The waitress asks him how he writes the female characters so well.
Jack Nicholson, alias Melvin Udall, replies with a smile:
“I think of a man, and I cut off his reasoning ability and his sense of responsibility.”
Not sure that this sardonic humor taken from
For the worst and for the best
makes the authors of this militant documentary laugh a lot.
They added this extract because it symbolizes, according to them, the image that has long stuck to women in American society, and therefore in cinema.
Everything can change. What if Women Mattered in Hollywood
looks at the gender discrimination that has pushed women into the background of the film industry.
It made noise when it was released in the United States in 2018. Would we dare to smile?
It was directed by a man, Tom Donahue, who reminds us that a woman ruled 1920s Hollywood, Lois Weber.
At the time, no director was paid as well as her.
The
Thelma and Louise Breakup
What happened, then, afterwards?
This hypothesis is formulated: the transition to talkies would have forced productions to join forces with banks, which are in the hands of men.
Women will take decades to get back behind the camera.
And to embody complex, independent personalities.
Thelma and Louise
will mark a break, we are told.
The documentary evokes more the evils - undoubtedly because they are numerous - that it does not seek their origins.
The link between the discrimination experienced and the nature of the American film industry could perhaps have been explored.
But the speeches, from Meryl Streep to Jessica Chastain, do not leave you indifferent.
Chloë Grace Moretz remembers the padding that the production, dissatisfied with this body of a 16-year-old girl, wanted her to wear.
Kate Blanchett's Strategy
A director explains that, for too long,
"viewers have not had the opportunity to be inspired by female characters"
.
“Because they were confined to the roles of girlfriends
,” continues Catherine Hardwicke, director of
Twilight
.
Cate Blanchett's strategy was to accept the roles to
"revolutionize"
them from within.
Actress Mary-Louise Parker says,
"Untalented screenwriters define women by their hair color."
Still today?
We would have liked to know to what extent the fight for greater equity has borne fruit.
And if, in Hollywood, women continue to chain the conquests.
