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| Image from Melissa Silverstein |
How often have you watched a movie, only to walk
out disappointed about how the women in the film have been treated? How often
have you angrily discussed the rampant objectification of women on the one
hand, and the astute lack of substantive representation of women on the other
hand, in films? And how many of us have done something about it? Melissa
Silverstein chose to question it, and to spark off a dialogue to build towards
a culture of change. Here is her story:
Could you start by telling us a little about the work that you do?
I live in New York
City and I have been working in the entertainment business for about eight
years now. Women and Hollywood now lives on indiewire. I use the platform to report issues on women and gender
equality in the entertainment business, while also running advocacy programs,
speaking engagements, projects, infographics and the like beyond the website.
What got you into the working on gender advocacy with respect to women in films?
I went to the movies a
lot, and as I got older, I saw that movies began to speak to me lesser and
lesser I wanted to understand why – and I saw lesser women and lesser women
being portrayed with autonomy. I was concerned about it – and when I took it to
the blogosphere, I realised that there was very little being spoken and written
about women and films, and I threw in the hat to see how I could be part of
this. With that, Women and Hollywood began as a blog in 2007, and continues to educate,
advocate, and agitate for gender parity across the entertainment industry.
What were some of the challenges you faced in the work that you do?
What were some of the challenges you faced in the work that you do?
The challenge with
putting content online is that as more and more content comes up, the older
content begins to disappear. Things start getting lost, and come up only as a
search engine result, that too if it is searched for appropriately. I realised
that I had been talking to these women directors, and I noticed that the larger
narrative in Hollywood and the entertainment business has been male. This has
significantly made the voice of women obscure. We don’t hear women’s voices, and
when we don’t hear women’s voices, we don’t hear women’s thoughts, or women’s
perspectives, or women’s ideas. With all these interviews I had of women
directors, I decided to self-publish a book, In Her Voice: Women Directors Talk Directing.
Have you been able to trace any tangible impact or changes as a result of the work you've done?
It is hard to quantify change when you look at work like this, but I’ll
say this much – after having created this blog, I find that more women are
talking about it, and there is more dialogue now, where there was none. It is
interesting to see that more actresses are talking about it now, when there was
so much fear surrounding this before. There is a social justice angle to this, where
there have been more efforts to demand equal pay for equal work, and fighting
for rights. More men tend to gain prominence in the film and entertainment
industry. The entertainment industry has centred
significantly around money and prestige – and when these two elements enter the
conversation, the prominence of the voice of women decreases. It is vital to have women’s stories, their narratives, their
experiences and their voices validated in culture – and that cannot happen
until you see and hear women. When you don’t hear women, see women, listen to
their stories, don’t see them in the forefront or backstage, it is as good as
women being invisible, as good as saying that women don’t count. This is not
good – women hold up half the sky and it is high time we are heard!
What's happening next?
Right now, I am looking at doing the second volume of the book, and I
want to reach out to students on this work. When people see the numbers on
this, they are overwhelmed and outraged. I want more people to vote with their
dollars when they go to the movies.
Read the Women and Hollywood blog here.