Unfortunately this will not change everything

Unfortunately, this will not change everything 

So this past weekend, I watched the new Netflix documentary "This Changes Everything” 

Geena Davis is the executive producer on this, and she talks about the way she’s been depicted on screen and how sexist Hollywood really is.

She thought that when her movie “Thelma & Louise” came out, back in 1991 how it would  “Change everything” (hence the title)  That women's would now have more of a chance to be directors and producers.

So much for that, and when it didn't go that way, she started her own research, and that led to her to start the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. She started researching the portrayal of women in children’s programming and went on to research how many men vs. women there are in filmmaking. It grew from there.

There are some eye-opening interviews in this documentary, with some of Hollywood's top women actresses, directors, and producers. They are all hoping for the possibility of shaping young minds in a positive way to change the good old boys club for the next generation.

Now, we all know that this goes on in Hollywood, but to hear it from so many A listers, who openly talk about systematic sexism and discrimination is unbelievable.

Here are some startling facts about women in this business: last year, 92 percent of the directors who made the top 250 domestic movies were male. 

A mere 15.6 percent of the Directors Guild of America membership is female. 

And only one woman has won the best director Oscar in the award’s 90-year history: Kathryn Bigelow, for “The Hurt Locker,” with only a small handful of others even being nominated.  

The percentage of female protagonists dropped from 40% in 2019 to just 29% in 2020. The new data shows the lowest marks for films since 2017, when only 24% of top grossing films had female protagonists.

This industry is run by men, produced by men, directed by men and starred in by men and hello! We are almost in 2022; this needs to change. The old needs to go, and a new guard needs to be ushered in. And yes, it can happen as this documentary showed it used to be that way.

You will be as surprised as I was to learn that before 1925, during the silent film era, women wrote the outlines for roughly half of all films.

 In fact, a great many women were behind the camera in those days—producing and directing films and running studios. Women also pioneered much of the film technology that still exists today—only to be pushed out of the burgeoning industry once its influence and money-making potential had become more widely recognized.

So today, my friends, let's change the world. Let's tell our daughters, our nieces, all the young women out there that they can do anything; they are the change. And as I say at the end of every blog…

Be the change you want to see!

@TreadmillTreats