15. March 2017
by SchspIN
Comments Off on It’s all in the Name

It’s all in the Name

“I don’t care what they Write about me as long as they spell my Name right.“

I have two first names and one surname, and I know this happy feeling when they are spelt right and put in the right order (lots of people tend to swap the first names) or when my surname is pronounced correctly (not like the English “Steve“!).

Being accurate with names only gets you halfway, because what is the point if they they something inaccurate about you or put words and opinions in your mouth in an interview that you would never say. It is also unpleasant if they get the facts right but leave out the name, if they don’t mention the people involved?

It seems to me that this happens to women more often than to men, and this influences the way we see others, our society and the world and everything happening in it. I haven’t evaluated this yet, but spending an hour with an encyclopedia or online with Wikipedia supports this impression. Not only will you find less biographical data on fewer women, but also often see that a woman’s husband or father is mentionend in her article, but she won’t me in theirs. On top of this there is the problematic linguistic phenomen called “Generisches Maskulinum” (i.e. a male noun to signify both females and males, when a female noun exists) which is used in languages like German or Spanish and leads to the disappearance of women in texts. An example: The Spanish hermanos is both brothers and siblings. A Spanish Wikipedia article on catalan anarchist Salvador Puig Antich, who had five siblings – at least three of them sisters, was translated in part for the English and German articles. There he suddenly only had brothers. Fortunately, this has been corrected recently.

Chicken or Egg – What about Reputation?

Last Thursday the Tagesspiegel, a Berlin newspaper, wrote on twitter: “#Facebook-Gründer #Zuckerberg & Gattin erwarten wieder Nachwuchs“ (#Facebook founder #Zuckerberg & spouse expecting another baby). The headline of the newspaper article was similar, it talks of “Mark Zuckerberg und Frau” (Wife).

Headline: Mark Zuckerberg and Wife are expecting another Daughter

Headlines obviously stick out and they are also relevant for search results online. Unfortunately pregnant Priscilla Chan is not mentioned by name. Why, because the article is really only about her better known husband? Because of limited space? “Zuckerberg and Chan are expecing another daughter” would have been possible, Zuckerberg is quite obvious even without a first name, especially since “Facebook Founder” is mentioned prior to the headline. As far as pregnancies and deliveries are concerned I would have thought that the mothers would be more involved, and I am always a bit surprised when I see birth announcements in newspapers that mention the father first, but that is a topic for another day.

Another Tagesspiegel article (by Lars von Törne), also from March 9, announces the new weekly comic strip by Naomi Fearn about the Berlin political coalition: „Die R2G-WG“ – der Comic zur Berliner Koalition. R2G = red red green, meaning Social Democrats, The Left and The Green Party (this is not the federal government, who are also Berlin based). In Naomi’s setup the heads of the three parties, Michi (Mayor Michael Müller), Klausi (Klaus Lederer) and Poppi (Ramona Popp) share a flat, together with Der Koalitionsvertrag / the coalition agreement which is so big it needs an extra room.

The Header for the new Comic Strip, by kind permission of Naomi Fearn.

Naomi Fearn, a German / US-Amercian comic artist, originally from Stuttgart now living in Berlin, published a weekly newspaper comic strip called Zuckerfish in the Stuttgarter Zeitung from 2000 to 2014. Together with Marc Seestaedt she founded the vocal duet Sticky Biscuits in 2014 (who performed at the 2-year birthday party of the blog SchspIN!). In the article in question, Naomi is not mentioned in the headline nor in the short description, but she is introduced in detail. When asked about her comic inspirations she names DOONESBURY by Garry Trudeau (68) which has been published since 1970, POGO by Walt Kelley (1913-73) published between 1948 and 1975, and the web comic SCANDINAVIA AND THE WORLD by Danish female comic artist Humon.

Scandinavia and the world was not included in the subheading “Inspired by Doonesbury and Pogo” however. Why? Lars von Törne explained when questioned on twitter: “limitation nothing to do with gender, but with the reputation of the named”. I think reputation is a strange criterion for this, especially since Humon and her comic strip have not only inspired Naomi but are also called “beloved role model”.

Insertion: It always takes me rather long to write my blog tests, I started on this one five days ago. Thus I am all the more pleased to be able to share the following:
Lars von Törne kept his promise (“will be changed as soon as possible”) and changed the subheading to Inspired by “Doonesbury”, “Pogo” and “Scandinavia and the World”. Thank you very much!

My question remains: Are there less reports on women because they are less important / less know, or are they less know because there are so few reports about them?

Give Credit Where It’s Due

Being left out and not getting enough recognition is not something confined to women, sometimes even entire professional groups are affected. British illustrator Sarah McIntyre regularly points out on twitter that even in picture books the illustrators are frequently omitted, and the hashtag #PicturesMeanBusiness clearly shows that it’s not a question of artists’ vanity but of work and money. Those seen less frequently and lesser known are spoken of less and as a consequence they can not demand as much money as might be appropiate for their work.

From a non-mention it may only be a small step to the stealing of idears, copyright infringements and plagiarism. British illustrator Gemma Correll regularly twitters about shops that offer products using her illustrations without licence, but that is another topic.

In the film industry there are professions that are at times also ignored, in Germany it’s the casting directors for example who are still fighting to be included in the opening titles of a film. Also affected are the script writers. This is what Jan Herchenröder, managing director of the German Script Writers’ Union VDD said in an interview in January:

Before people can get together on a set, a script writer will have worked on average one and a half or even two years on a film, shouldering part of the financial risk and inventing all those scenes, the realization of which will provide people from different film profesisons with an intense period of occupation. (…) As far as (non-)credits go, it’s less helpful to suffer in silence than to get legal advice for the contract negotiations to avoid being left out when it’s time for “A film by…“. Since any satisfactory solution of these questions will depend largely on the market power of the individual author, the VDD will continue to fight for the introduction of minimum standards for the nomination of authors in Germany.
from Peter Hartig: Die Filmerzähler – 30 Jahre VDD. Out-takes 20.1.17

The VDD still has a long way to go in promoting their cause within the industry, as could be seen at the Berlin Film Festival Berlinale press conference on January 31. Festival director Dieter Kosslick spoke about the “Participation of Women in the Berlinale 2017” in the divisions directing, camera and production. What about scripts, why were the authors left out? (In case you are interested, the share of women for scripts among the 18 competition entries was 25 %, four books were written by women, another book had a female and a male author. And this leads to another downside of these Berlinale statstics:

The phrase Kosslick used for this short data survey was: “you will find a list of all films where women were in charge as director, director of photography or producer” and that sounds like sole responsibility, but actually very often it’s shared. The presse release simply states e.g. “production – competition 14”. Great! Doesn’t it sound like 78 % female producers for the 18 films in competition? Or – if we add the 5 films outside the competition – at least 56 %? But actually all that we can deduce from the number 14 is that 14 female producers were involved in those 23 films in one way or the other. And furthermore, I couldn’t even reproduce this number (and so far I have received no answer from the press department of Berlinale who I asked about this). If I evaluate the information on producers for the competition films to be found on the official Berlinale website I get 11 female and 49 male producers, that’s an 18,3 % female share. By the way, no film had female producers only.

One other film: last weekend I listened to a film magazine on the radio (Deutschlandradio Kultur), to a radio feature titled “Dad loves a younger woman, from Thailand” by Patrick Wellinski, in which he interviewed director and scriptwriter Carolin Genreith about her documentary HAPPY, a film about her father and herself, and of course the thai girl-friend Tukta. At one point I noticed the absence of Carolin’s mother and I waited to find out what she might have said about her ex-partners new girl-friend, 30 years his junior. But this question was never asked. Maybe she is not alive anymore. Or she simply had been overlooked, forgotten.

The Only Constant is Change

We are living In a world where men get more attention than women. This is the normalilty in which we all grow up and live in, so we hardly notice it any more. And therefore people sometimes tend to be surprised at the consequences of this imbalance. Surprised at the effects on the self-images of girls and boys, of women and men, on their perception of others, their abilities and the working world. Something quite fitting in this context has just gone round the internet: He Swapped Email Signatures With a Female Co-Worker, and Learned a Valuable Lesson. I was not really surprised by the outcome of the experiment (customers responded more aggressive and less trusting if they thought they were communicating with a woman), however, the boss responding with a defensive attitude certainly was a disappointment.

But not everyone will react like he did, on the contrary, I regularly experiece people being quite open-minded when phenoma like these are brought to their attention (see also my recent blog article Stereotypes – Open Eyes). In a manner of speaking they can learn to spell names the right way, or to write them in the first place.

This morning I noticed this advertisment in a Berlin tube, with the photo of a young woman and a young man on top of a very high building:

Advertisment on the tube. The slogans are: “Be Multitalented instead of a permanent Trainee”, and “Apply now and secure your Dream Job “

The small writing at the top of the sign reads: “If fair pay, promotion prospects and varied tasks are important to you, then maybe becoming a professional roofer might just be the challenge you are looking for.” (bold highlighting by SchspIN). There you go! Times are changing.

The Test is called Bechdel-Wallace Test

Many have heard of the Bechdel-Wallace Test (three questions regarding a film: Does it have two female characters? Do they talk to each other? And do they talk about something beside a man / men?). However, most people still call it Bechdel Test, but that’s not quite right. Comic artist Alison Bechdel (DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR) introduced these three questions in her comic strip episode THE RULE in 1985, indicating Liz Wallace as the source. In August 2005 Bechdel had it clarified on her website:

Alison would also like to add that she can’t claim credit for the actual “rule.” She stole it from a friend, Liz Wallace, whose name is on the marquee in the comic strip, reprinted below.

Bechdel repeated this in several interviews (e.g. in The Independent: Please stop calling it the Bechdel Test, says Alison Bechdel) and you can also find it in an entry in Geek Feminism Wiki.

To continue calling it the Bechdel Test is a bit like saying “Mark Zuckerberg is expecting another child”. It’s no drama, but someone is missing. What reasons could there be to ignore Liz Wallace? Because it’s shorter? Because Bechdel is better known? Because that’s what the test was called from the beginning? The world is changing and so is language. A law was passed in Germany in 1994, since then spouses don’t need to agree on a common name, and maybe 100 years prior to that wives would be called by the surname as well as the first name of their husbands – Angela Merkel would probably have been known as Mrs. Jochen Sauer in those days.

So please only use the term Bechdel-Wallace Test, everything else would be disrespectful to Liz Wallace, who invented the rule and also to Alison Bechdel, who wants to share the credit. Also:

Get the spelling right for all names, please! Don’t use the Generic Maskulin Forms! Scrutinize or even question what you find on Wikipeda (and consider becoming an author / editor for Wikipedia to help fill the gaps). And make the invisible people visible! – It doesn’t matter if they are women or men, or whether the topic is comics, illustrations, ideas, scripts, film festivals, research, sport or anything else. #MakeThemVisible #MachtSieSichtbar. Thank you.

16. February 2017
by SchspIN
6 Comments

Open Eyes Stereotypes

Open Eyes – Stereotypes

I’ve been analyzing and blogging about the industry some four years now and one of the common reactions I get is this: “Twice as many male roles? I was never aware of that,- but since I’ve started watching it more closely I must say I’ve been noticing it all the time.” It’s somehow similar with stereotypes in films, on TV or on the radio, we grow up with them and they influce the way we see our society and the people in it and even our image of ourselves. Stereotypes are widespread and so much part of our culture that we hardly notice them any more as generalizations, distortions, omissions, prejudices or in the worst case defamations.

Last Saturday Pro Quote Regie held their annual Berlinale event at the Akademie der Künste / Academy of Arts near the Brandenburger Tor: a Reality Check of stereotypes, clichés and role models in front of and behind the camera, with a great, colourful show of key notes, talks, songs and performances. Alongside colleagues Nina Kronjäger and Julia Thurnau I was invited to Pro Quote Regie’s actresses panel at the end of which director and PQR member Barbara Rohm asked me about possible ways out of the misery. I mentioned the casting tool NEROPA that I developed early last year, a method with which all characters in a film are checked – the protagonists and larger roles as well as the smaller ones and all in between – to raise the share of women in the cast. And I proposed a new piece of action with which we could all help to put the focus on stereotypes and help to get rid of them: #OpenEyes.

Open Eyes and Open Mouths – Observing and Challenging Stereotypes

It is quite easy and this is how it’s done:

You notice a stereotype on gender, on women or men, on some other group in society or or or, in cinema or in a TV film or series, a radio show, in the media? Approach whoever is responsible for this. This is easily done via social media (using the hashtag #OpenEyes), or email. So when it’s a TV movie you find the account of the broadcasting or production company, for a feature film it’d be the production company or the distributor, the director or scriptwriter, for a radio show you look for the comissioning editors, for an advertising spot it’s either the company who produced the spot or the company whose product is being advertised, for a newspaper article you find the editor and so on and so forth.

If we all do this regularly, maybe once a month or once a week, – and read and share the posts of others in this campaign – then it will have an impact and lead to change.

Why? Because stereotypes will be discussed. Because the people responsible are made aware of stereotypes they may not have been conscious of. Or simply because it isn’t good publicity to be constantly addressed regarding your stuck in the mud gender stereotypes.

I am optimistic because I’ve been a little successful on two occasions:

There is a children’s programme on public radio Deutschlandradiokultur, called Kakadu (cockatoo). In the programme from 2.11.13 they broadcast a feature called ARRESTED BY THE POLICE – WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? There we get to know the defendant, his barrister, the prosecutor, a judge and a witness. The world of a law court is presented as a male world, even if we have more female than male judges, more female than male prosecutors in Germany and also more than 50 % female law students. After I had blogged about this (´Tis early practice only…..) I wrote to the author and the contributing editor and they wrote back. As unbelievable as it may seem, they hadn’t even noticed the male bias when they produced the feature and appeared to be somewhere between surprise and shock. I think there is a good chance that they would produce such a one-sidedly cast programme again.
Thomas Bellut, director general of the ZDF (German pulic televison channel two) at a press conference of the ZDF TV board two and a half years ago answered this to my question concerning the blatant male bias of casts: “No, I don’t know your figures, and I also don’t know how you came by them. (incredulous) That there should be more men than women in fictional programmes? I see. I would like to see the source for that. To be able to verify it.” I’ve been providing these numbers for years, and now finally the issue has reached broadcasters as well, as shown by the latest FFA research on Gender and television (in German only).

This was my drawing for the New Year in 2016, the year of the fire monkey

I’m writing – for example here and on twitter – regularly about stereotypes, generalizations and omissions, so here are a few occassion suitable for #OpenEyes, without any claim to completeness and without any weighing in the order:

When a film clearly has more male than female characters, both for leads and supporting roles,
when no woman in the film has a profession, but the men do,
when a crime drama starts with the violent rape / murder of a half-naked woman,
when the bad guys really looks like a baddie, right from the start (especially if he is from an ethnic minority),
when the normal family or couple live in a luxurious flat that will cost 2.000 € monthy rent at least,
when gays and black men are dubbed by German actors that talk at least an octave higher than in the Original version (the same applies to female voices at times),
when the female lead is objectived and has no depth and no will of her own (read Alex Casey’s review on PASSENGERS)
when commentary on men’s Grand Slam tennis matches is never by a woman but women’s matches are mostly covered by men,
when the opening ceremony of the men’s football world cup in Germany 2006 consisted only of cultural elements from Bavaria,
when the two German public TV broadcasters sent 90 % male reporters to Rio 2016,
when every newspaper will print the results of the top 3 men’s football league but not a single mention on the Bundesliga top league of the women,
when pharmaceutical advertisments only mention Ärzte (male doctors) and Apotheker (male pharmacists), even though 70 % of medical students and 75 % of pharmacy students are female,
when the radioshow only talks of Ärzte (male doctors) and Krankenschwestern (female nurses) but never does it the other way around,
when the tough, successful, mean business woman in a film will only start to relax and be likeable when the right man comes along,
when the slightly stupid female lead in a comedy is of course wearing glasses
and more and more and more

Yesterday I tweeted for the first time with #Augenauf (that’s the German hashtag), having listened to a radio interview with German actress Jasmin Tabatabai at the Berlinale Berlin International Film Festival. She was asked by journalist Britta Bürger how she could manage to continue in German TV series LETZTE SPUR BERLIN despite her three children. Would an actor who is a father be asked something similar?

And now it’s your turn!
If you like you can also post “your” stereotypes and possible answers by those responsible for them as a commentary under this blog text or send them to me via mail, no matter if it’s general remarks or specific criticism of a single programme or article. Dankeschön!

2. February 2017
by SchspIN
Comments Off on STAR WARS – Empiricism Strikes Back

STAR WARS – Empiricism Strikes Back

Today’s text is about two Star Wars films and their casts, the first, which premiered as STAR WARS in 1977 (and received the subtitle „“Episode IV – A NEW HOPE“ in 1981) and the so far last, episode VII – THE FORCE AWAKENS – from 2015. Today’s photographs are by ARS, the statistics and painted figures by SchspIN.

STAR WARS – The Empiricism Strikes Back

The first image shows all speaking roles and their share of spoken text – the further to the front a figure is standing the more text it will speak in the film. As always, female characters are blue and males in dark pink.Two men at 18 % and a woman at 15 % – no, it’s not Luke, Han Solo and Princess Leia from the first film of the franchise, but it’s Finn, Han Solo and Rey, three protagonists from THE FORCE AWAKENS.
Image 2 shows the same set from a different, more vertical angle. The characters in the last three rows are the ones with less than 1 % of the text. The overall share of women among all speaking roles is just under 23 %.

THE FORCE AWAKENS – Star Wars VII. Speaking roles according to %-age of total text. F = blue, M = pink. Photo: ARS

The very first Star Wars film (written and directed by George Lucas) only had two female speaking parts, Princess Leia and Luke’s Aunt Beru. Two. In a speaking cast of nearly 60 roles. So compared to that the 22,9 % in the 7th instalment of the saga is a vast increase and on top of that there’s a female lead in this science fiction film. But since I wasn’t raised on Hollywood films somehow this does not trigger fits of ecstasy in me. It’s not bad of course, but why do they continue shooting science fiction films in the 21st century where women are exceptio to the rule features in a male world?
Back to talking about the leads. In my last text (And Dream of Sheep) I discussed how leading roles are not really an objective category in itself and that the level of celebritiness or a simple definition can turn a smaller role into a leading one.
Let’s have a look at the closing titles which are at the base of the film’s entry in the IMDB database. It’s Han Solo, Luke (no text, roughly one scene) and Leia, followed by Kylo Ren, Rey and Finn as the first six on the list. OK, the first three, heroes and heroine of the first films, are audience pullers, aber even they are not followed directly by Rey. Be this as it may, she is the central character of the film, this can be deduced from press releases and the film poster where she is found in a central position. However, not everyone at Disney’s seems to be aware of this female protagonist in this genre, – the merchandise department certainly left her out at first when the action figures were produced.
This is not the first time a Star Wars heroine got left out: It happened to Princess Leia in the late seventies when the first STAR WARS film hit the cinemas. And even in 2014, when the old action figures were re-produced they left her out. Fortunately not least to the efforts by UK-scientist Natalie Wreyford and her #WeWantLeia campaign fans, boys and girls, women and men alike, were able to buy a Leia figure in the end, whose place was first taken up by an anonymous white faceless storm trooper.

So who’s the Protagonist then?

There’s a lovely piece of dialogue in Woody Allen’s THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985) which I always think of when leads are being discussed. Here the characters of a film in the film talk about it:

RITA
Tom was the linchpin of the story.

JASON
That’s right, although this is basically my story.

HENRY
What do you mean, your story? It’s the story of a man’s quest for self-fulfilment.

JASON
It’s the story of a complex, tortured soul.

RITA
Oh stop that. It’s the story of the effect of money on true romance.

JASON
I don’t think money comes into it…

RITA
My upbringing, my wealth, my private schools…

HENRY
I’m the one who marries royalty. I’m the one, a humble kid..

RITA
Nobody cares.

HENRY
What do you mean nobody cares? They wouldn’t sell a ticket if it were your story….

(They all talk at once.)

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO. 1985. Director / Writer Woody Allen.

Every like is not the same

Here’s some food for thought: Would we be able to make a case for Finn (and not Rey) being the protagonist of THE FORCE AWAKENS? Not only, because he has the most words, but also because of the plot (it would be the story of a man who – as will surely be explained in upcoming episodes – ended up with the bad guys when little for some tragic reason, becoming a soldier / storm trooper. And now he deserted from the army, helps a man from the resistance (Poe) to escape, becomes good mates with Rey, travels through the galaxy with her (helping her and being helped by her), is able to handle a light saber intuitively and fight with it, grows up, takes responsibility, wants to rescue “his princes” etc. etc.? That’s possible.
Especially when on top of all this we read how actor John Boyega tells the story of how he was cast to the Hollywood Reporter: “They wanted to make sure they got the right person for the job. I learned that I got the part over a nice breakfast in Mayfair. J.J. said, ‚John, you’re the new star of Star Wars,‘ and everything froze for a moment.“ (bold words by SchspIN).
Mind you, he said “the new star“ of Star Wars, not „“a new star“. But no worries, I won’t challenge Rey being the protagonist, also since on top of everything else Finn seems to be responsible for comic relief in the fiilm every now and then. However – and this is something the statistical analyses of the script show as well as that of the end titles – Rey is not quite the protagonist in the centre as Luke was was in George Lucas’ first film. The next three images (by ARS) show the categories text, speaking scenes and total scenes and the share each character holds. We see all characters with at least a 2 % share.

Finn is leading in the categories text and – by a short margin – talking scenes. Rey by a greater margin ahead of Finn in total scenes. In that image you may notice more characters than in the other two, that is because two more males, Chewbacca and BB-8, are in there as well – who indeed talk but aren’t included in the script with uuaaah and beepbeepboink dialouges. In comparison look at Luke’s protagonistic situation in the first film: he leads all three categories in a distinct way (photos by ARS). This could indicate that heroines aren’t allowed the same scope for action and importance as the heroes of a story.

Looking at the IMDB-entry for the film – which again is based on the official credits’ list – we see the first three leads Luke, Han Solo and Leia as top of the list; even if possibly the actors and actress were just as unknown as the young leads of 2015 (Kylo Ren, Rey and Finn), who had other names ahead of them.

I’d have liked to add a diagram depicting the wages for the male and female leads, both for 1977 and 2015, but I can’t find open accessible, trustworthy figures for this. So it’s a topic for another day.

Today’s statistical analysis were done with the help of DramaQueen Scriptwriting Software.

The Joke-Test: ROGUE ONE

In 2016 another film from the STAR WARS universe came to the cinemas which is not part of the official franchise though. ROGUE ONE or ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY. This film had one female lead as well, .Jyn (played by Felicty Jones), alongside seven men:

Tweet from 14.10.16 with a screengrab of the wikipedia entry for ROGUE ONE. Blue and pink dots were added by SchspIN

So where are all the women in this Star Wars world, are their foetuses aborted? And the few that manage to grow up to adulthood die in childbirth? Or – big exceptions! they are allowed to be involved as singular, lonely figures, e.g. at the military or in resistance movements? Or in parliaments as the 5 % token women? The Jedi Council (of the 3 prequel films) did not even have those, they were all men and male creatures.
Who comes up with these stories? Yes, I know, it’s fiction. But that does not place it above criticism or make it less unpleasant.
There is this simple definition of misogynous jokes. According to it, those jokes that don’t work any longer when you replace the women by men. So how about applying the Joke-Test to ROGUE ONE and the Star Wars films. Could they still work if women and men swapped their roles? Would the audience, the Star War fans and those who favour the “It’s only fiction” argument, would they all want to see a version of ROGUE ONE where there is only one man, a man who has a latent mother complex and who joins a women’s resistance group? Or (THE FORCE AWAKENS) would they be satistied with a young man – Rey – as identification figure and for projecting their dreams, a man who travels through the galaxies with all sorts of women to fight various bad women? Or (the first three Star Wars films of 1977, 1980 and 1983) would they want to see the story of a young woman who becomes a Jedi, is trained by old mistresses, has girl-friends to travel through space with or fight air battle alongside them and in the end face her evil mother? Wouldn’t they be bothered at all that there are hardly any men? And that one of these very few men appears as a near naked, humiliated slave with a strong iron round his neck – but loads of women in the audiene just think that is sexy? Are they content that one of the still very few women in the chronologically earlier parts of the stories (the prequels of 1999, 2002 and 2005) starts out as a king and a diplomant, but from the second film onwards only seems to be chaning his clothes and hairstyle every time he appears on screen and spends his time waiting for the lady of his heart and appropiately dies of a broken heart in the end?
Knowing it was all only fiction?

Better than doing the Joke-Test would have been of course if all these films had undergone a NEROPA check, meaing that the gender of all 50 to 60 roles of a film would have been questioned. Does this role have to be male? – Yes? Why? – No? Alright, so we declare it neutral – and all neutral roles will be defined as female and male characters alternatively in the end, before shooting.

It is quite obvious that no NEROPA Check took place (a method which I only invented in 2016), and certainly not for ROGUE ONE, a film that film critic Sophie Charlotte Rieger comments on in her German blog Filmlöwin (film lioness):

The absence of women* in this film is such a flagrant feature that I find it hard to believe. Did really no one notice while writing or reading the script, during the castings, when costumes were designed, make-up prepared, indeed in any of the many, many steps of a film production, – that other than Felicity Jones it’s only men* in the room?
Blockbuster Check: ROGUE ONE – A Star Wars Story (translation by SchspIN)

I can think of at least two answers to this question. Yes, someone did notice, but they did not are. And No, no one noticed. A case for the second answer could be made when regarding the biographies of script writers and director and thinking of the masses of Hollywood films on which they most probably were raised.
ROGUE ONE was directed by British director Gareth Edwards who said on the subject of the first STAR WARS (1977), that this film was “definitely the reason that I wanted to become a film-maker”. the Guardian article THE FILM THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: GARETH EDWARDS (Text. Jessica Hopkins) quotes him further:

From the age of about six I watched it every day for at least a couple of years. I must have seen it more than 200 times. My mum remembers me quoting it word for word on long car journeys. I once did the entire script. They couldn’t work out whether I was a massive film fan or autistic. (…)
For so many people my age it was the ultimate classic. It really hit a nerve. It’s exactly the story you want to hear about when you’re a little boy: that you can somehow get a weapon and learn off your elders and mentors; that you’re meant for something greater; that one day you’ll win the girl and kill the bad guy and save the universe.

Yes of course, maybe this is the kind of story that many little boys like to hear. But what about the girls? What is shown to them, what are they promised?
Interestingly enough, Edwards wanted to become Luke Skywalker originally and join a rebellion and blow up a death star. When he found out years later that this would not be possible because the whole thing was only fiction he decided to become a film-maker. And connects his incredibly male biased ROGUE ONE to the very first STAR WARS by George Lucas.
The drama continues. The script of the 8th episode titled THE LAST JEDI which will come to the cinema in late 2017 was written by men, as were all other scripts so far. Also again there will be no female director. The same has to be said about the second spin-off, for 2018 a Han Solo prequel has been announced, his story leading up to the first STAR WARS, – and as always script and director’s position are still firmly in the hands of men only.

More than nothing is not enough

`Take some more tea,’ the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

`I’ve had nothing yet,’ Alice replied in an offended tone, `so I can’t take more.’

`You mean you can’t take LESS,’ said the Hatter: `it’s very easy to take MORE than nothing.’

Lewis Carroll: ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (1865). Chapter 7 – A Mad Tea-Party.

6. January 2017
by SchspIN
Comments Off on Methodik: Schäfchen Zählen ist leicht – Methodology: And Dream of Sheep

Methodik: Schäfchen Zählen ist leicht – Methodology: And Dream of Sheep

English Version follows German.

Letzten Monat war ich auf Einladung von Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Prommer (Institut für Medienforschung an der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Rostock) im Forschungskolloquium im MA-Studiengang Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft, um über meine SchspIN-Arbeit zur Situation vor der Kamera zu berichten. Mein Vortrag hieß „Schäfchen Zählen ist leicht“ und ging der Frage nach, wie Film- und Fernsehrollen bzw. Schauspieler*innen in einer Produktion erfasst und aussagekräftig statistisch ausgewertet werden können. Dieser Vortrag ist die Grundlage für den heutigen Text, der außerdem drei Beispiele (einen Fernsehfilm, einen Kurzfilm und eine Gender-Filmstudie) beleuchtet.
Besetzungen lassen sich schwerer auswerten als beispielsweise Gewerke; im Gegensatz zu Angaben wie Regie, Drehbuch, Kamera, Kostüm, Casting u.a.m. eines Films werden vollständige Besetzungslisten nicht veröffentlicht, es gibt vielleicht 18 bis 25 unterschiedlich große Sprechrollen, aber außer der Produktion und den an ihr Beteiligten kennt niemand diese Liste.

Schäfchen Zählen ist leichter. Dezember 2016

Das Bild des nächtlich-schlaflosen Schäfchen-Zählens [Weiterlesen – Read On]

1. January 2017
by SchspIN
Comments Off on Neues Jahr – Video Clip 1.1.2017 – New Year

Neues Jahr – Video Clip 1.1.2017 – New Year

English Version follows German.

Ein Gedanke zum Neuen Jahr

2017 kann in der Film- und Fernsehbranche viel passieren. Der Anteil der Regisseurinnen wird – nicht zuletzt Dank der unermüdlichen Arbeit von Pro Quote Regie und anderer Filmfrauen und Zusammenschlüsse – weiter steigen, vielleicht auch der Anteil der Autorinnen. Langfristig wird sich hoffentlich auch etwas an der Fast-Männerexklusivität in den Gewerken Kamera, Beleuchtung und Ton ändern und der Fast-Frauenexklusivität bei Kostüm und Maske, aber das ist ein Thema für ein anderes Jahr.
Und wie wird es vor der Kamera? Werden auch 2017 weiter veraltete Rollenklischees für Männer und Frauen produziert, doppelt so viele Männer wie Frauen zu sehen sein, überwiegend (attraktive) Frauen unter 40, oft ohne erkennbaren Beruf, die weniger eigenständige Figur sondern Frau, Mutter, Schwester, Tochter oder Geliebte einer männlichen (Haupt-)Figur sind? Werden weiter Vorbilder und Identifikationsfiguren für Mädchen und Frauen fehlen?
Oder wird sich das endlich verändern?

[vimeo 197676659 w=550&h=440]

Ohne die Drehbücher / die Geschichten grundsätzlich zu verändern, können durch den NEROPA-Check (siehe http://neropa.stieve.com/) Frauenanteil und Frauenvielfalt im fiktionalen Film und Fernsehen erhöht werden. Das ist ein erster Schritt, den jede Produktion [Weiterlesen – Read On]

9. December 2016
by SchspIN
2 Comments

BFFS: Wir könn(t)en auch anders

No English version today, I’m sorry. This text is about the German acting union BFFS and my motion for statute amendments to democratise our organisation.

„Wäre es da nicht doch einfacher…”

Als „Schwachsinn“ soll der BFFS-Vorstand auf der diesjährigen Mitgliederversammlung am 9.10. in Köln meinen Satzungsänderungsantrag abgetan haben, schreibt Thomas Bauer in BFFS UND DIE PUBERTÄT (castmag IV-2016). Mein Antrag war nicht zur MV zugelassen, den Mitgliedern also nicht mit der Einladung zugeschickt worden. (siehe auch die Klarstellung am Ende des Textes vom 3.2.)
Schwachsinn ist laut Duden ein anderes Wort für Unsinn und bezeichnet das Fehlen von Sinn, etwas Unsinniges, Sinnloses, Törichtes.
Das wird dem Antrag nicht gerecht, und ist neben der Geringschätzung meiner Arbeit eine indirekte Beleidigung befreundeter Filmverbände wie BvS (Bundesverband deutscher Stuntleute), BVR (Bundesverband Regie), VDD (Verband der Drehbuchautor*innen) und Equity UK (UK trade union for professional performers and creative practitioners) deren Satzungen ich gründlich durchgearbeitet habe, die Inspiration und Grundlage meines Antrags waren und in etliche §§ eingeflossen sind. Und nicht zuletzt: alles andere als unsinnig war auch die Arbeit der Anwältin, die mich bei ,meiner’ Satzung beraten und alles gegengecheckt hat (nochmals Danke!).

Von anderer Stelle wurde die Aussage des Vorstand wiedergegeben, dass sie mir gegenüber die Ablehnung meines Antrags ja schon schriftlich begründet hätten und dieser deshalb nicht auf der MV behandelt werden müsse.
Da werden zwei Dinge vermischt.
Selbstverständlich können die Vorstandsmitglieder meine Anträge inhaltlich ablehnen, das ist ihr gutes Recht, und dabei ist es egal, ob sie alle Punkte verstanden haben oder nicht. Aber dürfen sie sich deswegen weigern, meinen Antrag auf die Tagesordnung zu setzen? Ich denke Nein.
Wie sähe ein Verband, ein Verein o.ä. aus, auf dessen MV nur das besprochen und beschlossen werden kann, was dem Vorstand genehm ist?

Gerade dieser Umgang mit meinem Antrag ist Beleg dafür, dass sich etwas ändern muss und wir dringend (Weiterlesen – Read On)

17. November 2016
by SchspIN
Comments Off on Grimmepreis: 7 Gewerke, 7 Jahre – German TV Award: 7 Departments, 7 Years

Grimmepreis: 7 Gewerke, 7 Jahre – German TV Award: 7 Departments, 7 Years

English Version follows German.

7-Gewerke-Check der Nominierungen zum Grimme-Preis 2010 bis 16

Bereits in der Vergangenheit habe ich über die Grimme-Preis-Nominierungen geschrieben, beispielsweise in den Kunst oder Kommerz-Analysen (2012 Stab, 2012 Besetzung, 2013 Stab, 2013 Besetzung).
Warum ist eine Auswertung der fiktionalen Kategorie interessant, dieser zugegebenermaßen kleinen Gruppe von jährlich 14 bis 19 Filmen? Nun, der Grimme-Preis ist gewissermaßen das Äquivalent zum Deutschen Filmpreis, wobei die Fernsehauszeichnungen anders als die Lolas von Juries vergeben geben, denen die Filmliste einer Kommission vorliegt, die wiederum aus allen in ihrer Kategorie vorgeschlagenen Filmen ausgewählt hat. Gleichzeitig sind die Grimme-Preise ein Gegenpart zu den als erfolgreichst geltenden Fernsehfilmen, die über die – leicht dubiosen – Einschaltquoten ermittelt werden. Auf der Seite des Grimme-Instituts heißt es:

Mit einem Grimme-Preis werden Fernsehsendungen und -leistungen ausgezeichnet, die für die Programmpraxis vorbildlich und modellhaft sind. Leitziel der im Grimme-Preis institutionalisierten Fernsehkritik ist eine umfassende Auseinandersetzung mit dem Fernsehen, das als zentrales und bedeutsames Medium mit vielfachen gesellschaftlichen Bezügen und Wirkungen verstanden wird. In diese kritische Auseinandersetzung sind alle Themen und Formen des Fernsehens einbezogen.
(Hervorhebung durch SchspIN)

Die sieben Gewerke die ich heute untersuche sind Regie, Drehbuch, Produktion, Kamera, Ton, Schnitt und Redaktion (was eigentlich kein Gewerk ist); zusätzlich habe ich die erstgenannten Rollen und die Hauptcasts gendermäßig ausgewertet. Hauptdatenquelle sind die Seiten des Grimme-Instituts, etwaige Teamlücken (manchmal waren alle 7 Positionen aufgeführt, manchmal nur 2 oder 3) wurden über filmportal.de und crew-united.com gefüllt. Ich weiß nicht, wie die Team- und Besetzungslisten auf der Grimme-Seite zustande kommen, vielleicht wurden sie so von den Produktionsfirmen gemeldet.
Von 2010 bis 2016 waren insgesamt 119 fiktionale Filme mit im Hauptcast 614 Schauspieler*innen nominiert, die jährlichen Mittelwerte sind 17 Filme und 116,3 Schauspieler*innen. Die Größe der Hauptcasts schwankt zwischen 3 und 15 (nicht durch zusätzliche Recherche aufgestockt). Im Schnitt werden 6,8 Rollen pro Film genannt.

Fiktionale Grimmepreisnominierungen: Männerübergewicht hinter und vor der Kamera.

Frauen arbeiten auch in der heutigen [Weiterlesen – Read On]

14. October 2016
by SchspIN
1 Comment

Fair Pay & Acting

Fair Pay for All

Today’s text is about the Fair Pay Initiative for Equity on the Pay Slip, with thoughts on the correspondent situation in the film business, especially as far as the wages of actresses and actors are concerned.

- Prologue: 23rd Century – Men and Women, Leads and Supports
- FairPay Alliance and the Question of Transparency
- Wage Disparity in the Film Industry
- The Policy Paper on Gender by the BFFS
- Epilogue: 21st Century – Men and Women, Leads and Supports

(Weiterlesen – Read On)

31. July 2016
by SchspIN
1 Comment

SchspIN in London

English Version follows German.

Heute geht es um meinen jüngsten London-Aufenthalt, diverse Treffen mit Filmfrauen und eine neue Unterkunft für Künstler*innen im Nordosten der Stadt. Und es gibt viele Fotos.

London

London ist eine tolle Stadt, die ich früher regelmäßig besucht habe, allerdings leider zuletzt vor mehr als zehn Jahren. Deshalb gab es für mich viel Altes und Neues zu entdecken, und dazu noch die Nachwellen des kurz zuvor stattgefundenen Brexit-Referendums, – wobei in London mit 60 % mehrheitlich pro EU gestimmt wurde.
Die meiste Zeit verbrachte ich mit beruflichen oder SchspIN-Treffen, die ja auf ne Art auch beruflich (Weiterlesen – Read On)

30. May 2016
by SchspIN
1 Comment

German Cinema 2015: Top 100 Films, 12 Team Positions

The 100 most successful German films 2012-2015

6- and 12-Team Positions-Check

(Figures at the end of the text)

I am regularly asked why I haven’t been to my local pub’s karaoke night any more since February.
One reason for this is the publication of a list with Germany’s 100 top grossing films 2015 by the FFA / German Federal Film Board during the Berlinale Berlin International Film Festival in February. Since then I have been evaluating the list in my spare time, assessing the share of women for 12 team positions, or rather the persons in charge. That shouldn’t be too many film people and they certainly all deserve a public mention (which would make my research easier at the same time). But unfortunately they are rarely listed completely in any of the film data bases I use – filmportal, crew united and IMBD. Sometime it’s even a little ironic when the first manager is missing but the put the names of the location and set manager and the assistant to the (not mentioned) unit manager. Luckily however I am able to close most gaps by checking the films’ official websites, calling the production companies or browse the archive of casting-network for missing casting directors.
In some cases the gaps remain empty, for example because animated films don’t use a costume designer or a unit manager, and documentaries don’t need casting directors. On the other hand there were cases with more than one person for a category, for example producers or script writers, DoP or music, so in the end I probably came up with more than 1,200 names.
(Sometimes the information on a team position would differ in the different sources, and despite working as dilligently as I can on all this I cannot rule out own errors, but I hope they are unnoticeably small, I do recalculate everything more than twice. Still, no liability assumed!)
Anyway, halfway through this data assembling I thought it would be nice to compare the 2015 with that of 2014, so I did some additional research because for that year I had investigated less team positions (The Top German Films 2014). And for 2012 and 13 (The Top Grossing German Films 2012: Comedy over Crime and A Bad Year for Female Directors – the 100 Top Grossing Films 2013) I raised the evaluated team positions from 3 (director, script writer, producer) to 6.

And therefore it’s now the end of May already.

The Evaluation

Which team positions are investigated in the 6-, 11- or 12-departments-checks?

6 departments = director, script, producer, DoP, editor, casting
12 departments = director, 1st assistant director, script, producer, 1st unit manager, DoP, set design, costume design, editor, sound, music, casting.
11 departments = 12 departments minus director.

The Figures

2015 Top 20 and Top 100 German films: 12-departments-check
2014 / 2015 Top 20 and Top 100 German films, 12-departments-check
2012 to 2015 Top 20: 6-departments-check
2012 to 2015 Top 100: 6-departments-check
2015 Top 100: 11-departments-check, for female and for male directors
2014 Top 100: 11-departments-check, for female and for male directors
2015 Top 100: directors and scripts (own and others’)
2014 Top 100: directors and scripts (own and others’)
2015 / 2016 Nominations for German Film Awards: 12-departments-check

This time I hardly used light blue and pink, and instead five colours for the different years, in full for the Top 100 and striped for the Top 20.

Some Databases

FFA German Federal Film Board (D / EN) – Die Filmhitlisten (only in German)
filmportal.de – a branch of the German Film Institute DIF e.V. (D / EN)
crew united.de – ”the film industry online“ (D / EN)
IMDB.com – Internet Movie Database (D / EN)
casting-network.de – The Portal of the Industry“ (only in German)

Some Results

In 2015 the most films by female (46,2 %) and male directors (40,2 %) belong to the genre feature film / comedy. In second positions it’s feature film / drama (23,1 % / 22,0 %) followed by documentaries (15,4 % / 8,5 %). If we sum up all children’s film genres (adventure, animated, drama, fantasy-mystery, comedy) they take third place (15,4 % / 17,1 %).
The by far highest shares of women can be found in costume design and casting. At the same time these are the only investigated positions with a female majority. For casting it’s > 75 % for the Top 100 films 2012 to 15 and for costume design >70 % for 2014 and 15. In all other departments the female share remains below 40 %. For 8 of 12 departments the share of women for the Top 100 films remains below 30 % (director, 1st assistant director, producer, 1st unit manager, DoP, editor, sound, music).
Camera / DoP: here we find the most distinct difference when we compare the top 20 and top 100 films for all four years. Sonja Rom (SAPHIRBLAU, 2014) was the only female DoP to be found in the Top 20, for the four Top 100 groups the share of female DoPs is between 6 and 8,7 %.
Editing! Again, in 2015 the share of female editors is surprisingly low (Top 20: 4,2 to 18,2 %, Top 100: 29,4 to 31,5 %). As a reference we can take the share of female editors in their union (61,7 %) or in the crew united database (37,2 %). In some earlier investigations of groups of TV-films resulted in values between 45 and 60 % (Top 20 TV films and German TV awards nominations 2012 and 13). So what is going on? In analogous times film editing was traditonally a woman’s job (at least in Germany). So how come the men pushed them aside? Are men better at digital stuff, especially for commercially successful fllms? Do male directors prefer working with male editors? There is a difference between the share of female cutters in films directed by women (2014 / 15: 56,6 % / 38,5 %) and by men (22,2 % / 31,9 %). Definitely a topic for further investigation.
10 women and 20 men are responsible for the scripts of the 20 top grossing films 2015. The share of women (33,3 %) is much higher than in preceding years and also higher than that of the top 100 films 2015. So indeed women are able to (co-)write successful stories. And not only scripts for children (children / adventure), they also turn up in the top 20 in the genres feature film / comedy, feature film / drama, children / anime and feature film / action (categories as used by FFA).
In comparison: the share of female script writers in the crew united database is 36,9 % and 40,2 % in their union (also refer to It’s the Men that write the Scripts).
In films with a female director the share of female DoPs, editors and sound mixers is considerably higher, the share of female scriptwriters is more than 55 %. Female directors realized own scripts more often than male directors.
Male directors were involved as co-writers more often, frequently in teams of 3 or more. The share of female scriptwriters in male directors’ films for 2014 / 15 was as low as 20,1 % / 14,4 %!
In 2015 male directors had worked with female assistant directors in 74,2 % of their films (female directors: 36,4 %). In 2014 however, with only 26,3 % of it was way below the value for the female directors collaboration with female assistant directors (40 %), based on this no trends can be derived.
Of all films that were nominated in any of the categories of the German Film Awards 2016, in addition to costume design and casting the set designers and editors also had female shares of (roughly) 50 %. In 2015 other than costume design and casting only the female assistant directors reached more than 50 %. The shares of female script writers for all the films included in the nominations were rather low (2015 – 20,7 %, 2016 – 32 %), and below their average in the industry.
29,5 % of the individuals nominated and 26,3 % of the winners of the German Film Awards 2016 were women.

Some Perspectives

We regularly hear and read from the UK or USA that women speak about being discrimanted against in the film industry, – this is something not happening in Germany. By that I don’t mean that women are not disadvantaged, but the don’t taok about this in public, neither about receiving less pay or having less working opportunities. This is understandable, since there is an undeniable risk that they might harm themselves by doing so. But it does not have to depend on the individual. There are groups and there are statistics.
First and foremost thanks to the great lobby work of Pro Quote Regie broadcasters are now talking about female directors being highly underemployed and first quotas and targets have been set. Film funding bodies are discussing ways to end the disregard of female directors in the distribution of funds. More films made by female directors will mean that more projects will employ women behind the camera, at the sound mixer or editing computer, and more female script writers. Films written by women will bring more female characters to the screen and raise the chances for more role diversity and less stereotyping. I am hoping for special funding programmes for female script writers and maybe something like a Pro Quote Script. But it goes beyond that. What will happen if the unions and associations – for example the Editors’ Guild – start engaging in a public gender debate? What would change if the female DoPs would get together?
The ‘generation smartphone’ has shown that technology, videos and sound aren’t something that only men do. How about starting something along the lines of STEM initiatives (science, technology, engeneering and mathematics) targeting girls and young women for the ’men’s domains’ camera, sound and light? And at the same time familiarize boys and young men with ’female fields’ like costume and make-up design?
Ideas and initiatives need statistics so that they can ask questions, demand and start changes and monitor them. With my research I want to contribute to this as there are hardly any gendered statistics available for the German film and television industry outside of directing. Of course my data can be used (please name the source!). The other day somebody was talking about actresses and actors in Germany and only qouted US data or statistics relating to the situation of female directors in Germany. This is not very comprehensible because the data is there (e.g. here: A Casting Tool called Neropa). But this is a topic for another day.

Last week at the German Film Awards, actress Iris Berben, president of the German Film Academy, called for “more money for courageous ideas“ and “more women!“ in the German film industry.
Indeed. Let’s employ more women behind and in front of the camera, let’s recognize their work! With all esteem for these two areas (and the casting directors are still waiting for their own German Film Award category): women are capable of a lot more than costumes and casting.