Last week, Women’s Agenda dropped into Melbourne’s movie hangout ACMI (formerly Australian Centre for the Moving Image) for the Being Seen Conference, to hear the world’s top screen producers, actors and writers chat about women in film, intersectionality and aging.
Both local and international stars shared advice on how to push through the misogyny, sexism, racism and ableism they’ve had to confront during their journeys.
Hollywood icon Geena Davis spoke about the importance of playing strong female characters. Screen legend Sigrid Thornton talked about her yearning for more older female characters on screen who aren’t stereotypically housebound introverts. Indian Australian actor Pallavi Sharda revealed the complex challenges she’s had to face as an actor who was told there was no place for her on any screens in Australia because of her skin colour. And filmmaker and disability advocate Amy Marks urged content creators to stop making excuses, and to get on with including more disabled people in film.
Below are some highlights from the one-day conference.
Audacity and unshakeable self belief was key to success for Geena Davis
Geena Davis grew up in a family that was, in her words, “far removed from anything to do with show business.”
Her mother grew and made all the food the family ate. Her father built the house they lived in. When she decided to pursue acting at college, her parents didn’t think much of it. Davis’ own self-belief carried her through the early years of her career.
“The very first class in college was orientation, and there were about one hundred freshmen in the theatre arts program. At one point the professors told us, ‘You’ve all chosen an incredibly challenging profession… in fact, probably only about 1 per cent of you will live as an actor.’ And I swear I thought, [Davis looks back her shoulder] oh these poor people!”
During her keynote speech, Davis spoke about her memoir, Dying of Politeness, where she explains the transition she experienced after playing roles so opposite to her own sensibility.
“I had a terminal politeness that coloured nearly every aspect of my life,” she explained. “By the time I started dating, it was impossible. I could never say what I liked or what I wanted to do. I couldn’t even say what kind of toppings I liked on pizza in case it was impolite somehow. But playing these roles, like leaders… gave me the opportunity to practice being like that. You know, that phrase, fake it till you make it. I was acting until I could become it.”
The ‘fake it to you make it’ mantra carried on into other areas too.
After gracing the screen as a professional baseball player in A League of Their Own, Davis decided to take up archery after seeing it on television during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics — a sport she described as “beautiful, dramatic looking”.
At 41, she found a coach, trained for two and a half years, and became a semi-finalist at the following Games.
Can we stop being icky about aging women on the screen?
During the Q&A segment of the panel discussion titled “Aging on Screen”, Australian acting legend Rachel Griffiths was in the audience when she stood up and addressed the panellists, which included filmmaker Sophie Hyde, Rachael Maza OAM, and casting director Anousha Zarkesh.
“Sometimes I wonder if we are moving forward in representation but within the criticism in the press that we do for the above said press representation – it feels like we’ve gone back thirty years,” Griffiths said. “We are constantly asked as older performers about aging, and I’m torn between – is it my job to inspire women to be able to talk about menopause, or actually can I talk about the role of the PM, existing in Australian politics?” — referring to her role as female prime minister, Rachel Anderson in the 2019 ABC drama Total Control.
“I feel like the press, and reporting and journalism are behind it, particularly on the value of older women’s experience — there’s even a bit of a kind of, just general ick factor that comes into play, or something.”
Griffiths asked moderator Madeline Di Nonno, the CEO of the Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media, about the landscape of America’s gendered criticism and how older female stories are written and rated in the platforms that matter in the market that buys women the opportunities to continue that representation.
“One of the things we found is that for some reason, no one thinks that women over the age of 50 are having sex, or want to have sex or want to have romantic relationships,” Di Nonno responded.
“They’re showing us as mostly being indoors, and in care of someone else.”
Di Nonno believes the industry needs to work on debunking these harmful stereotypes. “It’s not happening,” she said, “In broadcast film or streaming. We need to increase the opportunities. We need to support it with our pocket, our viewership, we need to demand more of these diverse stories. Demand these stories where women over fifty are having sex.”
Sigrid Thornton reminded the audience that all the ‘ism’s intersect.
“Wouldn’t it be great when we don’t have to answer those questions about being an older actor?” she said. “Won’t it be great when people of colour are just there in the story? Won’t it be great when older women are just there in a story being active, playing actors rather than ‘characters of colour’ or ‘characters of disability’ or ‘characters who are older’. That’s what we want. Storytelling has an ability to bring us out…to rise us up above our ‘ism’s. It has enormous power.”
“There’s a need for new stories and we’ve got a lot of them. Let’s bring them up and let’s just try to dispense with the tokenism if we can.”
We need to fund more stories about transpeople, made by transpeople, Muslim stories, by Muslim people
When trans woman and activist Dr Julie Peters was growing up, all the trans people she saw in movies were either murdered or died by suicide.
There are harmful, ingrained ideas about what a trans person is.
“Where did these mythologies come from?” moderator Jan Fran asked the panellists Muslim Producer and Director Kauthar Abdulalim, Indian Australian actor Pallavi Sharda, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara actor Elaine Crombie and Dr Peters.
“Why are they there? And when you say you want to de-mythologize them, how do you do that?”
“The way I tried this is to keep telling stories when there’s negative press,” Dr Peters said. “I try and go somewhere else with a positive story.”
Peters shared her story of transitioning in 1990. At the time, she was working at the ABC.
“As I was growing up, I didn’t know anything about trans,” she said. “I was living in a transphobic society so why would not be transphobic?”
“In a way that is one of those things, particularly in LGBT communities. We’ve grown up in a homophobic and transphobic society, so we internalise that. Back in the 90s, I was doing switchboard, and I would say about 80 per cent of the calls I got where you could actually put down to internalised homophobia.”
Kauthar Abdulalim said she started her own production company because she felt that certain stories were being told without honouring the sacredness of a community or their experiences.
“If you are going to be telling a story about a character or those experiences centered in your story, are you telling it with Muslims? Are you taking Muslim culture into consideration when you’re bringing Muslims on set? Are you creating a set that’s culturally competent? Are you scheduling times for prayer breaks? Are you accommodating to Halal options? Are you familiar with certain customers when it comes to costume style?”
“If you’re not going to honour us, then don’t do it. Because you’re actually making a mockery of us and our experiences by saying that we are representing you, or telling your story. You’re really not. It’s better that you don’t do it and let us do it because we can do it.”
Take Up Space, and Consult the Right People
Elaine Crombie is a big advocate of authentic storytelling. For Crombie, the star of ABC shows including Top of the Lake and Kiki and Kitty, the motto to follow is simple: “Nothing About Us, Without Us.”
“It’s just about taking space,” she said. “I feel a huge responsibility for my kids, my community, all of the young ones and my peers who look up to me in order to just keep staying steady on that track of taking space, in the art and in theatres, have that in, you know, writers rooms, all of that kind of stuff and just having those strong listening ears on to make sure that people are moving in the right way when they’re representing women…wanting to represent us wanting to produce our films. Have you got all of the people that need to be in the room?”
“If you’re telling stories on land, then make sure you’ve got all of your cultural consultants in the room and make sure that the story weaves in the right direction.”
ACMI is currently exhibiting GODDESS – an exhibition showcasing female trailblazers, binary-busters, agitators and instigators on and off screen.