But no new generation of female directors has taken root at the studio level. Even though directing programs at film schools have been 60 percent female for years now, there are still only a handful of women making big films. Most important, the few women who do break through seem to fade away much faster than their male counterparts. No one in Hollywood can say definitively why female directors have barely a toehold in studio films. Among the reasons cited are deeply embedded sexism, fearful executives under intense financial pressure, and a lack of interest from female directors themselves in the sorts of films that are available.
Many women directors are equally uneasy with the topic.
I know the numbers are really bad, but I prefer to think that the industry is somehow on some level becoming less myopic. But other women say they don't have the luxury of tact. It says just about everything about the way this industry works, what it values. But no one wants to really face it. The easy answer is that the fault lies in the economics of making movies.