Reel Equality

 

What is Reel Equality?
It is a new film club run by the Nottinghamshire domestic abuse charity Equation. We’ll be showing feature films every month that tell diverse and interesting women-centered stories that counter the dominance of male-focused stories and tired female gender stereotypes in the mainstream film industry. We’ll also be putting on fun film-themed events each month, such as food, quizzes and a bit of dressing up too.

How did it come about?
It was a part of Equation’s campaigning interest in promoting gender equality. The causes of domestic abuse are complex, but we know that many male perpetrators of domestic abuse against women think that women are worth less than men, and hold sexist beliefs about how women should behave, which are based on gender stereotypes. These attitudes develop from many sources, but sexist messages from culture and media – like TV, music, film and magazines – play an important part. Reel Equality is a positive way that Equation can challenge these messages locally.

What do you want to achieve with the project?
First and foremost the club is designed to offer an equality-focused alternative to mainstream cinema, which is so male-dominated. Because a lot of people still aren’t aware of a gender inequality issue in film at all, Equation also wants to use Reel Equality to raise awareness of this problem and the damaging impact it has on real-life experiences. Ultimately, through attracting a wide audience to our screenings, we’d like to contribute to the evidence that there’s a big demand for films that show diverse, interesting representations of women, and so encourage better film-making and film programming.

When is the opening night?
Our free launch event is in the Broadway Cinema Cafébar on Friday 22 August. We’re starting at 8.30pm with soundtrack-inspired tunes from local vinyl-spinner Stiff Kittens DJ, free birthday cake from Screaming Carrot Bakery, and a cult film character costume competition - one year’s Broadway Membership is up for grabs as the star prize for Best Dressed. To top off the night, we’ll be opening our programme of films with a free screening of the cult classic Ghost World, a hit from 2001 starring Scarlett Johansson, Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi.

What made you choose Ghost World?
The Reel Equality committee worked hard to develop some basic criteria for films we want to show and Ghost World ticked all of those boxes - as well as being a funny, positive and accessible opener that is suitable for a Friday night audience watching the film in a bar! We’re picking films with female characters that aren’t just there to look sexy, or be the love interest of the male lead, or have a stereotypical two-dimensional supporting role as the sassy side-kick or fragile flower that needs to get rescued. We want to tell women’s stories in all their diversity and we’ll be following up with films about women of different ages, races, nationalities, sexualities and circumstances.

How much of a problem is sexism in modern film making?
Depressingly big. We did quite a lot of research before we started planning the project. We wanted to have a look at how big the problem was, and there’s absolutely tons of research that proves the fact that a big imbalance still exists. There are too many films that completely sideline women from the plot.  Less than one in four Hollywood films feature women in the lead role. There are films like Gravity and The Hunger Games, which portray strong female leads, but for every one of those there are a dozen action blockbusters that only have women in as eye-candy. 

How widespread a problem is it?
I had a look a Nottingham multiplex cinema and, of the thirteen films currently showing, only one can be argued as having a prominent female lead, and that’s Sin City 2. 

And that’s pretty debateable to be fair…
That is key in showing that women aren’t fairly represented at all. There is a big problem with sexism in films, most of the female characters in Sin City are just written as clichéd, limiting stereotypes: usually objectified and heavily sexualised.  Out of the top 100 films of 2013, men were nearly three times as likely as women to be portrayed as leaders; women consistently make up less than a third of speaking roles; and women are more than four times more likely to be shown partially naked, or in revealing/sexy clothing. All that sounds quite academic, but it’s not just an issue of statistics. The characters you see on screen subtly, but definitely, affect the way people think about women in the wider context; women are being displayed as having a lesser value to society than men.

A study in 2011 claimed that women buy more cinema tickets then men do. Seeing as the film industry is above all others in being money/statistics led, why do you think it is taking so long to achieve that sense of equality?
You would hope that with all that evidence of success from female-led films – such as Bridemaids, which was a huge hit – that balance would have changed but it has remained stagnant. It’s the sexist assumption that the industry seems to have, that the audience wants to see stories about white, heterosexual men.

Why do you think 70% of leading roles still go to men?
The film industry is still so male dominated. The male to female ratio of filmmakers is 15:1. That’s about the same for screenwriters too. That gender imbalance behind the scenes is clearly having an impact on what films get funded and produced. These films are mostly being made by white men, who think people want to see stories about people like them, despite growing evidence to the contrary – as well as a moral imperative to represent society’s stories fairly.

A Sin City dame to kill for.

Since when does artistic expression have to have a moral compass?
The evidence shows how damaging it is to have women represented in such a limited way within cinema. It’s damaging to society’s perception of women; it’s damaging to women’s self-esteem and aspirations; it has a real world impact, because the stories we see and hear affect they way we see the world. Stories have incredible power, and people who tell stories have the power to influence society. In a democratic society, the people in power should be representative of the people in their society. We wouldn’t have to do very much to make things incredibly better than they are now, just a general effort would be huge in changing the status quo.

Female directors have a strong presence in Nottingham, achieving particular success through crowd funding. From Jeanie Finlay, who has been at the forefront of crowd funding to make her documentaries, to burgeoning female directors like Ellie Wake, whose debut short film recently had a successful Indiegogo campaign. Is the future looking much brighter for female directors?
Independent and art house cinema is definitely better in its gender balance than mainstream, Hollywood cinema. There’s a greater awareness, a greater desire to tell different stories and more of an impetus to support women getting involved in filmmaking. Currently, only six percent of films considered ‘Hollywood’ releases were directed by women, which is pretty shocking.

How important was Kathryn Bigelow’s Academy Award win?
It was great, but that was in 2009. The Academy Awards took almost 100 years to recognise a female director. It’s another glaring example of gender equality in the industry. And, you can’t forget that she won with a film (The Hurt Locker) that was incredibly masculine – it was a war film about a dude!

Do you think a young woman starting out in the film industry today would have any advantages at all over their male counterparts?
I really can’t think of any at all. In terms of forging a path in the mainstream film industry, there are no advantages to being female. All the odds seem to be stacked against you.

Do you think there are any problems with people seeing films solely because of the gender of their protagonist/director?
I think everyone makes his or her own personal decisions. If we were to live in an equal society where 50% of films were made about women and 50% made about men, then deciding to choose a film based on the gender of the protagonist or director would be a strange thing to do. But seeing as we live in such an imbalanced world, we need to support the stories that are made by and about women – which is why someone like myself would choose to support such a film.

How can people get involved with Reel Equality?
Come to our screenings!  Our first season of six films are all advertised on the Equation website, we’ll be showing in different venues across the city and everyone is welcome. Tickets are affordable, from £4-6 depending on venue. Reel Equality is largely run by a committee of volunteers, so if anyone is really passionate about gender and film, we’ll be recruiting for new committee members in September/October time. We’ll advertise on our Facebook page and on the website.

Ghost World will be shown as part of Reel Equality’s opening night at Broadway Cinema on Friday 22 August 2014.

Equation Website