Breaking the Sound Barrier: Women in Film

Another year, another lack of female representation in the Academy Award nominations. In the world of film scoring, the game has been dominated by men, however these figures have been changing. The reality being, that there is small group of female composers who are duly recognised for their work but the serious issues with the industry’s weak dismissal of female inclusion.

Due in part to the severe issue of visibility, which goes for all composers but women have a particularly difficult challenge and partly due to the under representation of women currently within the industry or being noticed for their contribution. Female composers are rarely given the opportunity to work on prominent Hollywood films.

In fact over the last few years, figures have revealed that only 1% - 2% of composers featured in the Box Office top 250 in 2018 were female. Another published by the University of Southern California's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, found that out of 111 composers over 2017's top 100 movies in North America, there was only one female. Researchers also made clear that in the last 11 years exploring the topic, that there was never more than two female composers employed per year on the biggest films to come out of the box office.

“‘It’s not just a glass ceiling; it’s kind of a cement ceiling’”

— Lolita Ritmanis (President and co-founder of the Alliance for Women Film Composers)

Meaning that it has one of the lowest men to woman ratios within the industry. (Cali Uni link) In the 82 year legacy of the Academy Awards, there has only ver been eight women ever to be nominated for Best Original Score, and even better (!), only two winners (Rachel Portman for Emma in 1996 and Anne Dudley for The Full Monty in 1997).

There are sure signs of progress as composers and other female representatives of the many branches of film production are breaking the mould and are pioneering a new generation of female composers that will be sure to close the gap - as well as usher in a new voice in film scoring and filmmaking.

The superficial excuse that studio executives use is that they don’t know many female composers. Thus, there is a void in appropriate and fair exposure which has prevented major film projects from been offered to female composers. A research study by Screen Composers Guild of Canada explored the difference in the amount men and woman working in film composition.

What they found was that overall, only overall 15% of film composers were female, with men being paid up to eight times more. In fact, it even notes that the amount of royalties that women receive have been in steady decline too. It points out that popular female reboots, like the recent Ghostbusters reboot or Ocean’s 8 are even void of a female composer. In the category of woman film makers, there have only ever been five people to have been nominated and only one ever been won (Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker).

Janal Bechthold, the chair of the SCGC’s women composer advisory council, is pioneering a change in the industry for more balance and less discrimination. Of which, almost two thirds of women claim to have witnessed or been targeted by gender bias discrimination. On top of all this, there is said to be an unconscious genre bias when it comes to the hiring process particularly with action or fantasy seen as a more male driven genre. It’s a shame really, as there is a wealth of musical genius that we are yet to truly harness within the female community of film composers. Bechthold is no stranger to this inequality and has experienced it first hand, a topic for another blog maybe but although the #metoo movement was a difficult period for those who spoke out, or have been effected similar behaviour, the impact that it has made has been huge. It brought inequality to the forefront of the conversation, the first in hopefully many steps to thwart the challenges women face in the creative industry, from individual representation to sexual harassment. The biggest issue lies in the hiring process and industry culture, which makes it almost impenetrable - this goes not just for females, but for anyone.

Throughout the last 100 years of cinema, there has been a thin thread of female composers who have paved the way for near generations, although most though tend to be working behind the scenes. From the earliest days of cinema with Germaine Taillefere, to synthesist Wendy Carlos who worked with Stanley Kubrick on some of his most seminal works and pianist/orchestrator Shirley Walker, who helped Carmine Coppola on the score for Apocalypse Now (has also been credited as a teacher by some of the most notable names in the industry from Danny Elfman to Hans Zimmer) and even the score to Batman: The Animated Series, which I was happily surprised to find out.

Part of the issue is the cautionary procedure in hiring a film composer, where there is huge financial investment in projects - where it’s naturally safer and easier to go with someone who has a reputation to produce a similar sound.

There tends to be a general, damaging stigma that women are not as capable of producing the darker, tougher sounds, which I vehemently disagree with (see my blog on the brilliant debut score by Academy Award nominee, Mica Levi, here!) There are several obvious explanations to this disparage and inequality from the lack of female role models, aided by an elite inner circle of male composers, to institutionalised sexism and gender assumptions.

Luckily there is a gradual increase of women starting out in the profession. However, the industry needs to change before we can shift the tides. Even from my personal experiences in the field, there is a clear interest for composers and musicians looking to get into the extremely dense and isolated community, but are not been given equal opportunities. Although this shouldn’t all sound so bleak, these small changes are making the big differences, such as:

The University of California has recently produced over one hundred new graduates, of which a quarter were female.
Sundance Film Institute, is actively working to provide more women with access and real world experience in the film industry.
Universal Pictures started it’s own Film Music Composer initiative to help draw in more females and people of colour.
Woman and Hollywood, an alliance for gender diversity and inclusion in Hollywood and the global film industry, founded by Melissa Silverstein also co-founded Athena Film Festival*.
The Alliance for Women in Film which was founded by Laura Karpman (current President), Miriam Cutler and Lolita Ritmanis.
Just last month, Emmy winning Laura Karpman was elected as the first female governor of the Academy’s music branch. She won the spot over three male candidates, including veteran composer Carter Burwell.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has been under scrutiny to increase diversity, invited 12 women to its music branch. Bringing the total number to 38 of 293, making up nearly 13% of the composers, songwriters, and music editors in the branch.

So there is a small, albeit incremental, increase in the men to woman ratio in film of almost 1.5%. Meaning that woman nominations now contribute to 25% of the overall pool compared to year prior. Interestingly, in contrast to last year, women have actually been shut out of more categories, including best original score for the second year running ( the others are Best original Score, Best Visual Effects, Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing).

There may not have been any female representation in the best score category but a special mention should be given to Ai-Ling Lee, who was nominated again this year for her collaborative efforts with Mildred latrou Morgan (editing) and Mary H. Ellis (mixing) for her work on First Man, the second year the group were nominated after La La Land.

I’ve been lucky in the last few important and introductory years to the industry, to meet and hear the likes of Carly Paradis, Lesley Barber Jessica Curry and Debbie Wiseman, who all speak loudly about such issues and stand to break the chain. I’ve witnessed first hand the impression that these inspiring woman have made on female colleagues of mine, as well as myself - it’s something that there needs to be more of. With anticipated releases like The Joker to be written by Hildur Gudnadottir, Captain Marvel by Pinar Toprak and more, the landscape is finally starting to get into shape.