Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, and Sofia Coppola

These are the only three women ever to have been nominated for Oscars as directors. I find this interesting.

Liz and Kenzie and I were having an interesting discussion about feminism on our trip to Grantham. Kenzie and I both noted that we have a hard time imagining our professional lives, because the directors/artists we look up to artistically are mostly male.

Have you ever noticed that the film community seems to have a certain "brotherliness" about it? If you watch the behind-the-scenes stuff to see what the actual working environment is like for feature films, it looks like a lot of fun - certainly stressful - but a lot of comradery and professionalism and even some silliness, everyone working to get the job done and mostly enjoying each other's company. But almost everybody is male. The women you see usually seem to be more concerned with maintaining a professional image, are more separate, more reserved, and certainly less numerous.

Even on the student level, you can definitely refer to the Messiah "film boys," but not the Messiah "film girls."

Anyway, I hope this is changing. I want to be accepted as a person, a professional, a team member, even a buddy, in film.

As far as feminism goes, though, I don't want to have to label myself before I can achieve anything. This is perhaps why I can seem to be so for and so against feminism, depending on the situation. I feel like I should be able to earn the best place I can, both professionally and socially, without having to invoke feminism or equal opportunity. I should be able to be a respected filmmmaker even if I make tradionally "male" individualistic, hero, or action stories. I shouldn't have to pick a niche like documentary, or feminist, or ethnographic filmmaking.

Yay film!