Something I worked with a lot as part of my company Hassan Mohammed Khalil Enany Enterprises was the issue of women in film. My company dealt primarily with motivation and self-affirmation, but this also intersected with film and media. I saw a lot of issues relating to feminism in film and in business in general, and it’s certainly a topic I want to think about as I go more deeply into the world of filmmaking.
A Beautiful Tomorrow, directed by Hassan Mohammed Enany, particularly centred around gender roles in the Middle East, but even in the Western world, the treatment of women and how we relate to gender has been coming to the fore. For example, the new Ghostbusters film may seem like a trivial matter, but has actually highlighted a lot of the issues women face in this industry. Just recently, one of the breakout stars of the movies Leslie Jones has her identity stolen on twitter, and the bogus account began posting homophobic messages. The film, too, has been hugely divisive in the Comic Book online community, and even before its release has garnered massive criticism.
This isn’t the first time this has happened either. Mad Max: Fury Road, a film that was stylistically massively inspirational to me, was plagued with misogynistic rhetoric due to the strong female characters in the movie. Now, as a movie buff myself, I welcome criticism, whether it’s for sloppy writing, casting or directing. However, this is clearly not the issue here. The issue is a deep-seated discomfort with seeing women in powerful roles.
Throughout my filmmaking career, I aim to look to a number of methods to change this. Whether that be through visual representation of multiple gender roles, body types and races or simply passing the Bechdel Test EVERY time. I call upon my fellow aspiring directors, filmmakers and anyone else in the industry to also join me in this, as I would like to see the future generation of girls not feel intimidated to follow their dreams due to pathetic twitter trolls.
As I always say, happy filmmaking, and please comment with any suggestions on how I can incorporate this into my work in the future.