Nicole Kassell first heard about the Tumblr blog “Shit People Say to Women Directors” last week, when a female film-maker friend she was dining with mentioned it on the assumption she already knew of it. “I did go look at it and proceeded to get very depressed,” says Kassell, director of the films The Woodsman and A Little Bit of Heaven and episodes of TV shows such as Better Call Saul, The Killing and The Following. The site, which launched 22 April and is causing a storm among film industry insiders, especially women, is a catalog of anonymous stories about the sexist things that happen to women working on film sets. One female director was asked by a male agent: “How did you get so far so fast, besides the fact that you give good head?” One male director told a female crew member: “I can’t work with someone I want to fuck. It messes with my head.” A male writer told his female assistant: “You are a terrible assistant; why don’t you go back to working in porn where you belong?”
Here we are in the throes of the 21st century…and it would appear Neanderthals still walk among us. I can only speak for myself, but I’m stunned that any male could for ANY conceivable reason tell a woman, “I can’t work with someone I want to fuck.” Does success in Hollywood simply mean not having to think about having a fully functional filter? Does it mean having license to give voice to whatever thought wriggles its way into your pointy li’l haid? Or does it mean simply being unburdened of the responsibility to have any considerations for the feelings of others?
Big egos aren’t unique to Hollywood, of course; neither is being an asshole and a misogynist, but it takes a special sort of misanthrope to believe that filters are for other, lesser beings, and that the world by all rights should march to the beat of their drum. And it’s not just powerful people who exhibit this sort of ugliness toward women. It doesn’t seem as if exhibiting a basic level of respect towards women and treating them with dignity should be such a radical concept, but evidently a lot of men didn’t get the memo:
I was crouched under a table, pulling cables at the wrap of a show. A co-worker walked up to the table, and stood there. Crawling out from underneath, he said to me: “I know something else you can do while you’re down on your knees.”
I may not be a woman, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that I don’t know a woman who would become anything close to being turned on by a statement like that. What sort of troglodyte would think that to be an appropriate thing to say to someone they’re not involved in a relationship with (and even then it might be a stretch)? I can think of no greater way to establish your street cred as an asshole than to speak to a woman in such a degrading and inappropriate manner.
Someday, we’ll manage to figure our how to get along with one another. Maybe we’ll even learn to treat each other with dignity and respect. Unfortunately, I’m not at all certain that day will be realized during my sojourn on this Earth.
