TED商业：纳奥米·麦克杜格尔·琼斯：女性在好莱坞的境遇是怎样的

TED商业：Naomi McDougall Jones: What it's like to be a woman in Hollywood

I'm going to begin today with a storyand end with a revolution.

(Laughter)

Are you ready?

Audience: Yes!

Naomi McDougall-Jones: Here's the story.All my life I wanted to be an actress.From the time I was very small,I could feel the magic of storytellingand I wanted to be a part of it.So, at the ripe age of 21,I graduated from the AmericanAcademy of Dramatic Artsin New York City,bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,and ready to take my rightful placeas the next Meryl Streep.That's my grandmother, not Meryl Streep.

(Laughter)

Now, it's important for this storythat you understandthat I was raised by a raging feminist.I mean, just to give you some idea:when I was five or six years oldand obsessed with "The Sound of Music,"and running around, singing,"I am 16 going on 17,"all day every day,my mother sat me downfor a very serious conversationand she said, "OK, look.I'm not going to saythat you can't sing that song,but if you are going to sing that song,I do need you to understandthe extremely problematicgender construct that it reinforces."

(Laughter)

So that's where I come from.So it just honestly nevereven occurred to methat I would be preventedfrom doing anything in my lifebecause I'm a woman.

OK. So I graduate.And I start auditioningand I get work, slowly.But I just start noticingthat the parts available for womenare terrible.But, remember — I came hereto play smart, willful,complicated, interestingcomplex, confidentfemale characters, right?Like Meryl.And all of the sudden,I am wrestling with 300 othergorgeous, talented womento play ..."[Female] No dialogue.The character only needsto stand on a balcony,look forlorn, and walk backinside the house.Only partial nudity."

(Laughter)

"[Sarah] Brian's love interest.Attractive, cute, and flirty,she is the ideal girl and Brian's prizethroughout the entire film.""[Mom] A proper Southern bellewho is making peace with the factthat her only purpose in lifeis to tend to her husband.""[Abby] Must be OKwith a tastefully shot gang rape,along with performing 19th-century dance."

(Laughter)

Those are actual casting notices.And so I just mentioned thisto my agent one day,I say, "I feel like I'm not reallygoing in for partsthat I'm actually excited about playing.And he said, "Yeah. I don't really knowwhat to do with you.You're too smart for the partsthat are being writtenfor women in their 20s,and you're not quite pretty enoughto be the hot one,so I think you'll work when you're 35."

(Laughter)

And I said, "Oh. That's funny.I always thought that when you were 35,you were kind of, like,over the hill as an actress,that you were relegated to playing20-year-olds' mothers."And he said, "Yeah —

(Laughter)

It's just the way it is."

So, maybe a year or so after this,I'm having lunchwith an actress friend of mine,and we're talking abouthow insane this is.And we decide, you know what? No problem.We'll just make our own movie.And I'll write and then I'll write itabout two complex female characters.So we do.We set out to make this movie,and sort of accidentally, we end up hiringan all-female production team:the writer, directors, producers,and it's a film about two women.And so pretty soon,we're sitting in the officeof a successful male producer,and he goes, "OK, girls.So, you do understand that at some pointyou are going to have to hirea male producer onboard, right?Just so that peoplewill trust you with their money."Over and over again, people tell us,"Yeah, but people don't reallywant to see films about women,so maybe you should think aboutmaking something else.It's just the way it is."So we make the movie, anyway.We scrape together 80,000 dollars,and we make it, and it does so well.It gets into tons of festivalsand we win a lot of awardsand it's big and exciting.

But these experiences I've hadjust keep rubbing at me.And so, I just start talking about them,first, at Q and A's afterscreenings of the film,and then I get invited to be on panelsand talk at conferences.And the really amazing thingis that, to begin with,when I'm just talking to audiencesand other people, you know,coming up in the film industry,the universal reaction is,"Oh my god! This is terrible.What do we do about this?"But the bigger panels I get on,suddenly an Oscar nominee tells me,"Look, I totally agreewith everything you're saying.You just need to be really carefulabout where you say it."An Oscar-winning producer tells methat she doesn't think it's a good ideato play the woman card.It's just the way it is.

And I think this is howsexism continues on in 2016, right?For the most part, it happens casually —unconsciously, even.It happens because peopleare just trying to get alongwithin an existing system.It happens, maybe, out of a genuine desireto teach a young womanthe way that the world "just is."The problem is that unless we dosomething about it,that is the way the world will always be.

So why should you care about this?Right?I mean, we're facing some rathersignificant problems in the worldjust at present,what does it really matterif I can't get a job,or you're stuck watching"Transformer 17," right?

(Laughter)

Well, let me put it to you this way:the year "Jaws" came out,Americans suddenly started listing"sharks" among their top 10 major fears.In 1995, BMW paid the James Bond franchisethree million dollarsto have James Bond switchfrom driving an Aston Martinto a BMW Z3.That one move caused so many peopleto go out and buy that car,that BMW made 240 million dollarsin pre-sales alone.The year that "Brave"and "Hunger Games" came out,female participation in archerywent up 105 percent.

(Laughter)

In fact, studies showthat the movies you watchdon't just affect your hobbies,they affect your career choices,your emotions, your sense of identity,your relationships, your mental health —even your marital status.

So now, consider this:if you have watchedmostly American movies in your lifetime,95 percent of all the filmsyou have ever seenwere directed by men.Somewhere between 80 and 90 percentof all of the leading charactersthat you have ever seenwere men.And even if we just talk aboutthe last five years,55 percent of the timethat you have seen a woman in a movie,she was naked or scantily clad.That affects you.That affects all of us.We actually can't even imaginehow much it affects us,because this is all we've ever had.Stories — and moviesare just modern stories —are not frivolous.They're actually the mechanismthrough which we processour experience of being alive.They're the waythat we understand the worldand our place in it.They're the way we develop empathyfor people who have experiencesdifferent than our own.And right now, all of thatis being funneled at usthrough the prism of this one perspective.It's not that it's a bad perspective,but don't we deserve to hear them all?How would the world be differentif all of the stories were told?

So what do we do about this?This may be the first timea lot of you are hearing about this,but a lot of us within the film industryhave spent years —a lot of people,a lot longer than I have —giving speeches and doing panelsand writing articlesand doing studies,and really just yelling at Hollywoodto do a better job about this.I mean, we have really yelled at them.And yet, Paramount and Foxrecently released their slates,and of the 47 films that they will releasebetween now and 2018,not a single onewill be directed by a woman.So it is beginning to occur to methat waiting for Hollywoodto grow a consciencemay not actually be a winning strategy.In fact, it seems to methat whenever there is a small,ruling class of peoplewho have all of the moneyand power and resources,they're not actually that excitedabout giving it up.And so you don't get change by asking themor even yelling at them.You have to make that change happenthrough a revolution.Now, please don't worry —I promise you, here, now, today,our body count will be very low.

(Laughter)

So, now before I get to my four-pointplan for the revolution —yes, I have a four-point plan —I have two pieces of very goodand important news for you.

Good news number one:there are female filmmakers.

(Cheers and applause)

Yes! I know!

(Applause)

We exist!We actually graduate from film schoolsat the same rate that mendo — 50 percent.So here we have our 50 women.The problem is that as soon as you getto the micro-budget film,so even the very smallest films,we're already only directing 18 percent.Then you get to slightly bigger films,indies in the $1-5 million budget range,and we go down to 12 percent.So by the time you getto the studio system,we're only directingfive percent of movies.Now, I know some of you out therewill look at thisand secretly think to yourselves,"Well, maybe womenjust aren't as good at directing movies."And that's not a totally insane question.I mean, we like to believethe film industry is a meritocracy, right?

(Laughs)

(Laughter)

But look at this trajectory.Either you have to acceptthat women are actuallyfive percent as talented as men,which I don't,or you have to acceptthat there are serious systemic issuespreventing us from gettingfrom here to there.But the good news is, we exist,and there is a vast amountof untapped potential over here.Good news number two,and this is really good news:films by and about women make more money.Yes! Yes! It's true!

(Cheers and applause)

It's true.The Washington Postrecently released a studyshowing that films that feature womenmake 23 cents more on every dollarthan films that don't.Furthermore, my colleagues and Icommissioned a studycomparing 1,700 filmsmade over the last five yearsand, looking at the averagereturns on investment —so, how much money does that movie make —comparing if a man or a womanfilled each of the following roles:director, producer,screenwriter and lead actor.And in every single category,the return on investment is higherif it's a woman.Fact: women buy 51 percentof all movie tickets.Films by and about women make more money.And of course, at leastsome portion of the male populationdoes also like women —

(Laughter)

so "women films" are not just for women.And yet, Hollywood only targets18 percent of all of their filmsas "women films."So what you're left withis a giant underserved audienceand untapped profit potential.So we exist, and we have stories to tell.We have so many stories to tell.And despite everything we've heard:you want to see them.The problem is, we've got this thing —let's call it "Hollywood" —

(Laughter)

no, no, I'm just kidding;I've met some very nicepeople in Hollywood —Hollywood, preventing usfrom getting to you.So here is my four-point planfor the revolution,and everybody — man or woman,in this room or anywhere in the world —is going to get to help.

And this revolution is not just for women.Anyone who has been disenfranchised,anyone whose story has not been told,the same principles apply,and I really hope we can dothe revolution together.

My four-point plan.Number one: watch movies.Isn't this a good revolution?

(Laughter)

OK, first I want to talk to anyonewho watches movies.Who watches movies in here?Great!Will you pledge to watch one filmby a female filmmaker per month?That's it, just start there. Great!If you need help finding them,you can go to the website, moviesbyher.comIt's an easily searchable databaseof films by women.And as you start watching all movies,I just want you to pay attentionto the female characters.How many of them are there?What are they wearing?Or not?Do they get to do cool things,or are they just thereto emotionally support the men?I'm telling you, once you see this,you're not going to be able to unsee it.And as you start noticing this,it's going to shift your viewing habits.And this already sizable marketis going to continue to grow.

Step two: make movies.So now I'm talking to allthe female filmmakers out there:we need you to be very brave.It will be harder for you to make movies.In fact, there will be an entire industryconstantly telling youthat your stories don't matter.And we need you to make them, anyway.That 18 percent in the micro-budgetrange — that is on us to fix.Don't wait for permission.Don't wait for somebody to pick you,because 95 percent saysthey are not going to.Crowd fund.Write letters to eccentric relatives.I know how hard it is,but you have to make your movies —now, today, features, not shorts.There is an audience for them,and they want and need to see them.

Three: invest in each other.Fellow female filmmakers, I feel likewe need to stop wasting so much energyon a system that does not want us.We need to find our audienceand invest in cultivating them.If we can figure outhow to make our moviesand deliver themto the audiences that want them,that's it.That's the whole game.And whatever they're doing in the middleis going to cease to bequite so important.Audiences, invest in us.Help us make the moviesthat you want to see.If you can give a female filmmaker25 dollars in a crowdfunding campaign,great, do that.If you can invest more seriouslyand help us over that criticalmillion-dollar hurdle,do that.But invest in seeingthe other half of the story.

Four: disrupt through business.So now I'm talkingto all of the businesspeopleand entrepreneurs.This does not happenvery often in the world,but right here we have a golden situationin which you can enactsignificant social changewhile also making money.Hollywood is a system ripe for disruption.The old models of financingand distribution are crumbling —please come in and disrupt it.I'll give you an example.Right now, with some incredible women,I am launching the "The 51 Fund."It's a venture capital fundthat will finance films written, directedand produced by womenin that critical $1-5 million range.We will give a significant numberof female filmmakersthe chance to make their moviesand we will deliver themto the audiences who want them.Good for equality, good for business.But that's only one example, we need more.There is room for so many more.So I say to you:Hollywood is leaving money on the table.Come pick it up.

(Applause)

Now, all of this may seem like a lot,but it is actually so doable.Entrenched systems don't changebecause you ask the people in charge,they change because all of the peoplewho don't have what they wantrise up and make that change happen.And don't you want to?I want to see what the other51 percent of the population has to say.I want to watch moviesthat teach me about peoplewho are different than I am.I want to see women's bodies on filmthat aren't perfect.I want to give our little boys the chanceto empathize with female charactersso that they can become more whole men.And I definitely wantto give a little girlwho may not have a real-life role modelthe chance to watch moviesand see women doing everythingshe dreams of achieving.

This is not aboutmaking one industry better.This is about making a better world.Will you help?The time for waiting is over.The time for the revolution is now.

(Cheers and applause)

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