Lexi Alexander just wrapped up a gig directing an episode of Arrow, making her the third female guest director on the comic book-based show. Alexander, who started out as a World Kickboxing Champion who trained the Marine Corps in hand-to-hand combat before becoming a stunt woman, then an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, pulls no punches (no pun intended) while discussing the drawbacks of being a woman in Hollywood. She also called out one director by name for his comments on why women don’t seem to have the same opportunities.
Alexander, who directed Marvel’s Punisher: War Zone in 2008, says that after spending the earlier part of her career in the testosterone-heavy world of martial arts and the military, Hollywood is actually worse when it comes to “such blatant bias and discrimination” against women, which is a truly disheartening observation:
I think in industries riddled with bias, you tend to hire women only if their previous work is very masculine, which is hilarious given that this is not how male directors are chosen. I am pretty sure when Kenneth Branagh came up for Thor, nobody at Marvel thought: “Yes, that Kenneth Branagh is masculine enough to do action, just look at Henry V and The Magic Flute.”
This is hilarious, because Vulture points out that many up-and-coming (some might say inexperienced) male directors who barely have a background, let alone an action background, are being given major action franchises, while Alexander says women have to be “‘one of the boys’ to get in on the superhero business.” One of those male directors is Colin Trevorrow, director of Jurassic World, who once said that women simply weren’t interested in directing movies like this. Alexander’s response to that was… not gentle:
I think Colin needs to sit down in his director’s chair. It’s really very upsetting that he would make such a statement just to ease his guilt. I understand it must be hard to realize that the playing field you are collecting all your trophies from is not a level playing field, but that doesn’t mean you can just make inaccurate statements. How about using your privilege for good and demonstrating a little integrity instead of fueling Hollywood’s big denial of this issue further? And if integrity is too much to ask, just say nothing at all.
That from a woman who made a career as a physical fighter. With this kind of attitude (a word I use in the most positive sense), how have we not seen way, way more from Lexi Alexander? Maybe there’s some bad blood there since Punisher: War Zone was a bomb, but it feels like Alexander should be way more famous. She does, after all, have an Oscar nomination under her belt for her short film Johnny Flynton.
Finally, when asked what all of this means for women in the industry, her response was pretty damn straightforward:
What can I say? It sucks. It really does.
I think we should enlist Lexi Alexander to make it suck less.
Source: Vulture
