While 2009 was a groundbreaking year for filmmaking with the releases of "Avatar," "Precious" and "The Hurt Locker," the dire number of female-helmed studio films speak volumes.
We are nowhere close to equality. The sexist reasons that have managed to keep the number of studio films directed by women relatively flat for more than a decade need to be retired.
Let's hope studio execs feel the same way some of you did about my list of reasons why. They are outrageous.
I hope Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar nomination will do what Barbra Streisand's hit films should have done long ago — make producers far more eager to hire women to direct high-profile studio projects.
Let's see today's producers turn the Top 10 Reasons not to hire women into a pile of ash.
And in the meantime, women can continue to do what women have been doing for years: work outside of the Hollywood system.
Significant and lasting change eventually will come. Producers eventually will bankroll women in charge of projects that require the kinds of budgets independents can't fetch — the projects men are accustomed to getting 24/7.
The slow-moving "you-wanna-be-a-film-director" golf carts for women will get tossed, along with the casting couch. The ongoing barrage of belittling comments will give way to respect, greater opportunities, more ingenuous storytelling and more hit films from female directors.
And one last word to Brad Grey (Paramount), Ronald Meyer (Universal), Barry Meyer (Warner Bros.), Howard Stringer (Sony), Robert Iger (Disney), Tom Rothman (Fox) and Jim Gianopulos (Fox):
I admire each of you for the sensational, thought-provoking and entertaining films your studios have produced over the years while gambling millions and millions of dollars every minute of the day. I can imagine that your jobs redefine the word "pressure."
But do male directors ensure you golden profits each and every time you greenlight their projects? Do you downgrade the entire gender when one of them produces a flop?
Seriously, take a look at your greenlighting practices. It's 2010. Your producers can do more than resort to the industry's A-list for directors when looking to attach talent.
In terms of women, that A stands for Anemic.
Consider female directors with television backgrounds, indie backgrounds, foreign filmmaking backgrounds. Producers, you can spot the talent.
And then go one step further: Hire them.
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