Cinema’s Women Need Respect

As someone who is writing a book on female directors in the “New Hollywood,” I wanted to point out a disturbing pattern I have noticed in your reviews of this important new body of cinema. I’m writing less to quarrel with judgments about whether a given film is “good” or “bad” than to protest the terms used to dismiss these films.

Reviewing “The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love” (Calendar, June 16), a seriocomic film that deals with an interracial lesbian relationship between teen-agers, Peter Rainer patronizingly pronounced it “a little piddle of a movie”! I am dismayed at the lack of respect accorded director Maria Maggenti, who bravely explored such fraught subject matter as the homophobia faced by young girls just discovering their sexuality.

One week earlier, Rainer reviewed another film directed by a woman, Daisy von Scherler Mayer’s “Party Girl,” and he again condescended, calling it “addled and inconsequential.” Rainer failed to consider the genre: Would he use such terms to describe classic “screwball” films like “Bringing Up Baby” (about a man and a woman and their escapades with a pet leopard) or “I Was a Male War Bride” (in which Cary Grant dresses up in drag so he can travel on board a ship as the spouse of a female Army officer)? These two films, directed by Howard Hawks, are rightly considered masterpieces.

Screwball comedies like these are by definition “addled,” but below the surface they may be anything but “inconsequential.” I could argue that “Party Girl” is as hip, energetic, zany, inspired and consequential as the work of Hawks in the ‘30s and ‘40s. But my point is this: At least since Jane Austen, women’s comic art--especially when it concerns girls and their problems--has too readily been judged to be trifling and insignificant: inconsequential piddle.

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Last July, another of your reviewers, Kevin Thomas, swatted at Allison Anders’ film about Latina gang girls, “Mi Vida Loca.” He said the film suffered because it was not written and directed by someone from inside the culture. Yet, ironically, The Times continues to employ only white male reviewers and seems untroubled by the fact that as men these reviewers themselves may be outsiders to the worlds of the women they confidently dismiss.

I noticed recently that Anders has received a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award. The Times reported that the award may have saved Anders’ career. It seems she has been very discouraged about her work and its reception. Needless to say, The Times did not allude to its share of responsibility for Anders’ state of mind. Yet, as her story reveals, reviews have the power to shut down voices too seldom heard in the history of filmmaking. Is it too much to ask that serious attention and respect be paid to those who take great financial and artistic risks to bring new points of view to the screen?

I am not claiming that male reviewers are always insensitive to women’s work. Rainer, in fact, was recognized by Betty Friedan’s Women, Men & Media organization for an essay decrying Hollywood’s treatment of women. That a critic like Rainer is obviously well-intentioned, however, suggests how easy it is to overlook or end up unconsciously belittling the accomplishments of those who view the world differently.

While I would not argue that female reviewers are necessarily more sensitive to women’s work, I do think that greater diversity among your reviewing staff would help bring about a greater diversity of perspectives. This in turn could help rectify the problem identified by Directors Guild President Gene Reynolds (quoted in June 17 “Morning Report”): “The directorial talents of our minority and women members are still not receiving a fair hearing in the employment marketplace.”