Women On the Screen—Then and Now
The competition for Oscar nominations among women actors was extraordinarily
competitive this year, as it has been so for some time now. And that's
happy news, because it wasn't always so. Not that long ago, the number
of screen roles for men versus women was nearly five to one.
There were several reasons for this. One was the crisis among screenwriters
about how to treat female characters in an era that was challenging
long-standing Hollywood stereotyping. For example, the popular adult
romance in which the screen heroine finds Mr. Right and walks away
with him into a supposed life of domestic bliss had come under intense
attack in the 1970s.
Many critics and lots of women's-movement
advocates lashed out at ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANY MORE (1974)
because the newly independent Alice (Ellen Burstyn) agreed to walk
off into the sunset with suitor Kris Kristofferson—a decision greeted with loud applause by the café patrons
in Mel's Diner where Alice worked.
Alice's intention—following the death of her husband—had been to
take on a waitress job and save enough money to be able to continue
her journey west, where she would restart the singing career she'd
abandoned for marriage. Now she was giving this up for another man,
and that's what rankled the film's critics (including Ellen Burstyn
who had opposed the "happy" ending).
A few years later Paul Mazursky wanted a
similar upbeat ending for AN UNMARRIED WOMAN (1978), but remembering
the outrage at Alice's decision, he opted to end his film by having
Jill Clayburgh—a recently
divorced woman now working in an art gallery—reject her charming
suitor (Alan Bates) as she had done with others before him. The adult-romance
formula film was on hold.
What WAS acceptable at this time and through
most of the 1980s were male-oriented action films, films with rogue
cops and law-and-order heroes, and male "buddy" pictures in which
women were usually minor background characters, if present at all.
In that era of change and uncertainty big-name male stars (Bronson,
DeNiro, Eastwood, McQueen, Newman, Pacino, Redford, Stallone, Wayne)
were deemed bankable commodities at the box-office; most women
actors were not, and as a consequence memorable roles for American
film actresses became scarce.
I think back to 1975 and Louise Fletcher's
Best Actress Oscar for Nurse Ratchet in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S
NEST—an award in a year
in which there was little competition, and one for a role that today
would be relegated to the Supporting Actress category.
But that was then and now is now and women are
everywhere on the screen, not just as actresses in great roles, but
in the credits as writers, directors and producers (and sometimes
all three). They include: writer-directors (Patty Jenkins, MONSTER,
Sofia Coppola, LOST IN TRANSLATION); producers (Kathleen Kennedy,
SEABISCUIT, Nancy Myers, MONSTER and Judie G. Hoyt, MYSTIC RIVER),
and writer-producer-directors (Nancy Myers, SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE
and Audrey Wells, UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN).
Best Actress nominations range from 13-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes
(WHALE RIDER) to 57-year-old Diane Keaton (SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE,
an adult romance, by the way, where in the end the man and the woman
are able to walk away together).
The differences between then and now can
be explained in the proliferation of "indies," of more "little," low-budget
pictures, of distribution companies willing to take chances on
films with challenging stories, and, of course, in the increase
in women film artists with vision and opportunity.
Film historian and critic Frank Beaver is professor of film and
video studies and professor of communication.
P.S. (Pride-of-School)—University of Michigan
grad Lucy Ouyang '80 was an assistant director of MASTER AND COMMANDER.
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