The Real Reason Women Don’t Direct More Action Movies

There’s been a lot of talk lately about women directing major action movies. The fuel for this particular fire was lit by Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow, who recently signed on for Star Wars: Episode IX. He followed the big announcement closely with a statement about why he thinks women aren’t getting a lot of the big blockbuster jobs in Hollywood:

@AutisticWeirdo http://pic.twitter.com/Nt17F2ohMn

— Colin Trevorrow (@colintrevorrow) August 21, 2015

This sparked a bit of reasonable backlash from women in the filmmaking community, many of whom say that his naive theory doesn’t quite scratch the surface of the real problem in Hollywood. He followed it with a statement to /Film, further acknowledging that he’s not trying to brush off the issue:

“The last thing I’d want to communicate is that I don’t acknowledge this problem exists. I think the problem is glaring and obvious. And while it does make me a little uncomfortable to be held up as an example of everything that’s wrong, this is an important dialogue to have, so let’s have it.

Would I have been chosen to direct Jurassic World if I was a female filmmaker who had made one small film? I have no idea. I’d like to think that choice was based on the kind of story I told and the way I chose to tell it. But of course it’s not that simple. There are centuries-old biases at work at every level, within all of us. And yes, it makes me feel shitty to be perceived as part of this problem, because it’s an issue that matters so much to me. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t talk about it in the first place.

I do stand by the idea that a great many people in the film industry want this to change. I have made attempts at every turn to help turn the tide, and I will continue to do it. When I got the script for Lucky Them, released last year, I advocated hard for my friend Megan Griffiths to direct. She did, and she made a wonderful film (see it please). On my next project, Book of Henry, nearly all of my department heads and producers are women. Will I give a female filmmaker the same chance Steven Spielberg gave me someday? Let’s hope that when I do, it won’t even be noteworthy. It will be the status quo.”

As much as Trevorrow deserved the feedback for his original statement and deserves ample criticism for the sexist stereotypes that exist within Jurassic World, perhaps we can appreciate the excuse to continue the discussion. This is something we should be talking about. So that sometime soon, as Trevorrow (and the rest of us desire), the status quo will be that jobs are available to great filmmakers, regardless of gender or race.

That’s why it’s also important to make fun of the situation, as Funny or Die is doing in this latest video. It’s all part of a larger conversation that matters in a big way. In this particular instance, it’s a skewering of why a talented female director might say no to a project like Space Cops 4.