Creative, Feminism | Posted by Julie Z on 07/7/2009
Women and Broadway: what EXACTLY do we hate?
Clearly there is discrimination against women in the film industry. Hell, if Ela Thier’s open letter didn’t make that clear enough, the associations most of society has with “Hollywood” and “women” should do the trick. However, the same is not so obvious about the theatre industry.
Wicked: Written by Winnie Holzman. The rule or the exception?
At the end of June, research was conducted exploring if there is discrimination against women playwrights on Broadway. The conclusion: yes and no.
Quick Facts from the Findings:
- There are twice as many male playwrights as female ones and men are more prolific, turning out more plays
- When identical plays save for some with a male author listed and others with a female artists listed were sent out to artistic directors and literary managers around the country, the women received significantly worse ratings in terms of quality, economic prospects and audience response. Here’s the kicker: the results were driven by the response of female artistic directors and literary managers.
- Fewer than one in eight shows on Broadway are written by women and plays and musicals written by women were 18% more profitable over all (i.e. women’s plays had to do better than men just to be produced along side them)
- Plays that feature women as the protagonist are less likely to be produced (similar to a claim Ela Thier made in her letter about Hollywood)
What it comes down to: there are less women writing scripts, more pressure on women to do better, and apparently women are other women’s harshest critics– an entire problem unto itself. But the problem doesn’t seem to solely be about discrimination against women in industry or against women who write plays. To me this points to a larger societal problem: we don’t want to see women-centric plays, and that is generally what is produced by women playwrights.
For example, this year is turning out to be a record year for women in the theatre industry. This month three new Off Broadway shows directed by women are beginning previews; on Broadway eight shows last season had a woman in authority (a record) with most of them receiving rave reviews and various awards for their work. Not exactly equality, but a huge leap in the right direction.
So we’re not discriminating against women who work in the theatre industry (much). We’re just discriminating against the idea of having to sit through an hour and a half plus watching a story about a woman. We don’t want to see a play starring a woman. We don’t want to hear about those insignificant “chick” problems.
Which, to me, is a much bigger problem. It can’t be solidified by facts, statistics, research, like the discrimination against women working in theatre was. It can never be more than an observation or claim. And how do we solve that?
Girls, get your pens ready, because I think we have a lot of writing to do. Maybe if we swamp them with our brilliance, show them that “chick” problems are everybody’s problems, we’ll finally convince somebody. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t, but we can’t give up.
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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KT @ at 11:25 pm, July 14th, 2009
Can I start out by saying that I’m thrilled to know that there are other teenage feminists in the universe? Seriously, dude, being openly feminist, from my experience, has been the viewpoint equivalent of speaking an alien language that nobody seems to be able to translate properly. Thanks for making this blog!!
Also, I really like the points brought up in this post. For some reason it seems like, in theater and in film, any production with a female protagonist is instantly deemed female-specific, while productions with male protagonists are easily considered gender-neutral. Comedic roles for women seem rare as well. Why is it seen as so much easier for men to be funny? I know I’m sort of making generalized comments about both genders in this response (sorry), but as a high school actor who frequently gets cast into (often large) MALE comedy roles, this is something that has puzzled me for a long time.
I think this is why I have so much respect for Diablo Cody as a comedy writer. Take Juno, for example. Juno is an award-winning teen comedy with an awesomely witty female protagonist, a protagonist like whom I had never seen in a film before. It’s about pregnancy, for Pete’s sake, and I know plenty of guys who can dig it.
At some point in my life, I want to put on a production of a famous play with classic, old-school gender roles, like a Shakespearean romance or “The House of Bernarda Alba,” and switch the genders of the characters around. I think it would be amusing…
Toongrrl @ at 11:24 am, September 17th, 2009
does anybody want to discuss the movie Bye Bye Birdie?
A @ at 8:41 pm, April 13th, 2011
I love musical theater, despite its sexist history and the many antiquated stereotypes portrayed in many well-known plays. I think the fact that many plays still performed (in Broadway “revivals”) were written fifty or sixty years ago accounts for much of the discrepancy in sexes of the writers. It was so much harder for women to have the social acceptance to turn out plays, particularly controversial ones, back then.
Hope @ at 4:49 am, July 13th, 2011
Wicked centers around a female character, same with Phantom of the Opera…okay obviously the Phantom himself is a prominent role, but Christine was equally important. Both of those plays are extremely popular.
I’m not sure I entirely understand what you mean when you say no one wants to see a play about “chick” problems? Do you mean like a “chick play” (i.e. chick flick, chick lit)? I don’t think reviewers (both male and female) want to see a chick flick on stage. (Although I hear Legally Blonde was made into a musical…)
Also, this isn’t in regards to just Broadway, I do agree that there’s definitely a stigma that female protagonists are associated with female audiences while male main characters are gender neutral. I actually read in some book that girls are more willing to relate to opposite gender characters more than boys. I guess that could signal several problems—boys don’t want to relate to a female character because it’s “sissy” or believe females can’t have desirable strong attributes. Or boys just have issues with relating to people in general, especially opposite genders, because there’s too little emphasis on emotions….there’s nothing definitive though.