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Women in Film Lifting Hollywood’s Act Brigid Horneman-Wren
the workplace. It’s a clever and funny skit, which in seven minutes covers female objectification, sexism, ageism and racism in the arts. As women front the audition room for the Leading Lady Part – a “thin, sexy hooker virgin with boobs and hips, but not big ones” – they are asked to smile more, act with more makeup and fewer clothes, and to read it again, “but more white”. The timing of the skit’s release is excellent. It has been almost a year since #MeToo spread virally across social media, and the setbacks faced by women in acting are more in the open now than they have ever been. This has been a fantastic year for quality roles and on-screen diversity. We’ve had Ruth Bader-Ginsberg’s biographical drama On the Basis of Sex, the all-female heist of Ocean’s 8, and the new comedy Crazy Rich Asians is the first major studio movie in 25 years to feature a predominantly Asian-American and Asian cast.
“It’s not rocket science darling. We’re just asking you to be thin and curvy, sexy and innocent!” The would-be director Catherine Tate yells as she looks to cast her female
lead in LEADING LADY PARTS – the first in a series of short films that will centre on gender inequality in
As a young woman, I’ve been particularly impressed with the recent quality of teen movies. Watching Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird at the beginning of this year, I was moved by the smallest of details, like the undisguised acne dot-
