Abstract
This chapter investigates how women screenwriters navigate a labour market where they are frequently outnumbered by men. Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus is applied to understand how women may feel—and indeed may be—shut out from employment opportunities. Analysing film workers’ talk illustrates how subjective judgements of creative work can be a further barrier to women, even after securing a commission. Focusing on the role of a director in moving a film project forwards towards finance and production, film workers describe the instinctive personal connection to a project deemed necessary. The habitus offers a way to understand how the lack of women directors has dire consequences for women screenwriters who struggle disproportionately to see their stories on the big screen.
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- 1.
For Bourdieu , ‘doxa’ is the term used to denote what is taken for granted in any particular society (Bourdieu 1977).
- 2.
‘Manspreading’ is a contemporary term to describe the practice of sitting in public with your legs wide apart, often covering more than your allocated seat space. The practice is considered to be predominantly something that men do, often at the inconvenience of women.
- 3.
In the US television industry, but increasingly in the UK too, a showrunner is the creator of a television show who acts as both lead writer and executive producer .
- 4.
Paul Laverty is a British screenwriter who has worked with director Ken Loach on the majority of Loach’s fictional feature films including Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winners “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” (2006) and “I, Daniel Blake” (2016), which also won the BAFTA for Best Film.
- 5.
Ken Loach is a British film director who has worked with screenwriter Paul Laverty on the majority of his fictional feature films including Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winners “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” (2006) and “I, Daniel Blake” (2016), which also won the BAFTA for Best Film..
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Wreyford, N. (2018). Being Outnumbered. In: Gender Inequality in Screenwriting Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95732-6_6
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