What’s your take on the controversy over whether to ask women what/who they’re wearing in red carpet interviews?
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I think there need to be other questions asked in addition to “who are you wearing”.
The question comes from a relationship that actors / talent / Hollywood has with designers; designers provide these expensive garments for free for the exposure and the name dropping. It’s an old relationship that Hollywood has used for years and years; it’s not for me to say whether or not I agree with it, it is what it is.
However.
It is exclusively women who are reduced to questions about their appearance. Men rarely, if ever, have to field “who are you wearing” questions because their persona does not revolve around their appearance. And that’s fucked up.
Red carpets interviewers receive limited time — sometimes very limited. Stars are ushered from stop to stop and bigger outlets receive more face to face time with bigger stars. So “who are you wearing” tends to be the first question because it’s part of the wardrobe deal — the talent needs to name drop. They need time to do that. If you don’t get it out fast, you’ve missed an opportunity to do your job and if the interviewer doesn’t ask, odds are that the next awards show that celeb is going to be ushered right by that news outlet by her publicist. See the problem?
I personally don’t mind asking about an ensemble; for centuries, women have been limited in their self expression to their dress (if that, in some cultures & places) and fashion absolutely has artistic merit. It is not MY personal art form, but I can appreciate it. But “Who designed this” should be followed by “what do you like about it” or “what drew you to this”… and then (call me radical) THE WORK THE WOMAN ACTUALLY DOES. Or a book she’s reading. Or, or, or. Don’t just pan up & down her body and call it an interview.
I suppose it does happen that the director and screenwriter are two different people? In such case, is the writer required on set, or is his job limited to just the writing? — Spidernana93
The director and writer are VERY OFTEN not the same person. And this question has two completely different answers based on whether we are talking about film or television. The golden rule is:
On a film set, the director is king. The writers are either not invited / allowed on set at all or they aren’t really giving much feedback. Their job, at that point, is done.
On a television set, the writer is king. Writers, on TV shows, are also producers (after a certain level), which means their word is …not law, because they have bosses too, but you get the idea. A TV director is a hired hand and he absolutely has a lot of say in a lot of things, but at the end of the day, Writer = Producer = Big Cheese.
As film & tv get blurrier and blurrier, I imagine there will be a shift, if there hasn’t already been. I think TV writers will start to expect more of a say in film and film directors doing episodes of TV will want more authority over their sets. Years ago, film & tv didn’t really mingle; it was really hard for a TV actor to “make the jump” to film. Big directors didn’t take the step down to work television. But now… everything’s different. I think right now it’s still a “big get” for a television show to invite a film director on, but I don’t think that will be the case forever. TV is big money and it’s prestigious now, so there is ever more competition. I’m curious to see how this winds up shaking out!
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We left off with the question: wtf is a name actor.
A name actor is someone who is recognizable. I am not a name actor. I have a name! My name is Kate! But I am not A NAME. Matt Smith is a name. You know him, which is why his representation was able to negotiate a higher rate of pay for him than Foy’s reps were able to negotiate for her. It’s A LITTLE bit comparable to experience in the workplace, but exacerbated. He had recognizability she did not. And this happens a lot – and it skews male because men have more opportunities than women (bigger roles, more visibility, etc), so it’s just a cycle that goes on and on.
I don’t begrudge Smith’s reps (or Smith) for wheeling and dealing. I don’t begrudge anyone for doing his or her job – and it is Smith’s agent’s job to get him the highest rate of pay they can. I also don’t really begrudge producers for not trying to offer Foy more money; their job is to keep overhead low, and that means keeping pay to a dull roar.
That said, obviously it’s not fair – it’s not fair from the lowest rung straight on up. I think the most proactive way to handle this, however, is not to ask production to go against everything it represents. We need the actors’ union to take a stand and protect its underrepresented members to ensure that pay is commiserate with job AND experience (or, you know, my favorite term: NAME). SAG should be stepping in to assist those contract negotiations and actors need to be more vocal about their pay. If Foy and Smith had discussed it, I doubt we would be.
