好萊塢的性別歧視早已不是什么新鮮事。從索尼影業(yè)被黑客攻擊后泄露出男女高管巨大薪資差距,到報告公布出女導演和女制片幾十年未變的可憐比例,再到女演員們最被關心的問題永遠離不開穿什么,好萊塢的性別歧視問題正因持續(xù)被曝光而逐漸受到人們的關注。當紅的一線女星作為女主角的電影片酬居然敵不過同一部影片中作為男配角的二線男星的片酬,這令人大為吃驚,然而這只是好萊塢性別歧視現(xiàn)象的冰山一角,好萊塢臺前幕后的女性會遭遇到哪些不公正的待遇,其背后的原因何在?讓我們來一一探究!
Women are not tapped for power jobs in Hollywood. Their numbers trail far behind the percentage of females in executive positions in other heavily male-dominated endeavors, including the military, tech, finance, government, science and engineering. In 2013, 1.9 percent of the directors of Hollywoods 100 top-grossing films were female. In 2011, women held 7.1 percent of U.S. military general and admiral posts, 20 percent of U.S. Senate seats and more than 20 percent of leadership roles at Twitter and Facebook—and both companies now face gender-discrimination lawsuits.
At top U.S. film schools, women and men are almost equally represented. Females account for 46 percent of USCs School of Cinematic Arts graduate students. At New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts, 51 percent of graduate students are women.
Yet between the day these women graduate and the day, a few years later, that their male college peers begin showing up in film credits, most women filmmakers vanish into obscurity.
A study commissioned by the Sundance Institute and Women in Film Los Angeles, found that women and men who graduate from Sundances prestigious labs in Utah finish their films at the same rate and get their films accepted to the worlds top independent festivals at the same rate.
Then something unsettling happens. After competing at Sundance and other big festivals, the men who win awards are often tapped to direct for the Big Six: Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony and 20th Century Fox. But Big Six studio executives seem to ignore the award-winning female filmmakers, rarely inviting them to direct a picture.
Explanations for why studio executives and top agents tend to snub talented women have been playing on repeat for decades. Since at least the 1970s, studio execs have deflected discussion of themselves and pointed to the women. They contend that the pool of female talent is too small and that women are not interested in directing action and comic book movies—and have even suggested women cant handle big budgets.
But Barbara Schock, chair of NYUs graduate film program, says, “We train everybody in the whole range of filmmaking. Im seeing no difference whatsoever in their abilities,” whether male or female.
Hollywood wasnt always like this. When the film industry coalesced in Los Angeles in the early 1900s, some of its most powerful players were women.
Screenwriter Frances Marion wrote nearly 200 films between 1915 and 1989, and often collaborated with other women. Lois Weber was one of early Hollywoods most prolific and powerful directors, with more than 130 films to her credit.
But two events in the 1920s brought that glimmer of equality to a halt. In 1921, Roscoe“Fatty” Arbuckle was implicated in the death of young actress Virginia Rappe. The Fatty Arbuckle scandal was used to create this public discussion of Hollywood encouraging young women to do things unchaperoned. Then, beginning in 1929, Depression and Hollywoods transition from silent films to talkies forced executives to deal with Wall Street for loans. Hollywood began answering to Wall Street, sidelining women because the financiers didnt back them.
Between 1949 and 1979, the robust female talent behind the cameras all but disappeared. To watch films was to see a world made up of men, acting out mens stories financed by men, written by men and filmed by men, with women often thrown in as sidekicks or arm candy.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, women started fighting back. The Womens Committee of the Screen Actors Guild was formed in 1972. In 1973, activists founded the Committee of Women Writers at the Writers Guild of America.
In 1979, six female directors established the Womens Steering Committee at the Directors Guild of America. Producer-director Victoria Hochberg was one of the six. “We had all reached a certain level of success,” says Hochberg. “I had been nominated for an Emmy, one of us had won an Oscar and another had won a Peabody…but at a certain point, it just came out. ‘Are you working? ‘No. ‘Are you working? ‘No.”
Hochberg and her group dug up the data showing that just 14 films had been directed by women in the previous 30 years. “Now that,” she says, “is a startling statistic.” They confronted studio executives but were ignored. So in the early 1980s, they sued. That got executives attention: Between 1985 and 1995, the number of films directed by women skyrocketed to 16 percent from nearly zero.
The Daily Beast revealed last December that Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams, the female stars of American Hustle, were paid far less than even a secondary male actor in the film, Jeremy Renner.
Another example of the double standard: Women with a box office failure often dont get hired again, but men who fail do. “If a movie starring or written by or directed by a man flops, people dont blame the gender of the creator,” Diablo Cody says. “Its just kind of weird how the blame is always immediately placed on female directors.”
According to Mina Cikara, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard University, research shows that change starts at the top. “If the most powerful person at the table neglects to even look in the direction of the sole female fleet member,” she says, “then yes, other people are going to pick up on that info and follow suit.”
Hollywoods top-level executives do just that. They have maintained radio silence on the industrys gender imbalance issue for decades.
Why do executives in one of the worlds most progressive and cosmopolitan communities make decisions like these?
Susanne Quadflieg, a neuroscientist and an expert in gender bias at Bristol University in London, explained that MRI-based brain studies show stereotypes are activated in about 170 milliseconds. No matter how open-minded we fancy ourselves, these biases kick in without our realizing it.
Quadflieg says a process known as “implicit stereotyping” allows these split-second biases to kick in despite political or personal beliefs. When a woman defies these biased expectations, “Youre very good at coming up with reasons for why that might be: ‘Oh, her dad was a professor, too. But with a man, they just think, ‘OK, yeah, theres a man whos good in math. Big deal.”
The research also points to an elegantly straightforward solution to this problem that has loomed over Hollywood since the 1940s: Studio executives and top agents should just hire more women.
“If you had a lot of exposure to these unexpected roles for women, you would, over time, adjust your expectation,” Quadflieg says. “The easiest way to overcome stereotypical expectations is to get them repeatedly violated.”
在好萊塢,擔當重要職位的女性并不多。好萊塢的女性高管數(shù)量遠遠落后于其他由男性主宰的行業(yè),包括軍隊、技術、金融、政府、科學和建造工程等行業(yè)。2013年,好萊塢總票房前100名影片的導演中僅有1.9%是女性。而在2011年,女性占據(jù)了7.1%的美國軍事將領和海軍上將的崗位,20%的美國參議院席位以及超過20%的Twitter和Facebook領導角色——而現(xiàn)在這兩家公司都面臨著性別歧視訴訟。
在美國頂級的電影學院中,男女學生比例基本持平。南加州大學電影藝術學院畢業(yè)生中女性占了46%。在紐約大學提斯克藝術學院,51%的畢業(yè)生是女性。
然而,從這些女性畢業(yè)的那天起,到之后的幾年間,她們的男性校友就已開始在電影行業(yè)中嶄露頭角,而大多數(shù)的女性電影制作人則逐漸銷聲匿跡。
圣丹斯協(xié)會和洛杉磯女性電影人協(xié)會組織進行的一項研究顯示,從猶他州著名的圣丹斯實驗室畢業(yè)的男女比例相同,他們打入世界頂級獨立電影節(jié)的影片比例也相同。
然而,一些令人不安的事情發(fā)生了。在圣丹斯和其他大型電影節(jié)中角逐后,贏得獎項的男性們經(jīng)常被挖掘擔任六大電影公司的導演:迪斯尼、環(huán)球、華納兄弟、派拉蒙、索尼影業(yè)和二十世紀??怂构尽5橇箅娪肮镜母呒壷鞴芩坪鹾雎粤双@獎的女導演,幾乎沒有邀請她們導演任何影片。
幾十年來,電影公司的高級主管和頂尖經(jīng)紀公司對冷落有才華的女性所作出的解釋一直是老調(diào)重彈。早自20世紀70年代起,高級主管們就轉(zhuǎn)嫁輿論鋒芒,把問題的矛頭直指女性。他們聲稱女性才華有局限性以及女性對導演動作片和由漫畫改編的電影并不感興趣——甚至暗示女性沒有能力控制高額預算。
但是紐約大學畢業(yè)生電影項目的主席芭芭拉·休克卻這樣說道:“我們?nèi)轿挥柧毭恳晃粚W生的電影導演能力。從他們的能力方面來看,我看不到任何區(qū)別?!蔽鹫撃信?/p>
好萊塢并不總是如此。20世紀初,電影產(chǎn)業(yè)開始在洛杉磯興起,那時,許多具有巨大影響力的演員都是女性。
從1915年至1989年間,電影劇本作家弗蘭絲斯·馬麗恩創(chuàng)作了近200部電影劇本,也經(jīng)常和其他女性合作。洛伊斯·韋伯就是好萊塢早期的一位極其多產(chǎn)且具有巨大影響力的電影導演,她導演了130多部令人稱頌的電影。
但發(fā)生在20世紀20年代的兩個事件使得這種平等的希望之光停止了閃爍。1921年,“大胖”羅斯科·阿巴克爾牽涉年輕女演員維吉尼亞·拉佩之死。大胖阿巴克爾丑聞被借以引導公眾大肆討論好萊塢鼓勵年輕女性在無成人監(jiān)護的情況下工作。接著,自1929年開始,經(jīng)濟大蕭條以及好萊塢從無聲電影轉(zhuǎn)向有聲電影使得高管們不得不向華爾街貸款。好萊塢開始為了迎合華爾街而排斥女性,因為投資者們并不支持女性。
從1949到1979年間,攝影機后那些精力充沛、才華橫溢的女性幾乎全部消失了??措娪熬拖袷强匆粋€由男人組成的世界,這些影片講述的都是由男人投資、由男人創(chuàng)作、由男人拍攝的有關男人的故事,而女性則經(jīng)常作為助手或者是花瓶美女出現(xiàn)。
20世紀60年代和70年代后期,女性開始反擊。1972年,美國女性演員工會委員會成立。1973年,維權分子在美國作家協(xié)會中創(chuàng)設了女作家委員會。
1979年,六位女導演為美國導演協(xié)會創(chuàng)設了女性指導委員會。制作人兼導演維多利亞·霍赫貝格就是其中一位創(chuàng)設者?!拔覀兌既〉昧艘欢ǖ某删?。”霍赫貝格說道。“我曾被提名艾美獎,我們其中一位曾獲得奧斯卡獎,另一位曾獲得皮博迪獎……但在某種程度上,得到的結果不過如此——‘你有在工作嗎?‘沒有?!阌性诠ぷ鲉??‘沒有?!?/p>
霍赫貝格和她的隊員們挖掘出來的數(shù)據(jù)表明,在過去的30年里,只有14部電影是由女性導演的?!斑@無疑,”她說道,“是個驚人的數(shù)據(jù)?!彼齻兣c電影公司的高級主管們對峙,但卻受到了忽略。因此,在20世紀80年代初,她們提出了訴訟。這引起了高管們的注意:從1985至1995年間,由女性導演的電影比例從幾乎為零猛然上升到了16%。
去年12月,《每日野獸》揭示了詹妮弗·勞倫斯和艾米·亞當斯——《美國騙局》中的女演員,所得的片酬遠遠低于影片中一個二線男演員杰瑞米·雷納的片酬。
另一個雙重標準的例子是:票房失敗的女演員或?qū)а萃粫辉俅喂陀?,但是對于男演員或?qū)а輩s并非如此?!叭绻徊坑赡行灾餮?、創(chuàng)作或者導演的電影失敗了,人們不會以性別為由責備他們。”迪亞布羅·科蒂說道?!巴ǔA⒓词艿截焸涞亩际桥畬а荩@有點兒奇怪。”
據(jù)哈佛大學心理學助理教授米娜·斯卡拉的研究表明,改變是自上而下的?!叭绻献钣袡嗔Φ哪莻€人選擇忽視唯一的女性成員,”她說道,“那么,其他人也會接收到這個信息并紛紛效仿?!?/p>
好萊塢的高層管理人員正是這樣做的。幾十年來,他們對電影產(chǎn)業(yè)中的性別失衡一直充耳不聞。
為何世界上最進步和國際化的一個團體的高管們會做出這樣的決定?
蘇珊娜·奎德弗利,一位倫敦布里斯托爾大學的神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)學家兼性別歧視研究專家,是這樣解釋的:以核磁共振成像為基礎的研究顯示,刻板印象會在約170毫秒內(nèi)被激活。無論我們認為自己多么開明,這些偏見會在我們意識到之前就侵入我們的思想。
奎德弗利提到一個被稱為“隱式刻板印象”的過程,這個過程使得瞬間偏見能夠入侵我們的思想,無論我們的政治或者是個人信仰如何。當一位女性挑戰(zhàn)了這些偏見預期時,“你自然很擅長分析理由:‘噢,她父親也是教授。但是如果是個男性,他們會認為:‘是的,這個男人就是擅長數(shù)學。真了不起?!?/p>
這項研究同時也指出了一個極其簡單的解決方法,這個自從20世紀40年代起就困擾著好萊塢的難題有了答案:電影公司高管和頂尖經(jīng)紀公司應該雇傭更多的女性。
“如果你接觸更多意料之外的女性角色,隨著時間推移,你會調(diào)整你的預期?!笨赂ダf道?!翱朔贪逵∠箢A期最簡單的方法就是反復地打破這種預期。”
小鏈接
好萊塢的杰出女導演
凱瑟琳·畢格羅(Kathryn Bigelow)
第一個獲得奧斯卡最佳導演獎(第86屆)的女導演
代表作品:《拆彈部隊》《刺殺本拉登》
索菲亞·科波拉(Sofia Coppola)
曾獲得2004年奧斯卡最佳原創(chuàng)劇本獎和奧斯卡最佳導演獎提名代表作品《迷失東京》《在某處》
諾拉·依弗朗(Nora Ephron)
浪漫愛情喜劇大師
代表作品:《西雅圖夜未眠》《當哈利遇上莎莉》
南希·邁耶斯(Nancy Meyers)
高票房喜劇導演
代表作品:《天生一對》《戀愛假期》