The 500-pound gorilla in Hollywood isn’t King Kong:it’s discrimination against women directors!

From the Guerilla Girls website:

We took Kong, gave him a sex change and a designer gown, and set her up in Hollywood, just a few blocks from where the Oscars [were] awarded March 5, 2006.

Why? To reveal the sordid but True Hollywood Story about the lack of women and people of color behind the scenes in the film industry:

Only 7% of 2005’s 200 top-grossing films were directed by women.

Only 3 women have ever been nominated for an Oscar for Direction (Lina Wertmuller (1976), Jane Campion (1982) and Sofia Coppola (2003). None has won.

More embarrassing Hollywood statistics:

Of 2004’s top-grossing films:*
5% had female directors
12% had female writers
3% had female cinematographers
16% had female editors

Only 8 people of color have ever been nominated for an Oscar for Direction. None has won.
Hollywood guilds are 80 to 90% white.
Only 3% of the Oscars for acting have been won by people of color.

In the 21st century, low, low, low numbers like this HAVE to be the result of discrimination, unconscious, conscious or both. Hollywood likes to think of itself as cool, edgy and ahead of its time, but it actually lags way behind the rest of society in employing women and people of color in top positions.

There may be women heading studios these days, but what are they doing for women and people of color? Why do they keep the white male film director stereotype alive? Here’s an easy way to change things: open up that boys’ club and hire more women and people of color. It worked in medicine, business and law. It worked in the art world. Now it’s Hollywood’s turn. Rattle that cage, break those chains! LET WOMEN DIRECT!

Via Rachel’s Spot, which I found via Feministing. Now here’s a “small world” moment: I went to college with Rachel (“Rachel’s Spot”) Raimist’s eldest brother. Got to know her whole family a little because I grew up near where the Raimists lived, and got invited over a few times for various functions. What cool stuff she’s doing!

–Ann Bartow