Meanwhile, in other news...
Feb. 16th, 2012 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThis post by shadowkat reminded me about an article I've been meaning to link, about just how many of this year's film hits were written or co-written by female scriptwriters, here, focusing on the late Bridget O'Connor who co-wrote the adaption of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. The article itself (written by a female journalist, btw), is good, but some of the men quoted in it, even if they mean to praise, are infuriating. As in:
"I think I'm relatively sex-blind when it comes to writers," says Bevan, though he will admit to a certain bias dependant on the material. "If you've got a Jane Austen you try and get Emma Thompson to write it. For a hard-ass thriller you would instinctively go towards a male writer, although Bridget slightly disproved that with Tinker."
Because you know, it's not like (male) scriptwriter Andrew Davies made his entire reputation on Jane Austen adaptions, and of course no "hard-ass thriller" has ever been written by a woman before. (So much for you, Kathryn Bigelow. Actually, go back a few decades more to silent film and early sound film: so much for you, Thea von Harbou, scripting Fritz Lang's M and Doctor Mabuse.)
I'm also reminded of the fascinating lecture on female exile writers which was part of last September's Lion Feuchtwanger conference I attended, highlighting Salka Viertel and Gina Kaus, both of whom were busy writing and, importantly, selling scripts in the late 30s and 40s while many of their male fellow writers kept complaining about the soulless film American industry (which didn't take most of the scripts they after much bitching produced). Thus it was Salka being a hit writer for Greta Garbo which provided the family income, not her husband Berthold Viertel, and said Kaus: "I never had time to wonder whether it was undignified to write for the movies. I needed the money."
But to read articles with quotes from male members of the film industry, no matter whether said articles were written in, say, the 80s or today, you'd think the fact women can write movies (of all types, melodrama or spy thriller) is a recent discovery. Bah.
Lastly: have an article on highly successful screenwriter Diablo Cody.
"I think I'm relatively sex-blind when it comes to writers," says Bevan, though he will admit to a certain bias dependant on the material. "If you've got a Jane Austen you try and get Emma Thompson to write it. For a hard-ass thriller you would instinctively go towards a male writer, although Bridget slightly disproved that with Tinker."
Because you know, it's not like (male) scriptwriter Andrew Davies made his entire reputation on Jane Austen adaptions, and of course no "hard-ass thriller" has ever been written by a woman before. (So much for you, Kathryn Bigelow. Actually, go back a few decades more to silent film and early sound film: so much for you, Thea von Harbou, scripting Fritz Lang's M and Doctor Mabuse.)
I'm also reminded of the fascinating lecture on female exile writers which was part of last September's Lion Feuchtwanger conference I attended, highlighting Salka Viertel and Gina Kaus, both of whom were busy writing and, importantly, selling scripts in the late 30s and 40s while many of their male fellow writers kept complaining about the soulless film American industry (which didn't take most of the scripts they after much bitching produced). Thus it was Salka being a hit writer for Greta Garbo which provided the family income, not her husband Berthold Viertel, and said Kaus: "I never had time to wonder whether it was undignified to write for the movies. I needed the money."
But to read articles with quotes from male members of the film industry, no matter whether said articles were written in, say, the 80s or today, you'd think the fact women can write movies (of all types, melodrama or spy thriller) is a recent discovery. Bah.
Lastly: have an article on highly successful screenwriter Diablo Cody.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-16 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-16 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-16 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 08:59 am (UTC)I feel your pain. While I don't have any children myself, I regularly browse the kids section to see if I can find something interesting for my god daughter. More often than not the stuff you find in bookstores (both the books plus the marketing) is just argh...
And I think that over the last couple of years, the situation has gotten increasingly worse instead of better.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 09:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 10:07 am (UTC)Gundel Mattenklott erwähnt in „Zauberkreide“, ihrem historischen Überblick über die Kinder- und Jugendbuchliteratur zwischen 1945 und 1989, kein einziges Buch, das eine Prinzessin im Titel hätte. Heute bietet der Loewe-Verlag „Prinzessin Rosalea“, Ravensburger hat „Meine kleine Prinzessin“ im Angebot und Tessloff den Ratgeber „Wie werde ich Prinzessin in nur sieben Tagen“.
http://www.emma.de/ressorts/artikel/kinder-jugendliche/der-lillifee-komplex/