'One woman's failure affects every woman's chances': stereotyping impossible women directors in 1970s Hollywood

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    5 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    In the 1970s, after decades of exclusion from most creative and technical roles in the American film industry, women worked to break down barriers to their employment through fighting for equity and representation in industry guilds, broadening their access to education and training, and through establishing women-focused film festivals and independent production companies. Five women—Elaine May, Joan Darling, Jane Wagner, Lina Wertmüller, and Joan Micklin Silver—directed films for major Hollywood studios during the decade. Yet each woman experienced gender discrimination that circumscribed her commercial feature film output and Hollywood career. This article argues that even as women made inroads into filmmaking in the 1970s, their progress as directors in Hollywood was impeded by institutionalised and renewed beliefs that women could not manage the financial, logistical, technical, and creative complexities of filmmaking. 1970s Hollywood discourse and practice stereotyped women directors as incompetent and impossible with enduring consequences for women filmmakers.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)483-505
    Number of pages23
    JournalWomen's History Review
    Volume30
    Issue number3
    Early online date25 Jun 2020
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2021

    Keywords

    • 1970s
    • Elaine May
    • Hollywood
    • Jane Wagner
    • Joan Darling
    • Joan Micklin Silver
    • Lina Wertmüller
    • Women directors
    • gender discrimination
    • sexism
    • unconscious bias

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