Diablo Cody, who is coming off her directorial debut with Paradise, addressed some frustrating, persistent issues with women in Hollywood.
Talking to Women And Hollywood, Cody talked about juggling motherhood and directing. In particular, why there are so few lady directors. She says:
I don’t think you can generalize it completely, but motherhood has to have some kind of something to do with it. Because like it or not, even when women are the primary breadwinners, even when we work full time, we’re still expected in a lot of ways to be the primary parent. And we often want to be the primary parent as well. I had never really made that connection before, I used to say, “Oh, it’s so mysterious why there aren’t more female directors, I don’t get it.” I had all these wild theories and now I think that’s got to be it. I have a feeling it’ll be different when my kids are older. Nancy Meyers told me she felt that directing was a great job for a mom. I think that’d be the case with older kids. But with little ones? That’s day in and day out. It’s relentless. I’m not comfortable have somebody else raise my kid completely. I need to be there.I don’t know any male directors who have kids who feel guilt about it. Not a single one. Why should I feel guilty about making a movie that’s going to last forever? And yet I do. I have tremendous guilt about the whole thing.
Being a woman is tough, everyone! I know that’s no newsflash, but it’s honest statements like this that really drive home decisions that women have to make that many (most?) men will never face.
Also, interestingly, it was super hard for her to get insured on her set.
Like it was almost impossible for me to get insured. I thought that was shocking. Because they’ll insure an overweight 70-year-old man who is a heart attack risk no problem. But, a healthy, 33-year-old pregnant woman is “super high risk” and that was strange to me. So that surprised me. I didn’t think it would be treated as that big of a deal.
How is that legal? Ugh, nevermind, save me the lecture.
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