She Is Running The Show

Many talented women in film such as Charlize Theron and Natalie Portman are finding more creative fulfilment as executives and producers, not waiting for better acting roles.

But what sorts of challenges do women face when changing or expanding their career choices, especially in such a male-dominated business?

Charlize Theron was actively involved as a producer of her recent film Sleepwalking, as she was for her acclaimed film Monster.

She admires her mother as a role model, and for her individuality: "It was the greatest thing she has given me. I don’t think she knows that. I don’t even think she set out to teach me that. That’s just how she lived her life and what she encouraged me to do. 

"She was a great mother but at the same time she was very much an individual. She ran a business.

"I always say to my friends who are so torn between having a job and leaving kids behind to go to work that their kids will thank them one day. That will be the thing that will inspire them, because I remember watching my mom put her suit and high heels on and go into a board meeting with eight guys. 

"She was running the show and I was like, I want to be like that. She always encouraged me to be an individual, to have my own philosophy."  

[From Charlize Theron on the Oscar ‘curse’, By Ruben V. Nepales, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 03/14/2008.]

Theron is not alone in choosing to work as a creative executive. "Instead of trying to blend in with the high-powered corporate players, women have entered the film industry as entrepreneurs in record numbers," says script consultant and author Linda Seger. 

She adds, "In Los Angeles, 80 percent of all new businesses are created by women" and notes in her article Women on the Verge that the "push for more power and stronger roles mirrors what is going on behind the scenes in Hollywood as well. There, women, traditionally relegated to supporting players, are pushing their way into the spotlight and carving a place in the Hollywood power structure."

A psychologist and corporate consultant on maximizing personal and organisational potential, Kenneth Christian, Ph.D., identifies a wide range of challenges and changes people may face in striving for higher levels of achievement and personal meaning.

He writes in his book Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement about a woman filmmaker: "Stacy could not have imagined the combination of exhilaration and fear she felt on beginning work on the documentary dance film. Suddenly people treated her as a serious artist."

Stacy found she was facing "demands she had not anticipated" and felt herself struggling when people referred to her as a filmmaker. "She liked the sound of that identity but had not internalized it yet."

In our interview, Striving for achievement, he talks about other topics facing exemplary women, including former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, golfer Michelle Wie, and Oprah Winfrey.

Especially in the film industry, with its obsession about looks, women are under pressure to fit some standard of appearance in order to gain power and success. 

As Sara Duvall, one of the four women partners of Electric Shadow Productions, which produced the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, observed, "I don't know how any girl growing up in America can avoid the attitude - thrown in her face - that her status depends on her attractiveness, not her achievement."

Callie Khouri, screenwriter of Thelma & Louise, has commented on another perspective: "Hollywood is trying to re-sexualize its women back into submission. This whole idea that women are powerful because they're sexy is a crock. Sex isn't power. Money is power. But the women who do best in this society are the ones who are the most complacent in the role of women as sexual commodity."

[From my article Women in Film: Identity and Power.]

Natalie Portman portrays Anne in The Other Boleyn Girl, which explores sexuality as political power, among other things.

Portman says she saw the film as "a cautionary tale about capitalism. All of the characters who subscribe to these values of rising up and gaining power and who will step on anyone to get there are punished. Anne is certainly the most forward about it, but she is following her family's values... 

"I think it's very different to be ambitious and to be ruthlessly ambitious, which Anne certainly is in the movie. In reality, an argument can be made that Anne Boleyn was witch-hunted because she had so much power."

Asked by Elle magazine about her own independence and ambition, she says, "It's definitely complicated. I bury it a lot, which is a very common woman thing to do. They say women often preface their statements with 'This might sound stupid, but... 

"It sort of tempers what you are going to say. It takes the edge off so you can still be seen as ladylike. I think I have a lot of that in me. I'm very non-confrontational; I'm definitely a pleaser."

But she has also started her own production company, Handsomecharlie films (named after her late dog, Charlie). She explains, "It is proactive. It gives you more control over creating things, as opposed to having to get hired every single time... Having your own company is a nice way to concentrate your ideas and make the kinds of movies you want to see."

[From Natalie Portman interview by Ariel Levy, Elle, April 2008]

Former Buddhist monk, software engineer, geisha trainee, entrepreneur, venture capitalist Christine Comaford-Lynch talks about some of the issues in developing a successful company, of any kind.

"I've come to realize that energy equals equity. The more energy we put into our team the more emotional equity they develop, the more they care about our business, the more engaged they are, and the more they innovate, are accountable, and take risks. People who are emotionally engaged thrive.

"The more you embrace the attitude of the entrepreneur, the more agile you are. It's so important not to have happy ears, hearing just what you want. You need to keep your ear to the ground and pay attention to what's going on without being pessimistic."

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