<
https://slate.com/culture/2022/01/charlie-chaplin-buster-keaton-mabel-normand-female-directors.html>
"During the 1910s, the same years that silent comedians like Charlie Chaplin,
Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd were establishing themselves as movie stars,
another phenomenon was taking place in the business that would not become
visible—or, at any rate, be considered worthy of notice—for about a hundred
years. More precisely, a trend that had characterized the medium’s first two
decades was in steep decline. Women, who until around 1916 had wielded a degree
of power in the film industry unmatched to the present day, were vanishing from
the high places they had occupied and being shunted into the narrow space they
would be allotted for the rest of the 20th century and into our own.
For that short span of time, though, what now seems like a shockingly high
number of women held positions of real creative power in the world of film. Not
to say that the gender balance of the industry even then was anywhere near
equitable; as a cutting-edge technology with mass moneymaking potential, the
new medium remained predominantly the province of men. But a higher percentage
of American movies were directed by women in 1916 than has been true in any
year since, a bracing reminder that gender discrimination in the film industry
is about as old as the Ford Model T and, unlike that long-obsolete vehicle,
still rolling."
Via Whuffo, who wrote "It’s the same game that got played in many other
businesses and industries."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
