“Even the U.S. Senate is more progressive than Hollywood.” That’s what the Guerrilla Girls have to say and come March, they’re going to be screaming it at the corner of Melrose and Highland in Hollywood by the way of a new billboard pictured to the right.
Since 1999, the Guerrilla Girls, joined by an anonymous group of female filmmakers called the Alice Locas, have lashed out at Hollywood by putting up stickers, posters, and billboards all over the city, taking shots at the “Neanderthal film industry.”
This year, the Girls’ new billboard, featuring a redesign of the golden Oscar statue called the Trent L’Ottscar, points out the fact that the Senate and Hollywood fall behind the rest of U.S. society in numbers of women and people of color in top positions. The shocker here is that the U.S. senate is actually ahead of the film industry. 14% of U.S. Senators are female, but only 4% of directors of 2002’s top 100 films are female. Things are so bad that you may just feel compelled to watch a Penny Marshall film…
Here are the statistics in Hollywood as compiled by Martha Lauzen of San Diego State University:
Of 2002’s top-grossing 100 films: ^ 4% had female directors ^ 8% had female writers ^ 1% had female cinematographers ^ 12% had female editors
And here are a few more stats: ^ Hollywood guilds are 80 to 90 % white. ^ No people of color employed by movie studios have the power to greenlight movies. ^ 4 of the 44 partners or board members at the town’s top 5 talent agencies are women. None of the 44 are people of color.
For more information, visit the Guerrilla Girls website.
