In the article “In Hollywood, It’s a Men’s, Men’s, Men’s World”, Dargis discusses how there is a disparity when it comes to female directors and actors compared to male directors and actors. By the end of 2014, the six major studios only released three films directed by women, a number that is far too low, despite the fact that half of the films submitted to Sundance are directed by women. Ava DuVernay directed Middle of Nowhere and she won The Best Direction award at Sundance. Despite winning an award from one of the most renowned independent film festivals, she received no offers to do any future directorial projects.
Yet, in 2012, Colin Trevorrow had his film Safety Guaranteed shown at Sundance, and he subsequently got an offer to direct Jurassic World, a movie that is part of a multi-million dollar franchise. This could be
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This might be an indication of how Hollywood isn’t quite ready to portray more cultural diversity, no matter what they say. Networks executives are looking for more television shows with female protagonists, yet in films, there is such a despairingly low percentage of female protagonists. Ava DuVernay’s backstory and Selma are both representations on how Hollywood has come far, but is still regressive in some instances.
Hollywood is trying to check off all the boxes, by nominating culturally diverse films for awards, but at the end of the day, those films rarely ever win. To put it into context, 12 Years a Slave won the award for Best Motion Picture of the Year in 2014, but most of the characters in this film are white, and the film is centered on slavery, a topic that practically everyone can sympathize with. Voting and human rights is not a topic that many people can identify with, mainly because many people innately have these rights. They don’t have to fight for them, so they can’t see the