Hollywood mustn’t let Patty Jenkins become the… | Little White Lies

Women In Film

Hol­ly­wood mustn’t let Pat­ty Jenk­ins become the excep­tion that proves the rule

12 Sep 2017

Words by Emily Bray

Two women in costumes near rocky outcrop, one in gold outfit with arm raised, the other in dark outfit.
Two women in costumes near rocky outcrop, one in gold outfit with arm raised, the other in dark outfit.
The Won­der Woman direc­tor has ful­ly earned her shot at a sequel, but for now her suc­cess sto­ry remains an anomaly.

Pat­ty Jenk­ins will return to direct the Won­der Woman sequel, accord­ing to Vari­ety. In pure busi­ness terms this makes a lot of sense, giv­en that the first film took more than $800m at the world­wide box office, becom­ing the high­est-gross­ing live-action movie by a female direc­tor ever. The move is undoubt­ed­ly a pos­i­tive one and the impor­tance of hav­ing female-cen­tric super­hero films direct­ed by women can­not be overstated.

The deal will make Jenk­ins the high­est paid female film direc­tor in his­to­ry, seem­ing­ly paving the way for her cel­lu­loid sis­ters. And yet the intense scruti­ny sur­round­ing Jenk­ins, cou­pled with the fever­ish spec­u­la­tion over her salary, is all a bit uncom­fort­able. While this is a big step in the right direc­tion, all the self-con­grat­u­la­to­ry back­slap­ping on the part of the indus­try feels a lit­tle premature.

Despite Jenk­ins’ rise to Hollywood’s top table, women are still severe­ly under-rep­re­sent­ed behind the cam­era. In 2016, men made up more than 90 per cent of the total num­ber of direc­tors who worked on the 250 high­est-gross­ing the­atri­cal releas­es. Con­sid­er also that up until now only Jenk­ins and Kathryn Bigelow have direct­ed films with a bud­get in excess of $100 mil­lion (2002’s K‑19: The Wid­ow­mak­er being the trail­blaz­er). In this con­text it doesn’t appear that a sig­nif­i­cant amount of progress has been made, despite pre­vi­ous prece­dents’ being set.

Pre­dictably, the amount of mon­ey Jenk­ins will bank as a result of the Won­der Woman sequel has gen­er­at­ed a lot of inter­est online. It stands to rea­son that mak­ing block­busters mer­its a block­buster salary, yet the fact that one woman’s earn­ings – did any­one ask David Ayer how much he made on Sui­cide Squad? – has gen­er­at­ed such curios­i­ty is extreme­ly telling.

Two people, a woman in a winter coat and another in a superhero costume, sitting around a campfire in a snowy forest.

Won­der Woman 2 was con­firmed sev­er­al months ago, and the delay in announc­ing Jenk­ins as its direc­tor was report­ed­ly due to her nego­ti­at­ing a high­er fee than the $1m she received for Won­der Woman (she will report­ed­ly get some­where between $7 – 9m for the sequel; rough­ly the same as Zack Sny­der took home for Man of Steel). Bridg­ing the salary gap between male and female direc­tors is one thing, but Hol­ly­wood mustn’t let Jenk­ins become the excep­tion that proves the rule.

The direc­tor-star pair­ing of Jenk­ins and Gal Gadot was undoubt­ed­ly a major fac­tor in the first film’s suc­cess, but the cyn­ic in me won­ders whether this deal stems as much from Warn­er Bros’ eager­ness to retain the good­will of the pay­ing pub­lic as any­thing else. Clear­ly this cre­ative part­ner­ship is a strong and fruit­ful one, but the fem­i­nist bub­ble sur­round­ing the film and its sequel is too good a PR sto­ry to pass up.

In an indus­try with a long his­to­ry of try­ing to pass off sym­bol­ic ges­tures as affir­ma­tive action, it seems a no-brain­er to keep Jenk­ins on in such a promi­nent role. If Hol­ly­wood is seri­ous about not just address­ing but fix­ing the sys­temic issue of gen­der inequal­i­ty, it needs to start invit­ing female direc­tors to the par­ty a lot more often.

With so many block­buster fran­chis­es in the works, now is the per­fect time for oth­er female direc­tors to fol­low in Jenk­ins’ foot­steps. There’s a wealth of female tal­ent out there, and seem­ing­ly every­one out­side of Hol­ly­wood knows it. So, who would you like to see be giv­en the keys to the next X‑Men, Star Wars or James Bond movie?

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