SchspIN

An Actress's Thoughts

6. November 2017
by SchspIN
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NEROPA during Script Development

  • The Initial Question
  • The NEROPA-Lights
  • Write first, decide later
  • Is that really necessary?
  • German Film Funding November 17
  • Epilogue: Ships that Pass in the Night

The Initial Question

Every now then I get asked if script writers can also work with the casting method NEROPA to modify the striking gender imbalance between female and male roles on television. The clear answer to that is “not really“ and “yes of course“ at the same time, and that is something I will talk about today.
Ideally the NEROPA check is performed by three individuals. Six eyes won‘t read thesame way , three brains will tick differently and people will have had different experiences in their lives. So the 3 will most probably find differing neutral roles in the investigated script, i.e. roles whose gender is not essentioal to the plot. Then the three will talk and agree upon a final list of neutral characteres (see also NEROPA-Check).

“not really“
A script – at least as long as it hasn‘t been altered by order of commissioning editors or others – represents the author‘s intention, it presents characters exactly in a way the authors meant them to be, they do and say exactly what the authors want them to do or say. If the authors were to nerope* their scripts they most probably end up with zero neutral roles as they were all intended to be who they are. Just ask a child about their soft toy: “Ah, so he‘s called Berti Bear. But couldn‘t it also be Berta Bear or Brownie Bear?“ No of course not. Everyone can see it‘s Berti Bear. (Actually I can‘t, but that‘s just the point. Stuffed animals‘ gender is in the eyes of the beholder. Or rather keeper.)
I imagine the characters in a script are like the stuffed animals of a writer, they have been playing / occupied with them for weeks, months or even years. They know them inside out, they know who they are and why they even are in the story in the first place. So the chances that an author will say „yes of course, these four or ten roles can be neutral“ (or worse “sure, they can be deleted“) are pretty dim.

“yes, of course!“
Now the author could go about getting a couple of other persons, have them use  NEROPA on the script and then discuss the neutral findings among the three of them. But that does not really [Weiterlesen – Read On]

16. October 2017
by SchspIN
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Weinstein and the Silence of the German Film Industry

Introduction

On Oct. 5 the New York Times published the article “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades“ by Judi Kantor and Megan Twobei. Since then more women, actresses, models and also employees and journalists came out and spoke about sexual harassment, intimidations and even about rape. It is obvious that anyone accused remains innocent until tried by a court of law, but in this case the accusations are overwhelming – quite contrary to the common situations where it‘s testimony against testimony and an offense or criminal act can‘t be proven. There have been discussion about how it could have been possible for Harvey Weinstein to act unnoticed and undisturbed for decades the way he did, but it soon became clear that the way he treated numerous young actresses at the beginning of their careers was an open secret.
In the meantime, Weinstein has been fired from the Weinstein Company, from AMPAS Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, from the BFI British Film Institute, and a statement was issued by the International Film Festival of Cannes.
Some reports also mentioned other cases of sexual abuse, US actor Bill Cosby, Fox news reporter Bill O‘Reilly, Roy Price, head of amazon video department as well as US president Donald Trump. All in the USA, far away.
German media have also been covering the Weinstein scandal, some mentioning the social context as for example Julian Dörr did in the Süddeutsche (a German newspaper) from 14.10. in his German article „If you want to prevent abuse you can‘t ridicule Feminism” (more articles to be found in the Additional Reading section).
What I found quite surprising though is [Weiterlesen – Read On]

13. October 2017
by SchspIN
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Was wir hören sehen wir? – What we hear is what we see?

English Version follows German.

Heute geht es um Sprache, Onlinerecherche und Onlineübersetzungen sowie eine Auto-und-Fahrrad-Metapher.

Sprache, Bewusstsein und Veränderung

Sprache verändert sich, seit es Sprache gibt. Sprachempfinden und -verständnis sind subjektiv, wie sicher alle bestätigen werden, die schon einmal „ich hab doch nur gesagt..“ „ja, aber gemeint hast du / das klang total nach..“-Diskussionen mitbekommen haben. Neue Wörter finden den Weg in den Duden, und neue Formen werden ausprobiert, um neuen Anforderungen an Sprache zu begegnen. Mit den Wechselwirkungen von Sprache, Denken und Bewusstsein will ich hier gar nicht erst anfangen.
Was früher normal war ist heute passé. Frauen sowohl mit dem Nach- als auch dem Vornamen ihres Mannes anzusprechen (z.B. Frau Joachim Sauer) ist hochgradig unüblich, und auch die stillschweigende Übereinkunft, dass sich alle Frauen von männlichen Begriffen mitgemeint zu fühlen haben, hat ihre Allgemeingültigkeit verloren.
Natürlich gibt es immer noch Frauen, die von sich als Schauspieler oder Frisör oder gar Einzelhandelskaufmann sprechen. Und es gibt weiter Texte, die mit dem Satz „der besseren Lesbarkeit halber verwenden wir in diesem Text nur die männlichen Form“ beginnen. Aber zum Glück setzt sich immer mehr durch, von Frauen und Männern, also z.B. von Leserinnen und Lesern, Wählerinnen und Wählern, Nachbarinnen und Nachbarn zu sprechen, mit in der Schriftsprache den Lesefluss nicht störenden Zeichen wie /, _ und * zu arbeiten (Leser/innen, Wähler_innen, Nachbar*innen) -bzw. die grammatikalischen Möglichkeiten der deutschen Sprache zu nutzen und „der Antragsteller“ zum Beispiel durch „wer einen Antrag stellt“ oder „der Antrag wird gestellt von“ zu [Weiterlesen – Read On]

18. September 2017
by SchspIN
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Film Professions in Germany 2017

Film Departments 2017: Share of Women

In 2014 I wrote about 32 teampositions behind the cam era for German film productions and 2 positions in front of the camera, analyzing information from the database of Crew United (Filmcrafts: Some with Women, Some with Men?). The text I‘ve finally completed today – literally after months – is an update with data from 2017, both for the team positions and the actresses and actors (including an age analysis – for which I used data from Filmmakers and the federal agency ZAV Künstlervermittlung).

  • Reference Values
  • 35 Film Jobs
  • Training
  • Acting
  • Population
  • Final Thought

Reference Values for Statistical Film Analyses

For past evaluations of groups of films, (e.g. the German Top 100 Films, TATORTE / Crime Scenes- TV movies, TV movie of the week, nominations for film awards) I‘ve used two points of reference aside from the 50 % threshold: the share of women in professional associations and that for the division in the data base of Crew United. In most cases / film groups these values were not reached, as the following graph demonstrates. It depicts the shares of women for seven team positions for the Top 100 German films 2012 to 16:

Women are underrepresented in each case. This is – perhaps surprisingly? – not only the case for those professions that have a low share of women, men are hired disproportionately for divisions like costume design (91 %) or casting (87 %) as well. I wrote about this three years ago, now it‘s time for an update. Vincent Lutz of Crew United in Munich kindly sent me the absolute figures of women and men in 34 film jobs.

34 Departments

In the next gallery you can see the percentage of women and men in all 34 jobs for 2014 and for 2017, and then the female percentage for the jobs arranged in 6 groups (Logistics, Idea, Image, Look, Tuning and Acts). There, the massive columns are for 2017, and the striped for 2014:

It is not possible to say if the differences between 2014 and 2017 are trends or not. However, we see the ratio between men and women in the different divisions. Unfortunately, due to the lack of age data, it is difficult to talk about career starters and leavers, and if the numbers are different for the sexes. We can only have a look at filmschools to find out something about the numbers for and ratio between women and men starting in a film job.

Training

It is not so easy to get reliable figures on training for film professions. Luckily enough, two studies were published in February by the FFA German Federal Filmboard (Gender and Film and Gender and TV Movies, both in German) that provide some figures for the training for seven professions. Every year, roughly 250 people graduate from the film schools and film universites, 60 to 70 of them as directors. The next table contrasts them with the corresponding figures from the Crew United database, which are remarkably lower:

In “Gender and TV movie – a study by the University of Rostock and the Fraunhofer Institute, commissioned by the TV networks ARD and ZDF“ the figures are commented on in the following way (accentuations by me):

If you compare today‘s situation of the film industry with the the figures of the students that graduated 15 to 20 years ago,and who could be firmly settled in their professional lives, it becomes apparent that the numbers of alumni and of those studying today hardly differ. Both then and today there are predominantly men in the sound and camera departments. The share of women in directing and of the directing alumni is about 44 %. It‘s similar for production design. On the other hand there are more women studying to become producers today, and less for editing, 15 to 20 years ago their share was 82 %, but today it‘s only 51 %. (source).

On the other hand, the share of men woring in the film industry is higher than their share of students and alumni. As far as editing is concerned, editor Sabine Brose explains this through the digitalisation in this job which made it more attractive to men.
And what about all the other film professions and jobs that are not on this list? How many people start every year? What about independent film schools, and film makers without any formal training or those that change their profession within the industry? Take actors- or actresses-turned directors as an example, they usually do this without studying at any film school. By the way, is that something that actors tend to do more than actresses? Well, that‘s a topic for another day.

Here in Germany and of course in other countries as well, a lot is being talked about directors – not in the least because of the activism of Pro Quote Regie, a group of female directors, and the 42 – 44 % figure is widely know as the share of women among film school graduates for directing. It‘s also widely known that the share of female directors for film and television productions as well as for federal funding is much lower. This training-working-gap is something to be found for other film professions – behind and in front of the camera – as well.
It’s useful  to have data on the age distribution in film industry‘s workforce, and on their children etc. to start discussing if more women are trained today than 20 years ago or if women leave the industry when they start a family (also read: Cinema, Career, Children: Can the Film Industry be called a family-friendly Workplace?)

Acting

It is often said that in the acting profession there is the same 1:1 women-men-balance  as in society. This idea is supported by the following table which shows the share of women and men for the data base of Filmmakers (a German casting data base) and for the film actresses and actors in the federal agency ZAV.

This is only half true though, since we encounter a similar phenomenon as in those film professions that were investigated by the FFA, directing, DoP, sound etc. The share of women among acting beginners is higher than that among all acting professionals. To back this up let‘s not have a look at acting schools, because tend to assemble their classes in a 2:1 ratio similar to that at German theatres – not only classical but also many modern plays have a vast majority of male roles. On top of this a lot of actresses and actors start with different backgrounds, some went to acting school (run by the state or privately), some had no training at all, others come from music TV, others were discovered in the streets. So it makes more sense to look at certain age groups to define the acting starters. In the Filmmakers database I took those between 24 and 27, and in the ZAV file – which is grouped in 5 year slots – I took the 22- to 25-year-olds and the 22- to 30-year-olds. This table paints a very different picture:

The share of women in the beginning years is much higher than the total average, the difference between 7,3 to 11,5 percentage points. And when we compare individual years we get the actual state of things. For those who are 30 the share of women is 58,5 %, but for the 55 year olds it‘s only 36,8 %. The next figures show the absolute figures for actresses (light blue) and actors (pink) according to their years of birth (left, source Filmmakers) and in sum for 5 year groups (right figure, source ZAV). What is quite remarkable are the male age groups from 1990 (who were 26 years old on Jan 1, 17) to 1963 (53 yrs) stay on a similar plateau of roughly 250 actors per year. The female age groups have their first decline for 1977 (39 yrs), this is were the colums fall below 300 actresses for the first time, and from 1971 (45 yrs) the drop below 250, and for 1968 (48 yrs) below 200 for the first time. When we look at the 5-year groups the decline at 40 is even more distinct:

In 2017, the average age of actresses was 35,5 years and of actors it was 40,8 years, in 2013 the figures wee 38,9 and 43,4 (own calculations from Filmmakers data. We can‘t call this a trend though as it is only comparing two years).

The next gallery pictures this in greater detail, we see the Filmakers data für 2017 and 2013 in 5-year-groups for women and men, together and separately. Again we see the drop at 40 years for actresses and the wide plateau for the actors (click to enlarge the images).

Parenthesis
The other night, at the monthly meeting of the Berlin BFFS members (that‘s the acting union) a well-known casting director said that there were far more actresses than actors, stating that whenever she was searching for the right one in an age group there would be more women than men in the data base. One of the BFFS representatives contested this saying that the gender situation in acting was perfectly balanced.

To a certain extent and in their own worlds both of them were right. The BFFS roughly has the same number of female and male members, because apparently so far the union is not quite as attractive for actresses. And we can assume that the casting director probably had to mostly cast roles under 40, as that is where a female majority can be found.

We can assume that more women than men take up acting as a profession and that many of those women leave it halfway through their working life, around 40. Why? Because there is not enough work for them? For private / family reasons? Do actresses who are mothers have their children in their late 30s and then quit acting for good? This certainly is not normal among working women in Germany as we can see when we take a look at some other statistics.

Germany’s (Working) Population

The German population consists of 41.4 M women and 39.8 M men (source Statistisches Bundesamt / Federal Office for Statistics), the average age is 44 years and 3 months. The next figure shows a sort of balance, both gender curves run more or less parallel. Up to the 56 to 60-year-olds with a slight male, after that with a female majority. We can also distinguish the Baby Boomer Generation, in this case the 46 to 55-year-olds.

From a publication of the Statistisches Bundesamt 2016 (highlighting by me):

If we group the population by age and gender we see in 2015, that the 40 to 50 and the 50 to 60 year olds are the most dominant groups quantitatively. These are the Baby Boomer Generations from post-war years and the boom time of the “Wirtschaftswunderzeit“ (economic miracle), who have reached the higher end of their working year and who are going to transition to retirement in a few years.

We also see the aging of the Baby Boomers when we look at the average age of employees: currently it is roughly 43 years (43.4 for men, 43.3 for women). This is much higher than the average 25 years ago, when it was 39.4 for men and 37.9 for women (source 27.6.17).

Back to the “40 year abyss“ for actresses. Does employment of women outside the film industry also decrease or even cease quite as drastically? Would that be for structural reasons, connected to the division of responsibilities among couples as recards children or elderly dependents? No, quite the contrary! Even though less women than men go to work, the curves for female and male employees are nearly parallel, both have a slight decline in the group of the 36 to 40-year-olds which is constantly reversed in the following ten years. – this is the opposite of the working situation for actresses.

Final Thought

Of course we need to talk about the compatibility of work and family in the film industry and to improve the conditions for working parents. But we cannot assume that it is for personal, family biographies if female directors, DoP‘s, authors and actresses are hired less and leave the industry. Women in film are at a disadvantage, and the situation won‘t get better by itself.

 

3. September 2017
by SchspIN
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Brown People Matter

South Asia and a German Film – Brown People Matter

Today‘s text is about the media coverage of the floods in USA and South Asia, the German film MONSOON BABY, fake news and two projects – one dance and one documentary – that are being crowdfunded at the moment.

Floods

2. Sept. 17
It is Saturday morning, I turn on the radio and listen to a feature on Texas / USA, the effects of tropical hurricane „Harvey“, floodings, destroyed houses, nearly 60 dead, evacuated people, individual fates in short interviews.
At the full hour there‘s the news, again featuring Texas, and twenty minutes later the next report on it, this time announcing that US president Donald Trump will visit the disaster area again.
The media in Germany started reporting on the disaster even bevor the hurricane reached Texas and have been doing so since then, daily, sometimes every hour and more.
It took much longer for the media to pick up on the floodings in South Asia. In India, but also in Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan this year‘s monsoon caused extreme floodings, more than 1,500 people did in the last three weeks (different sources mention figures between 1,300 and 2,100 dead), it ruined harvests, and is leading to hunger and diseases.
But news are sparse, in Germany and also in other countries, daily extensive background information, donation appeals (e.g. in public TV and radio) are missing.
It is evident that I don‘t want to play down the sufferings of the people in Texas. But just listening to the figures of those who died there and there makes me catch my breath. From Texas we more or less heard daily updates concerning the numbers, 30, 32, 35, 41, 47, 50, 55, 57 dead; the figures for South Asia are estimations, rounded numbers. But not 30, 50 or 100 persons, but more than 1,000, maybe 1,500 or 1,700 people, who drowned or were buried in landslides or killed by electric shocks. 45 M people, 16 M of these being children, are directly affected by this disaster.

Fill the Gaps!

A lot of people keep saying „yes, but the USA are closer to us“ – maybe, yes. When I look Continue Reading →

26. July 2017
by SchspIN
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2 Interviews

 

Letzte Woche wurde ich gleich zweimal interviewt: / Last week I was interviewed twice:

Cecilia Johnson-Ferguson vom EWAWOMEN Netzwerk befragte mich (auf Englisch) zu meinem Besetzungstool NEROPA, und Yvonne de Andrés vom Aviva Berlin Online Magazin sprach mit mir (auf Deutsch) anlässlich der Vorstellung der von Maria Furtwänglerin initiierten Studie «Audiovisuelle Diversität?»  der Universität Rostock.
Cecilia Johnson-Ferguson of EWAWOMEN Netzwerk interviewed me (in English) on my casting-tool NEROPA, and Yvonne de Andrés of Aviva Berlin Online Magazine spoke to me (in German) after the presentation of a summary of the study «Audiovisual Diversity?» of the University of Rostock, which had been initiated by German actress Maria Furtwängler.

Cecilia Johnson-Ferguson: Neropa, an innovative tool to counterbalance the unequal gender distribution of film characters

One of our active members, Belinde Ruth Stieve, has developed an innovative tool to counterbalance the unequal gender distribution of film characters in the audiovisual industry. Belinde is a German actress from Hamburg, who started researching the situation of women behind and in front of the camera four years ago. We have asked [Weiterlesen – Read On]

27. June 2017
by SchspIN
2 Comments

Die Zukunft hat begonnen – The Future is now

English Version follows German.

Heute geht es um die Besetzung des Social Spots A MESSAGE FROM THE FUTURE, den Molle&Korn  Moving Images for Social Change für die im Jahr 2000 gegründete Stiftung EVZ Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft produziert haben. Und um neutrale Rollen.

Wer weiß, was die Zukunft bringt

Vor kurzem wurde die NEROPA-Seite einem Relaunch unterzogen, auf der entsprechenden Unterseite heißt es nun zum vierten Fallbeispiel:

Noch gibt es diese Drehbücher vermutlich nicht, aber wer weiß, was die Zukunft bringt, und einen Versuch ist es allemale wert. Die Figuren werden zunächst als Charaktere mit bestimmten Eigenschaften definiert. Für jede Rolle dann nach der passenden Besetzung gesucht, Geschlecht ist zweitrangig. (…) Gerade das Science Fiction Genre könnte diese Freiheit bieten, eine Zukunft jenseits der binären Geschlechterrollen oder Männerdominanz in entscheidenden Funktionen ist auch ohne viel Fantasie vorstellbar.

Als ich diesen Mai das Besetzungstool NEROPA auf der internationalen WFTV UK Making a Difference Conference vorstellte ahnte ich noch nicht, wie schnell diese Zukunftsvision Realität werden könnte.

Casting für einen Social Spot

Jedoch, wie das Leben so spielt, kaum war ich aus London zurück, wurde ich von Molle&Korn (Berlin) zu einem Casting für den eingangs genannten Social Spot eingeladen – und zwar für die Hauptrolle Dr. Rellüm. Im Skript war das Geschlecht von Dr. Rellüm undefiniert, es hieß ein/e Archäologe/Archäologin, bzw. sie/er.
Ich bin der Einladung sehr gerne gefolgt, zum einen natürlich aus inhaltlichen Gründen (siehe DIE LEITGEDANKEN DER STIFTUNG EVZ), aber auch, weil mir die Arbeit von Molle&Korn sehr gut gefällt, und [Weiterlesen – Read On]

22. May 2017
by SchspIN
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I did it! – Geschafft!

I Did It!

In the air. May 14, 2017
Today‘s text is about achieved and not achieved targets, it‘s about Riga, an international conference of female filmmakers in London and NEROPA.

Pursue your Goals – We’re Running Up That Hill

Three years ago next month I started running, and if you‘ve been following my blog for a while you might have read the occasional text on this topic (Write a Blog and Ride a Porsche, Running – Twelve Weeks Later….,  Blimey, this is so German…). Today you will get an update. I‘ve continued running, I‘ve continued participating in running events, mostly over my favourite long distance, the 5.000 metres, but occasionally also over 10 k. Last September I heard of the marathon weekend in Riga, a runners‘ meeting with not only the marathon distance but also half marathon, 10 and 6 k plus a race for kids. Riga, former cultural capital of Europe is a beautiful town, I was there last year for a commercial shoot and was very happy about spending a couple of days there. I had also thrown a coin into the Daugava, which is the local river, and that will ensure that you are coming back one day. ^So I registered for a run in Riga in December, and indredibly enough I chose the half marathon (!) – with the option of downgrading to 10 k until a month before the race if my preparations don‘t go as planned. However, a bit carelessly I mentioned my registration in a half-public interview in January that was filmed, so now quite a few people knew of my plans, so obviously it was sort of mandatory to actually have a go at the distance. Because it would be a bit weird to react to questions like .“How did your half marathon go?“ by saying “Alright, I even managed to finish it in 10.000 m.“.

So I started on a 9 week preparatory training programme (a bit late though, with only six weeks remaining), and I set myself the following goals, in this order: Continue Reading →

3. May 2017
by SchspIN
1 Comment

Taking a Shower

Being a long-distance runner is only one of the reasons I think highly of showers, and like many others I know numerous shower stories from everyday life, work or holidays (e.g. when there was a water cut at midnight in Cajamarca).

Taking a Shower – The Dramaturgy

Last weekend I watched four films and each contained a scene where a woman took a shower. Only women, no men. This may be a coincidence of course. But moving on from there, what is it with showers and films, is a character taking a shower a stylistic device, a dramaturgical trick? Is taking a shower for a film today what cigarettes or alcoholic drinks used to be in former years? Are shower scenes about showing nakedness, cleanliness, vulnerability? Or about erotics? Are showers extremely challenging film locations or extremely appealing and exciting settings?

There is a short film about THE SHOWERS IN FILMS by Luc Lagier, currently available in the arte media library. (Edit 14.3.19 not any more). We see murders being committed under a shower, soldier men taking a shower after a battle, sports men taking a shower after a match. Women and men or men on their own are having sex under a shower, and men taking their regular shower in the morning. Women who are neither having sex nor being attacked under a shower seem to be less common.

Showers in Comedies? Three rather old funny shower scenes come to mind: Cary Grant took a shower completely dressed and with a waterproof watch in CHARADE, Marty Feldman, Mel Brooks and Dom DeLuise tried to win over Burt Reynolds for their film project in SILENT MOVIE, and Steve Martin‘s shower in L.A. STORIES had a slomo-switch. I don‘t really remember any shower scenes with women and humour (but maybe they do exist?).

In a way a shower cubicle looks a bit like a telephone booth, doesn‘t it. However, in the digital age of mobile phones they only play a minor role in today‘s films. On the other hand shower cubicles, as a confined space where people are on their own or in twos, will still be around for a while, in real life and in films.
These are the four questions I put to ‘my‘ shower scenes today:

  1. Does the shower scene help advance the story?
  2. Do we learn something new about the character?
  3. Does the shower scene and how it is shot amplify the mood of a scene?
  4. Is the scene funny or original?

Any scene that answers all four questions with a NO is running the risk of objectifying the person under the shower, at worst, in a voyeuristic way. Of course there are shower scenes, scenes were someone is being watched or desired, that help advance a story or that provide additional information on characters, especially about the people observing – which would make it more interesting to put them in the camera focus and not the objects of their desire. I could make a similar case where the depiction of rape or murder in film and on tv. When people are assaulted we often see them from the perspective of the attackers (at least in German film and tv). We see, often unbearably long and close, their agony, their horror, their tears, – and this might just be where the attacker might geht an extra kick and his feeling of power from. But that is a topic for another day.

The shower scenes I am talking about today are from these productions:

  • BEAU SÉJOUR (en: HOTEL BEAU SÉJOUR). TV Series, Belgium 2017. Series 1, Episode 1
  • BROADCHURCH. TV Series, UK 2017. Series 3, Episode 1
  • DIE SCHWALBE (en: THE SWALLOW). Film. Switzerland 2016
  • THE GOOD KARMA HOSPITAL. TV Series, UK 2017. Series 1, Episode 4

Taking a Shower: Kato Hoeven (Lynn Van Royen)

BEAU SÉJOUR is a (highly recommendable!) ten-part TV fantasy series from Belgium. It is about Kato, a young woman, who was murdered, wakes from the dead and begins to investigate her own case.
Beau Sejour (literally: beautiful stay) is a common name for hotels in French speaking countries. And the series is about Kato‘s prolonged stay on earth after her death, until her murderer is found. A handful of people are able to see her, touch her, talk to her. For the rest she is invisible and not audible.
The first episodes starts with Kato, lying dead in a bathtup in room 108 of the hotel Beau Séjour, waking up. After a while she goes home (where her mother can‘t see or hear her), she takes a shower and changes her clothes. That makes sense, since she has a bloody head wound, but how is that filmed? At first we see her feet under the shower, and we see bloody water running down her legs. The camera then slowly moves upwards, along Kato‘s naked body, we see her from behind, her legs, her bottom, her back, until the picture stops at her head. Why this camera journey, what‘s the point for the scene? A short voyeuristic flash, Oh, a naked young woman with a sexy arse? Whose perspective is that supposed to be? Equally strange is an image in the opening titles, where we see Kato‘s dead body lying on the river bank, – actually we only see a part of her body, not the head, just her upper body in a wet, dirty and tight undershirt.
As far as the scene, its mood and the character are concerned, the shower scene is a bit wasted. How about a different approach, for example starting at the feet and then – without the moving camera – cutting directly to Kato‘s head and face, so we can see her sadness, her disbelief, her despair. Just before the shower scene – she hadn‘t fully grasped her dead state yet – she stood next to her mother, leaning against her and talking to her, but her mother did not notice her. Now Kato is standing under a hot shower.
By the way, in this or the other nine episodes of BEAU SÉJOUR there is no other situation where a person is being looked at in this way, neither from toes to head nor the other way around, neither naked nor in clothes.

There was a similar and at the same time quite different shower scene with the victim of a violent crime in another series, in BROADCHURCH.

Taking a Shower: Trish Winterman (Julie Hesmondhalgh)

BROADCHURCH aired its third and final season this year this year, the plot takes place three years after the second series which I found rather disappointing, not least because of the Fifty Shades of Claire subplot. The drama series is once again set in the fictional Dorset seaside resort, and DS Ellie Miller (Olivia Coleman) and DI Alec Hardy (David Tennant) are called to investigate a serious sexual assault.

50-year-old Trish Winterman who‘d been attacked is taking a shower after a first, brief questioning by the police and the first part of the medical investigation at the designatated SARC Sexual Assault Regional Centre. The camera captures the scene from a downward angle, we see the shower, running water, a hand from the right checks the water temperature. Trish steps under the shower. Her head in a profile view is picture-filling, then cut to her dirty feet, back to her face with closed eyes. She sighs deeply. This is a powerful moment, the first time that we see Trish on her own, not through the eyes of or in interaction with the police, who were with her all the time, or with Anna (Andrea Hall), a crisis worker from SARC. In contrast to films like the quite annoying DER BRAND (directed by Brigitte Maria Bertele, script by Johanna Stuttmann) this episode shows authentically how a woman reporting a rape crime is being treated in a professional and emphatic way and how she finds help. The film doesn‘t dwell on showing the violent crime but on the effects on the attacked. Johanna Schneller writes in Broadchurch Season 3 shows crucial sex aussault aftermath: “This scene should be mandatory viewing not only for all cops, but also for all TV writers’ rooms.“ In the last episode of the series, after the case is solved, there are some flashbacks during the interrogation of the murderer and other suspects. The crime is not shown, but even without it the episode may be upsetting and moving, not only for those affected. As quite common with British tv films, there was a warning ahead of each episode: “Strong emotions and scenes viewers may find distressing.“ and after it ended: “And if you have been affected by issues raised in tonight‘s episode please visit itv.com/advice“ linking to a variety of aid organizations.

Of course BROADCHURCH is not the only British tv series which issues warnings and gives references, and does not show acts of violence explicitly. In CALL THE MIDWIFE there is a fade out the moment that sister Cynthia sees her attacker, and in DOWNTON ABBEY maid Anna is raped in an adjoining room while the camera stays in the kitchen while the sounds of the attack can be heard. Both series in their plots pay attention to the Aftermath, the effects on the women. Despite this there have been a considerable number of audience complaints in reference to the rape in DOWNTON ABBEY (see John Plunkett in The Guardian: Downton Abbey rape scene will not face investigation despite complaints from 4.11.13). I don‘t know of any similar reactions here in Germany – is the audience tougher, more insensitve or simply used to drastic displays of violence in fictional programmes? I‘m sometimes under the impression that the tv stations are trying to outdo one another regarding this in their crime dramas. Some years ago tv magazine frau tv (woman tv) reported on a study which had analyzed numerous tv crime fiction shows that started with a violent attack on or murder of a woman and then continue with her dead body on the table of a coroner. Of course this has nothing to do with the shower scene any more, so let‘s move on to the next film:

Taking a Shower: Mira (Manon Pfrunder)

In DIE SCHWALBE / THE SWALLOW young Swiss Mira travels to Iraq looking for her kurdish father who had vanished from Switzerland before her birth. allegedly to fight in the resistance. She is accompanied by her new acquaintance, German speaking Kurdish Ramo who pursues his own plans. In the end Mira does find her father who hadn‘t been fight againt the regime but rather had been an informer and profiteer (and Ramo had actually been instructed to follow her so that they could assassinate him). After their meeting we see Mira crying under the shower, a long shot from her shoulders upwards.
This is an ok image of course, although I must say at that point I was getting a bit fed up with Mira‘s excessive cleanliness. Were they using the old Swiss stereotype, or trying to demonstrate some sort of contrast between the clean, innocent Swiss woman on one side and the dirty traitor father on the other, between Europe and Iraq? In the 100 minute film Mira takes two showers, she once bathes in a river (and comes out of the water in a wet, white, skin-tight undershirt), she brushes her teeth in nature and wears a different top on aveage every ten minutes, once she changes her clothes in a moving car next to the total stranger Ramo (Ismail Zagros) whom she hired as driver and translator. As mentioned, this is feeding the stereotype, but is there more to it? What‘s also a bit strange: at the end of the film she Mira to Ramo: „Here‘s your pay for the last three days“ (nine different outfits seem a bit much for that?) and also she only had a very small backpack with her, which makes it hard to imagine how she packed all these clothes and kept them ironed and uncreased as they always appeared.
Even in the moment of her deepest crisis, her disappointment at her newly found father and everything he was, became and said, she (or the director) can only think of having her take a shower? Nothing seems to upset her routine, and so we see her in the final scene entering the airport to return to Switzerland, shortly after the murder of Ramo by his own people as a traitor. She is wearing yet another different blouse, this time a red one, clean and impeccable as always.

In view of all her neatness and hygiene it is remarkable that we never see Mira using a toilet, – which brings us to the first episode of today‘s final series, ITV‘s THE GOOD KARMA HOSPITAL, and its shower scene in episode four:

Taking a Shower: Dr. Ruby Walker (Amrita Acharia)

At the beginning of this new ITV show junior doctor Ruby Walker is sitting on a staff toilet of an English hospital, there is no toilet paper so she reaches for a magazine lying on the floor, when her glance catches the advertisment of a fancy hospital: “Colleague! Do you wish to work in beautiful India?“. This could be the solution to all her problems, not least including a failed relationship, so she decides to go to India. To her suprise though she is not assigned to the fancy private clinic but to a run down cottage hospital, The Good Karma Hospital, run by resolute Englishwoman Dr. Lydia Fonseca (Amanda Redman). The shower scene occurs in episode four, it‘s actually two shower scenes which frame the plot.
The episode opens with an excerpt from an Indian soap opera, upside down, – we then see that Ruby is watching it on her tablet, completely immersed, from a chakrasana yoga position on a beach (officially to learn Hindi!). Next we see her in her garden – still with the tablet – in her outdoor shower cubicle, but it isn‘t working, no water. I was tempted to make a joke out of the soap-shower-combination but couldn‘t think of a good one).
So Ruby goes to the hospital unshowered, still watching her soap, and the first patient she meets, Vicky Martin (Sarah-Jane Potts), an English tourist, literally throws up in front of her. Then Ruby joins hospital director Lydia Fonseca:

  • Ruby: Also the water is still not working, in my cottage…
  • Lydia: I told them to see to it. Are you sure?
  • Ruby: I showered in perfume. Again.
  • Lydia: Is that really perfume? I thought it was vomit.
  • Ruby: Only it‘s been a week now.
  • Lydia: Fine, I‘ll discuss it with them. Although to be honest, it‘s like herding cats with attention deficit disorder.
  • Ruby: it seems like a basic requirement.
  • Lydia: Fine, complaint noted, I‘ll see to it. you‘ll be expecting wages next.

The shower-hygiene-motif recurs throughout the whole episode and is also connected to the subplot, which is about Ruby dealing with and getting closer to her father‘s country India (her mother is English, her father came from Mumbai and left the family shortly after Ruby was born. This is her first stay).
Vicky, the English patient mentioned earlier, had come to India to buy a kidney, after a short while there were complications, so she ended up in The Good Karma Hospital, at first keeping the origin of her new organ a secret. Vicky is furious, because she‘d paid for a “perfect organ match“, and generally speaking the disliked the country and the people in it, all being dirty and liars. Ruby tries to examine her:

  • Vicky: Don‘t you dare put your disgusting hands on me!
  • Ruby: I‘m sorry.
  • Vicky: Don‘t either of you touch me!

Her Indian colleague Dr. Gabriel Varma (James Floyd) comments: “You apologized to her. She told you not to touch her and you apologized?“ Triggered through her encounter with Vicky, Ruby begins to deal with the racism in Britain she had suffered in silence for years and gets closer to India, which could become “her country“ now. At the end of the episode we see her back in the outdoor shower cubicle and yes! water pours out. She splashes about a bit and then happily gets under the water jet just as she is, starts removing her dress, showers in her underwear. Cut. Later she is sitting in her garden, comes out of Facebook and continues watching her soap opera. And she is not who she was in the morning any more.

—————-

The other day I wanted to buy shower gel at the chemist‘s. The 50 types for women were all caring, nurturing, relaxing or indulging. I was actually looking for something with active and energy and waking up in the morning or sports. But those only existed for men. Why do shower products need a gender?
The weekend I watched the four films and started writing this article goes back a few weeks. Most if not all these films and series are no longer available in the media centres / hubs any more, but have a look for their DVDs or streaming services.

BEAU SÉJOUR
TV series, series 1 episode 1 of 10, first broadcast in Belgium 1.1.2017, and on 2.3. in Germany
several prizes, i.a. Séries Mania Festival Audience Award
Production Comp.: De Mensen, Zaventem / Belgium for Chanel Eén, 2017
Directors: Nathalie Basteyns, Kaat Beels
Script: Bert Van Dael, Sanne Nuyens, Benjamin Sprengers, Kaat Beels, Nathalie Basteyns
Producers: Saskia Verboven, Marikjke Wouters, Pieter Van Huyck
Cast: Lynne Van Royen, Inge Paulussen, Jan Hammenecker, Kris Kuppens, Johan van Assche
Showering: Kato Hoeven (Lynne Van Royen)
Trailer OmeU
Titelsong „Allien en verloaten“ by Mauro Pawlowski, an adaption of „Alone and Forsaken“ by Hank Williams

BROADCHURCH
TV series, series 3 episode 1 of 6. first broadcast in UK 27.2.2017 ITV
Production Comp.: Kudos Film and Television in association with Shine America and Imaginary Friends for ITV. 2017
Director: Paul Andrew Williams
Script: Chris Chibnail
Producer: Dan Winch
Cast: David Tennant, Olivia Colman, Jodie Whittaker, Julie Hesmondhalgh
Showering: Trish Winterman (Julie Hesmondhalgh)
Titelsong Ólafur Arnalds ft. Arnór Dan – Take My Leave of You

DIE SCHWALBE / THE SWALLOW
Film. Premiere 23.1.16 Solothurn Filmfestival, TV Premiere 3.3.17
Production Comp.: Frame Film GmbH, Bern / Schweiz 2016
Director: Mano Khalil
Script: Mano Khalil. Co: Daniela Baumgärtl, Daniel Casparis, Martina Klein, Michael Sauter
Producer: Mano Khalil
Cast: Manon Pfrunder, Ismail Zagros
Showering: Mira (Manon Pfrunder)
Trailer OmdU

THE GOOD KARMA HOSPITAL
TV Series, Series 1 Episode 4 of 6. first broadcast in UK 26.2.2017
Production Comp.: Tiger Aspect Productions for ITV 2017
Director: Bill Eagles
Script: Vinay Patel. Created by Dan Sefton
Producers: Stephen Smallwood
Cast: Amanda Redman, Amrita Acharia, Neil Morrissey, Phyllis Logan, James Floyd, Darhsan Jariwalla, Sagar Radia
Showering: Ruby Walker (Amrita Acharia)
Trailer

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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.