Penelope Spheeris directed the fantastic punk-rock documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, a film that the Library of Congress deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” and Wayne’s World, one of the only good SNL movies. She also helmed Suburbia, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Little Rascals, and Chris Farley and David Spade’s Tommy Boy follow-up Black Sheep. That’s a significant filmography! But after making Senseless, a movie co-produced by Harvey Weinstein, Spheeris realized she didn’t “want to do this anymore. I don’t want to work in this movie business anymore.”
In a wide-ranging interview with the AV Club, Spheeris opened up about the double standards women face in Hollywood. “I really didn’t want to be a part of mainstream Hollywood anymore. It was too — it’s ugly. You have no friends in Hollywood. Hollywood is a lonely, lonely desert, especially as a woman,” she said. Spheeris added that there’s no forgiveness unless you’re a male director like Oliver Stone, who “could go wreck a car and get arrested for being on drugs and then do Alexander. But we can’t do that. Women can’t make mistakes.”
“As a woman, when you do a movie that doesn’t do well, then you’re done. You’re in director jail… Forever. It’s not like they go, ‘Okay, Penelope, you’re out of jail now. Let’s make a movie.’ At this point, I don’t want to make a movie. They can’t even fucking beg me to make a movie. I got to make a lot of money in the days when you could make a lot of money as a director, and I invested it right. I don’t need that anymore. It’s not like I’m bitter. I just feel like I went through too much pain. I really did enjoy my life, being in the movie business.” (Via)
And if a big-shot Hollywood producer were to “f*cking beg” Spheeris to make another movie, what would her response be? “They can blow me.”
(Via the AV Club)
