Female Film Directors

"Hollywood's skewed representations of Asian women" (Hagedorn, 1994, pp. 1). Has an inaccurate depiction of women through films resulted in the lack of professional opportunities available to them in the film industry? Film has always been a sensory medium where visual depictions of characters tend to form certain characteristics with regards to gender, be it in a positive or negative way. This can be further supported by the recent change in focus to the sensory and affective experience of watching films (Smelik, 2009) and "Movies are still the most seductive and powerful of artistic mediums" (Hagedorn, 1994, pp. 28).Thus characterization of gender in films is an important element that will be covered in this paper. In 2009, fewer than 10% of film directors were women (Smelik, 2009), which therefore form the basis behind this paper and gives rise to the analysis of gender representations and stereotypes in films to explain the lack of female directors.

Hagedorn(1994) has covered primarily on the way Asian women are perceived in films as well as the constraints faced by Asian actresses. In her article she claimed that "Asian Pacific women have generally been perceived by Hollywood with a mixture of fascination, fear and contempt" (Hagedorn, 1994, pp. 4). From "assimilating so easily into American society, they had lost all sense of self' (Hagedorn, 1994, pp. 12) it showed that she blamed the American influence for the stereotyping. She brought across the idea that the stereotypical roles of Asian actresses are caused by male directors seen in "the director's colonial fantasy of women as docile, domestic creatures" (Hagedorn, 1994, pp. 19).