A terrifying shift has taken place in Hollywood. The way film is discussed online for the past ten years, really springing from the rise of fanboy culture, has all but erased the need for stories about women. When all anyone can talk about is male-driven comic book and/or superhero films, action shoot ’em ups, and nearly every other cinematic cultural icon, you’re usually looking at males up one side and down the other. This has not always been the case. I know because, as they say in The Shining, I’ve always been here. I know that film fandom springs from Jaws and Star Wars – only in today’s incarnation of said fandom, the badass that was Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leah is all but erased.
It’s more than depressing — it’s disgusting. Women have been sidelined as mothers or side dishes, where they can be defined by whether or not they move the boner meter. Scarlett Johansson is doing very well in the boner-driven film culture both on the snooty side of things and on the fanboy side of things. She’s in the club. Also in the club is Marion Cotillard, who can rally the film critics with her work in art films while also whipping up fanboy frenzy in The Dark Knight. Can you even exist if you don’t put on some silly stretchy suit and dwell in the fantasy universe? I don’t know. I cringe every time a respectable actress is announced starring in some new superhero franchise, usually as the side dish. “I’d like some boner fodder with my main entree, please.”
Thankfully, this is simply not the case in the world of book publishing where women readers drive content. You would not know this by visiting the New York Times Sunday Book Review, where it is mostly (and still) focused on male writers of a certain race and class. All of Hollywood’s problems with women and under-served ethnic groups can be answered in the wildly diverse and thriving publishing industry.
If only they’d listen. Completely ignored by the Academy this year was Gone Girl, as we know because we’ve been writing about it all year long. Not only was Flynn’s success as a writer ignored by that antiquated establishment – but all of the women who drove the box office on one of the year’s biggest hits were not only ignored, but dismissed outright. You heard “mom’s beach book” a lot on dumb humor sites. You heard “trash novel” a lot. If women are interested it must be cheap. The forever loop of Jonathan Franzen’s arrogant dismissal of having been chosen for the Oprah Book Club.
Even still, Gone Girl sits atop every bestseller’s list you can find anywhere. It’s a cultural phenomenon and Oscar? They still have their dick in their favorite hand – wank, wank, wank. Gone Girl, as it turned out, was “too much” for the mostly male voters who were too icked out by it. Women can take it, of course, because women have their periods every month and are used to icky things. Women also (some of them) give birth and wear high heels. Yeah, I’m not sure where women got stuck with the label of being the weaker sex, especially where delicate sensibilities were concerned. The Exorcist, Jaws and The Godfather are just some so-called “trash” novels that went on to become, as Gone Girl has, a great film. But the Academy still cling to their blankies, as we can see by their 2014 selections.
The latest hot prospect The Girl on the Train has just been picked up by Dreamworks. They smartly saw that it was being devoured in a Gone Girl like fashion. There are three strong female parts in it, all of the first person unreliable narrators. It’s Hitchcockian, suspenseful, wicked smart through and through. Will it be made into a major motion picture? I hope so.
Such was not the fate of another similarly popular novel, Big Little Lies, which has been given to David E. Kelly to be shopped to cable outlets. Why not movies? Starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon (both very good choices). The Australian set novel would be a fantastic opportunity to unite Kidman and Naomi Watts, should they be able to pull that off. Hell, throw in Cate Blanchett and you have one of the most powerful box office draws I can think of. If you’ve read the book you’ll be able to see why. For some reason, though, it did not get that kind of movie deal.
I’d like to dream cast Girl on the Train but before that, I’d like to also mention a couple of novels that could be optioned. I am not sure they have been yet. Lisa See has been writing thoughtful, suspenseful and very emotionally powerful books for many years now. Only one has been made into a movie and that was Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Perhaps because it was more than slightly botched by its director that makes her books a tough sell. In the right hands, though? Cultural phenomenons. One of the problems is finding a popular enough Asian star. Chinese is the preferred ethnicity and how many popular young Chinese female stars are there roaming around Hollywood? Why does it have to be a name, though? I know women would go see it if it was good, regardless of who is starring in it. Why do we have to be stuck back in that bygone era? Why not take a chance on an unknown?
Lisa See‘s Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls and her latest, China Dolls are all ripe material to be mined and turned into films women will want to see. Make movies for us and we will turn out. Not just the tweens among us but we fully grown women. Just look at the success of Gone Girl. We can’t let this moment pass us by. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen. Every stupid reason people give for why movies about women don’t make money was shattered this year.
China Dolls has been bought by an all-female production company to be directed by a woman. That’s the latest update. So watch for that film when it is made.
Another great book is called Brown Girl Dreaming. A National Book Award winning novel written in verse about growing up in South Carolina in the 1960s and 1970s when segregation still ruled the day. What a fantastic film that would make. So far I haven’t heard any sort of movie deal in the works but here’s hoping.
Now, I’d like to dreamcast Girl on The Train (if you haven’t read it, OMIGOD).
I feel very strongly that Kate Winslet was born to play Rachel, the alcoholic discarded wife. If it were me, I’d case Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Megan, the wife who goes missing. And finally, because you need a perfect blonde for the part, Anna would have to be played by Rosamund Pike.
One thing I really like about British TV is that they don’t make a big deal about their diverse casting choices. They simply cast people of color in parts regardless if they’re meant to be “white” or not. That is what I would do if it were up to me with Girl on the Train. But if they need it to be an all white cast, I would dream cast Emily Blunt as Megan.
Here’s hoping for a broader view of 50% of the world’s population. Here’s hoping Hollywood won’t continue to erase women from the picture, and here’s hoping the writers and the critics and the bloggers will nail them to the wall every year, like this one, when all of the films in the Oscar race revolved around a male character, as though women don’t matter. It greatly limits storytelling overall, makes them look like they are caught in a time warp, way back in the 1950s. Mostly, they’re missing out on potential money to be made by women who would pay to see their beloved books turned into films.
Whoever is cast as Rachel in The Girl on the Train will surely get an Oscar nomination.
My picks:
Rachel – Amy Adams
Anna – Sienna Miller
Megan – Felicity Jones
Have you read WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE? I think Richard Linklater is attached to direct. The book is phenomenal — funny, touching, rich and complex female characters. Bernadette is a character every actress dreams of playing. Did you notice that 4 of this year’s Best Actress candidates played characters adapted from books? (Reese and Felicity played real-life characters, but those stories were adapted from memoirs.) Young adult literature is also filled with so many fantastic female characters — not just Katniss and Triss and Hazel Grace.
I can’t wait to read GIRL ON THE TRAIN!
…and for BIG LITTLE LIES, I hope they cast Brie Larson as Jane!
First poster for DARK PLACES is out. Charlize Theron starring, from the Gillian Flynn novel.
Sasha, you should check out Evie Wyld’s “All the Birds, Singing.” Not only does it have a wonderfully adventurous narrative structure, but the central character is a woman and it is BY FAR one of the most dynamic characters, of any gender, I’ve read in years. It would make a fantastic film. I see it as perfect material for David Lowery, but I can imagine a number of directors doing really well with it.
I also think the young girl at the center of “All the Light We Cannot See” is a great female character.
Then there’s always Chang-rae Lee’s “On Such a Full Sea,” which not only has a strong female lead, but also imagines a future United States that is heavily influenced by Asian culture. Personally I think the story would do best as a TV series, since it uses a world that is ripe for many stories, but a feature film could also work well in the right writer’s hands.
Lisa Gardner is a wonderful writer who writes thrillers with female leads. Maybe the most exciting female writer of detective stories out there.
I would love to see someone adapt her Tessa Leoni series. Love You More and Touch & Go were incredible books that I couldn’t put down although I’m not sure how easy they would be to adapt due to non-linear narratives.
Wonderful article. Isn’t this exactly what Indian cinema was being criticised for, a few years ago? Now though, Bollywood has churned out women centric films like ‘Kahaani’, ‘Noone Killed Jessica’, ‘Queen’, ‘Mardaani’ and most recently, ‘Margarita, With a Straw’. In fact, India’s first entry (and nomination) for ‘Best Film in a Foreign Language’, ‘Mother India’ in 1958 was a woman centric film too. Wonder why Bollywood is called sexist time and time again despite Hollywood’s sorry state.
I agree with all of this, and it really does seem like making this possible is going to require that women be at every stage of these projects – from funding and greenlighting to writing, directing and acting, through distribution and awards publicity. Because there are so many ways for men to hijack these projects otherwise. A male director or screenwriter might mess up a female novelist’s beautiful beautifully written role for a female protagonist. A male distributor or awards consultant is too likely to jump ship when one of their other male-focused contenders look more likely at some stage of the campaign. And if the movie rights go to a male-dominated company that don’t really have the full vision, it won’t really get off the ground.
Since I haven’t read the book, I’m going to skip the casting, and even the crewing, and suggest that we really need to start thinking about the board of governors of the new production company that could make this happen.
I devoured Girl On the Train in 8 straight hours of reading. I literally did not put it down. I immediately thought of casting from the first chapter!
Brava!
Yes, the most powerful female performances I have seen this past year or so have been foreign language – Suzanne Clement in ‘Laurence Anyways’, Paulina Garcia in ‘Gloria’, Veerle Baetens in ‘Broken circle breakdown’ – guttural, spellbinding turns. Essie Davis in Babadook; Rosamund Pike, Julianne Moore in English language, but I had problems with elements of their films overall. l I’m about to watch ‘Child’s Pose’ with Luminta Gheorgiu.
I know that film fandom springs from Jaws and Star Wars – only in today’s incarnation of said fandom, the badass that was Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leah is all but erased.
I get what you’re trying to say here, but how is this not an awful example? Leia is infamous in certain circles (both “fanboy” and staunchly feminist) for being the prototype for the windowdressing female secondary character – she does remarkably little in any of the films beyond serve as a romantic interest or require assistance/rescuing from men. Like, you shit on ScarJo in the article for just serving as boner fodder, but in the various MCU movies she appears in, Black Widow has far more agency and plot impact than Leia did in any of the Star Wars films (and if you really want to talk about “boner fodder,” look no further than The Return of the Jedi).
That said, can’t disagree with the point being made in the rest of the article. If more studio execs would “take a chance” (and by this I mean actually fund and enthusiastically back like they would male-driven films) on female writers and directors to tell female-driven stories, they might realize that it’s not really a risk at all. The market has spoken and continues to speak: the people want female-driven stories.
David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks has several strong female roles – primarily lead – and elements that would satisfy the fanboy sector.
The only way this is going to change is if the few powerful women in Hollywood take the bull by the horns and get it done. Sarandon, Close, Streep, Winfrey, Witherspoon, etc all have experience in getting pet projects launched. If they can’t snag the big screen from the boys, there’s a whole other world out there where complex stories can be presented and appreciated. Somebody just has to stop waiting for it to be done for them and do it themselves.
It’s just unforgivable that women like Sarandon, Close, etc don’t have wonderful scripts dropped in their laps daily. I’m tired of looking at crusty old Tom Hanks (joking…) star in everything every year. Let me look at some “past their prime” women starring in, oh idk, movies about women past their prime who have real lives to live and real struggles. Ugh. Great article. I hope Hollywood gets the memo soon.
Seriously. Hollywood has completely abandoned them. They are so good – really, at the height of their game and yet…we never get to see them on the big screen anymore.