Com. Hello to Welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline and it is oscar week on
the podcast. That's right. Last time, we talked about sort
of the history and evolution of women in the director's chair,
(00:26):
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 hundred hundred years ago, but also the women
who are working so hard in the industry today. Yeah,
(00:48):
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
(01:09):
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,
(01:31):
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,
(01:53):
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, Janasa 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
(02:16):
Julie Dash retweeted our tweet. We connected to Julie Jash
And if you don't know who Julie Dashes, you will
understand in a few minutes why that was such a
big moment. And that wasn't all. There were even more names, Yeah,
like Tan You'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, and we're gonna
(02:40):
gather all of these up into gallery on stuff I've
never told you dot 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, these women absolutely exist.
(03:02):
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 and point two four chins. But then if you
(03:22):
narrow it down to female directors of color, the number
gets even tinier. And speaking to the root director Ama
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, and consider this too. In
(03:44):
the nineties, only twenty eight films were directed by black women.
Twenty 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 on making, this is a group that
honestly probably faces the most challenges in terms of getting
(04:07):
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 directed Love and Basketball,
(04:29):
which was produced by Spike Lee, and Casey Lemons who
directed Eve's Bayou, which is definitely going into my Netflix queue.
And then we have Cheryl Danier 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. The modern history of black
(04:51):
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 Blaches. Yeah, and their goal was not
(05:14):
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 and inner
life as any other character on screen. And so a
(05:35):
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 enough 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 the first one we want
(05:56):
to talk about is Truscy Stouters, who 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
(06:17):
points out that in the nine City Directory 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 then that leads us to
(06:39):
Eloy's King Patrick just she was an independent businesswoman who
also produced films 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 Not Guilty is oft screen by
(07:00):
the inn Double a CP 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 she was making in the silent era
(07:22):
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 far along they are in these efforts. I'd love
(07:42):
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
in a state sale in a trunk, and so you
(08:03):
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
(08:23):
seems like all of these women have 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 Company and
(08:45):
Booking Exchange, and so that kind of got her into
this burgeoning industry. Yeah, and in Nree she produced, distributed,
and acted in her own film, The Flames of Wrath,
and so well, she is an ex ly a lady director.
She's still an incredibly important figure. And it is important
(09:05):
to 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,
(09:26):
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 talking about
those early white female directors and this group of black
(09:49):
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 it's not
(10:10):
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 route that
(10:31):
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 consistently, either by
choice or by you know, financial necessity, had to go
the independent route and often gravitated toward documentary filmmaking for
(10:55):
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 we talked about
who weren't just making films for the sake of making films,
(11:18):
but making films I 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 nine one she becomes the first black
female director of an independent feature length film called Will
(11:39):
and it focuses around a girl's basketball coach who has
a heroine problem, but who is also mentoring a twelve
year old boy. And it was shot on just a
twelve thousand 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, and it
was that desire to want to inject positive images of
(12:03):
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 in
the nineteen eighties. That showcased the newest in black film,
and she would brag that they showed Spike Lee films
(12:25):
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. Obviously, talented black female
directors exist, but they're likelier to quote sidestep the frustrating
(12:48):
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 an
added wrinkle when it comes to black female filmmakers that
(13:08):
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 lost
in translation. Yeah, I mean I'm not saying that, I'm
(13:29):
saying that those are a lot of the producers and
studio systems concerns. Yeah, that was my impression of the
studios right, talking like this very stiff. But then as
Melvin Donaldson writes about again in black directors in Hollywood
in the nineties and the very late eighties, but really
in the nineties, some black women directors start getting a
(13:49):
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 mentions how black male directors kind
(14:10):
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 those literary characters alive on screen.
(14:34):
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
Negozi 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 in front of the screen,
(14:57):
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 breaking through those barriers to
(15:19):
make their films. Yeah, well, you know, mentioning Maya Angela again.
She is the first black woman to have a feature
film screenplay produced with nineteen seventy 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 in the director's chair until
(15:40):
down in the Delta. And she has a great quote about, hey,
books are my world, 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 that's exactly what you think. It looks like.
(16:03):
It's my Angelo and the director's 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
(16:23):
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 for his role in her film.
(16:46):
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
(17:07):
on board of this conversation shows just how much activism
there still is around this specific issue. Um, and talking
again 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
(17:28):
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 if he was making it, but also its
content it helped bring attention to apartheid and genocide happening
(17:50):
in South Africa. So I mean, clearly that just goes
to show the importance of getting these new and diverse
perspectives because they're the retellers. 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 date? Why
are you so obsessed with Julie Dash. Well, Julie Dash
(18:13):
listener friends, 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 Daughters of the Dust,
which explored the complexities of a black family with a
black female protagonist, and it was shot for eight hundred
(18:33):
thousand dollars on St. Helena Island off the coast of
South Carolina, and 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
(18:54):
of an unborn child to sort of help bridge those
generations and look into the past where the families come from.
It also look into the future and where they're going. Yeah,
And in Monday's episode on those pioneering Hollywood directors, we
also mentioned at the top of that episode the importance
of sun Dance, the Sunday's film festival for showcasing um
(19:17):
filmmakers of color and female filmmakers, 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
(19:38):
as well as psychological diversity. Yeah, and it's those representations
that uh 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 black
males too, they get to go there and assume the
(19:59):
person alley of the characters on screen. A 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
(20:19):
that goes to to considering why it is important 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
(20:42):
lot of the times, then a lot of the times,
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 andy week dot Com that this film um and
it's incredibly important perspective, ultimately proved a little bit limiting.
(21:04):
She says that Daughters of the Dust, which was selected
for 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
(21:25):
these perspectives that are really not represented anywhere else, and
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 Guild for Outstanding Directorial Achievement
(21:47):
in Movies for Television, which yet again was a first
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,
(22:12):
speaking of first, that leads us to Darnel Martin, who
was the first black woman to write and direct for
a major studio and 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
(22:32):
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
(22:53):
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 I've never told you,
especially when we're talking about women in traditionally male dominated industries,
(23:16):
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
(23:42):
or critically acclaimed film. It was Herbie Fully Loaded, which
did gross one million dollars worldwide on a fifty million
dollar budget, so and not the Live 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
(24:02):
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
(24:24):
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 answer
(24:49):
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 and now back to the show.
So in the first half of the podcast, we focused
a lot on the women Trailblazers, the first for African
(25:10):
American female directors, and 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
(25:30):
that you can make a film, because you're that passionate
about it. There is still such a dearth of black
women directors. Yeah. Writing about this over at the Griolmonia
Brown says that since Julie dash break there of Daughters
of the Dust, there have been only ten Hollywood films
directed by black women released nationally and with a decent
(25:52):
enough marketing campaign to actually assist with its promotion. Yeah.
And Brown goes on to talk about um attending a
panel that was filmed by black women directors name of Burnett,
Leslie Harris, Bridget Davis, an 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
(26:14):
problem more to content 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
(26:35):
the film or the content will not attract enough eyeballs. Yeah,
if we think that like a female ensemble led film
is considered niche just considered taking down a few more,
not just for that of 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
(26:55):
in the world who would be interested in what black
women have to say. And that was thing that a
claimed 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
(27:18):
incredibly talented, she needs to make more films. 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
(27:39):
people like that in the world. Make 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, there
are not enough of us let's say that they're not
(28:00):
enough of us working. We exist, We're here, they're here.
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.
(28:20):
I do think that these women get pigeonholed by their
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
(28:42):
their gender and race is not inhibiting them in the
storytelling process. Um, so it's greed that she points that out.
I'm a Sante who side note on a BAFTA for
her debut film, A Way of Life. She was quoted
in the Roots saying, we I E. Black female to
rectors basically do not register on the scale when it
(29:03):
comes to black women. We are under one percent of
directors overall. It's tough being a woman of color director
because I am either 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
(29:25):
fact that I use my femininity as a tool and
not a 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
(29:46):
and helm a great film but also tell a great story.
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,
(30:09):
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 of stories,
(30:34):
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 the podcast listeners have been
waiting for us to mention her name since they probably
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. And that
(30:58):
is the one and only Eva du Vernet. 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 link Later for Boyhood, but
Spike Lee for his film Do the Right Thing and
Steve McQueen for Twelve Years of Slave were the only
(31:18):
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,
(31:40):
Selma is not the first time d Rene has made headlines.
Her second feature, Middle of Nowhere, also attracted rave reviews,
also attracted successful sales, and won her the Best Director
award at sun Dance, 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,
(32:01):
I Will Follow, came out inn 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
(32:22):
have different perspectives, 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
(32:44):
and quickly going back though to Sundance in the importance
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 A,
that was when Richard link Later was bringing Slackers as well.
(33:04):
So I mean, this is clearly you know, she was
up against some 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
(33:26):
about the Oscar snub that everybody's been talking about. With
Duvernet and her film Salma. 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
(33:46):
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 that math, we have to
look at how the nominating branch, the director nominating branch
of the Academy is uh, male, white. Yeah, I mean,
(34:07):
directors nominate directors, actors nominate actors. And I mean and
that's so the cards are kind of stacked against I mean,
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,
(34:33):
where he is highly resistant to signing the Voting Rights Act,
and there was a lot of you know, or grumbling
about that, and she came out on Twitter and was like,
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 lambassad for
(34:55):
and she she had nothing to do with it. And
there 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
(35:17):
not stop one anonymous Academy member from making a comment
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
(35:41):
just because Twelve Years of Slave was recognized for the
filmmaking and the acting and the directing, that that should
somehow be enough, right, 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
(36:02):
black directors and writers to tell and black actors to
portray only 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 Dusk, there are other
stories to tell that aren't just about slavery. And it
(36:23):
does seem though like Durna is taking it completely into stride.
First of all, she wasn't expected if she were even nominated.
She knew 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
(36:44):
be clear and follow my own footsteps because there is
no black woman's footsteps to follow. So I mean, she
she 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, 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
(37:07):
about so much on the podcast around so many different issues,
and it's that issue of visibility normalizing an idea, 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
(37:30):
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 are
so many hurdles to overcome is discouraging, but I think
someone like Duvernet is a great figure 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
(37:53):
what like and and she's not the only one in
Hollywood doing that. Just judging off the Twitter reaction to
a simple question of like, hey, who should we 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
(38:17):
spite of them, and they're not backing down anytime soon,
and they're active and their vocal and they 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
(38:37):
listeners right in and tell us your favorite directors, women,
women of color, anyone who has creative films that have
meant a lot to you. And we also like to
hear recommendations 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
stuffworks dot com is our email address. You can also
(39:00):
tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast. And if you're on
Twitter and want to stay in 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 a letter here from Searn
(39:23):
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, I would have never
(39:44):
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 englandh as. I'm sure you
know the UK is made up of England, Wales, Scotland
and Northern Ireland. When you discuss issues that affect British
(40:07):
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,
(40:29):
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 kindly pointing this out. We love kind corrections
are the best kind of corrections. I'm gonna let her
here from Mary Rose about our Gay Best Friend episode
(40:51):
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 bff. I do have
some lesbian friends, but as I imagine happens with straight people,
(41:12):
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
(41:34):
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 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. That on over to stuff
(41:56):
Mom Never Told You dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
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