Tag: Kimberly Dilts

The Ponytail Revolution: Why We Need More Women Scientists On-Screen

We are truly in a moment of struggle over whose stories are being told. Do filmmakers believe that women are active protagonists worthy of their own tales, or passive objects to be used to further male narratives? It’s as big and infuriating and important as that — what is the story we want to tell about a woman’s place in the world?

Ghostbusters 2016

This guest post written by Kimberly Dilts appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

One of my smartest, funniest friends, playwright Megan Gogerty, came home from Ghostbusters the other night, rightfully full of joy about having just seen four fully fleshed-out female characters spend the length of a film “nerding out on science and history.” She pointed out something about the experience that was revolutionary. Wait. More revolutionary than FOUR WOMEN NERDING OUT ABOUT SCIENCE IN A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, you ask? Yes, MORE revolutionary. I’m going to let her tell you in her own words because frankly, she’s smarter and funnier than I am:

“That fight scene? I can’t… To see four women! Kicking ass as themselves, with not a single spandex leather catsuit or wedge heels to be seen! THEY ALL HAD THEIR HAIR TIED BACK. Do you understand how radical that is? The simple act of, y’know, getting your hair out of your fucking face before you fight a monster, rather than having it whipped sensually around over your eyes, blocking your vision? Buffy couldn’t do it. Mrs. Smith couldn’t do it. Sydney Bristow couldn’t do it. They were all forced into the Implausible Battle Hair code of conduct for genre heroines. If you are a man and were bored and didn’t notice their hair was tied back during the battle scene, may I humbly and gently suggest perhaps that you may not know what it’s like to be out in the desert, to not see yourself — to never, ever, ever, ever, ever see yourself — in a genre picture without having to squeeze yourself into the impossible corset the Male Gaze requires.”

I want to stop here and invite you to ponder this with me for a moment. In 2016, in cinema, it is a revolutionary act to see a woman tie her hair back on-screen in order to accomplish a task. Not to flirt – not because the messy bun makes her look cute in that “I just woke up and don’t really care what I look like but still look like a model kind of way” – but to just do a thing without getting her hair in her mouth. It is simply not done. That’s how low the bar is set for women in film.

We don’t just need female scientists on-screen, we need female scientists on-screen who have cellulite, and wear flats, and have passionate conversations about substantive, quantitative, peer-reviewed flovinium-laced flaxum jaxum time fluxes. We need women scientists on-screen who are women of color, LGBTQIA women, and women with disabilities. We need female characters who don’t cater to the Male Gaze — who, when going to fight monsters (as scientists often do in the movies, let’s face it), don fucking power ponytails.

It has to be normal for women to wield power in films. We need to see women be the smartest and to have a variety of body sizes, like men get to have. Why? Because story is how we understand the world. We create perception (and therefore, personal reality) through story, which has an immediate effect on reality because thoughts become words, and words become action (or inaction — how many young girls stay away from pools because they internalized the message that they don’t have “bikini” bodies?). If we normalize women in science on film, it helps to enable more women to be scientists in the real world.  Don’t think media has that much power? Take a look at what CSI did for forensic science, or what Jaws did to (and then for) sharks, or what Frozen did for ice princesses. The X-Files‘ character “Dana Scully inspired many young women to pursue education and careers in science and technology – what is now known as ‘The Scully Effect.'”

In high school, I was a “nerd.” I got straight A’s and I went to The International Science Fair. When it was suggested that I think about theoretical physics as a career, I actually did think about it… and then opted for a career in the arts instead because I’m a glutton for punishment who likes not having any money. Now, I don’t regret my choice, but I do sometimes wonder, would I have actually become a theoretical physicist if I had had, say, a single female science teacher? Or any signal from popular culture that a girl choosing science for a career was, if not cool, at least normal? I have no idea. But science tells us that outcome would certainly be more probable if I’d had even one woman role model in STEM.

We are truly in a moment of struggle over whose stories are being told. Do filmmakers believe that women are active protagonists worthy of their own tales, or passive objects to be used to further male narratives? It’s as big and infuriating and important as that — what is the story we want to tell about a woman’s place in the world? There are countries where women are not allowed to drive, women are put to death for having been raped or for reading. Here in the U.S., women contend with misogyny and sexism, rape and sexual assault, intimate partner violence, abortion restrictions, unequal pay, and sexual harassment. Women of color face racism; Black women face racism and police brutality. Queer women face homophobia and biphobia. Trans women face transphobia, harassment, and murder. The story that society currently tells is that women are property to be controlled — we are the discovered, not the discoverers, and cinema reinforces this notion in a million little destructive ways every day.

Margot Lee Shetterly_Woman of NASA Langley

So yes, we need more women scientists in film. We need more women senators, and pilots, and coders, and entrepreneurs and activists, and filmmakers, and we need it to be totally normal for women of all races and ethnicities and sexual orientations to be these things on the big screen.

We need women to write, direct, produce, and fund these stories. Because despite overwhelming evidence that women want to see themselves on-screen and will pay cash money to do so, Hollywood, seems determined to maintain the status quo. If we want to see change, and we want to see our stories told from our point of view, we have to do it ourselves. So I’m writing a mermaid comedy about a marine biologist. It’s going to be broad, and goofy and by god, there will be ponytails. Who’s with me?

Photo of Margot Lee Shetterly, author of ‘Hidden Figures’ which is being adapted into a film, by NASA in the public domain.

Kimberly Dilts is a Los Angeles-based writer/producer/performer currently touring her second feature film, Auld Lang Syne on the festival circuit. She’s also currently working on rewrites for two films, both featuring female protagonists. You can learn more about her work at www.scrappycatproductions.com and follow her on Twitter @kmdilts.

Seed & Spark: On Fear and On Not Giving a Fuck About It

As I write this, I’m approaching the mid-point of a crowdfunding campaign for my second film. It’s going slower than the first, and I’ve got the stomach pain and canker sores to prove it (thanks for talking about yours, Tina Fey. It makes me feel slightly less gross about mine). And I’m fearful. I have also had, at one time or another, the following thoughts on the making of this film:

You’re being selfish. Self indulgent. No one will like it. There’s a REASON you’re still scratching to get by. You’re just not good enough. Or pretty enough. Or talented enough. Did we mention that thing about your thighs being too fat? No one will back this project. And you’ll look like an idiot. With fat thighs. And you’ll never work again.

So Lame

 

This is a guest post by Kimberly Dilts.

As I write this, I’m approaching the mid-point of a crowdfunding campaign for my second film. It’s going slower than the first, and I’ve got the stomach pain and canker sores to prove it (thanks for talking about yours, Tina Fey. It makes me feel slightly less gross about mine). And I’m fearful. I have also had, at one time or another, the following thoughts on the making of this film:

You’re being selfish. Self indulgent. No one will like it. There’s a REASON you’re still scratching to get by. You’re just not good enough. Or pretty enough. Or talented enough. Did we mention that thing about your thighs being too fat? No one will back this project. And you’ll look like an idiot. With fat thighs. And you’ll never work again.

Elizabeth Gilbert doesn't give a fuck about your fear.
Elizabeth Gilbert doesn’t give a fuck about your fear.

 

Ok, enough, you get the idea. It sucks. Our fear fucking SUCKS.  It masks itself as something helpful—something that will keep us safe and warm and wound-free. It wants us to not rock the boat. To be comfortable. To stay where we are. But not for a SECOND are we actually safe, comfortable or wound-free when we listen to our fear. And you know what? As Elizabeth Gilbert said in her extraordinary essay, our fear is boring.

So you know what? I don’t give a FUCK. I’m running toward my fear.

What brought me to this radical place?

You know who else doesn't give a fuck about your fear? Tina Fey, Jill Soloway and Ava DuVernay.
You know who else doesn’t give a fuck about your fear? Tina Fey, Jill Soloway, and Ava DuVernay.

 

1) Exhaustion. Because Hollywood Lady Statistics. Because I just can’t even.

2) Understanding that I’m not alone. There are women in every corner of this industry running toward their fear every day, and I found some of them. And like the badass tribe that they are, they showed me my own ferocity.

3) Knowing in my bones that I want to be part of the changing of the guard in Hollywood. Straight white men have written and directed many—most—of my favorite films. That’s the history of who has gotten to speak, and I’d like to be part of the writing of the future where we ALL get to.

4) Understanding that I DESERVE a place at the table, but that I have to fight for it. No one is going to hand it to me, as much as this straight-A student wants that validation so very badly.

And most importantly,

5) The concept of “Why not?” as my husband said, when I asked him for the hundredth time if he really really thought we should dive in to making another film. I came to realize that fear was quite literally the ONLY thing holding me back. And I am not a chickenshit. I am happy to be looked upon as crazy, foolish, and ridiculous, but not as fertilizer.

F these guys.
F these guys.

 

For better or worse, I’ve done most of my learning as a human being in uncomfortable circumstances—and I’d venture a guess that you have too. So, if we want change, both within ourselves and within our industry, we have to be willing to get uncomfortable—to expand so much that the fear can just float right through us, like those blonde dreadlocked twins in the second Matrix movie (sorry, that’s the image that came to mind–feel free to substitute… Judi Dench in the Pitch Black sequel? The ghost train through Winston in GB2? Beans through your intestinal tract? …I may not be helping).

The film that I’m funding is about artists, and I’m finding that it is NOT going to be for everyone. It pushes some buttons, both for artists themselves and, I suspect, for the cultural critics who look at young artists with both the disdain and envy (judgment?) of age. It’s a comedy, which is certainly a matter of taste, and it touches on, among other things, women who choose to remain childless, global warming, eating disorders, and the collapse of the creative class. My husband had someone tell him to his face that he won’t see it because he’s “living it, why would I want to see it?” Didn’t matter when he explained it was a comedy. Dude wasn’t into it.

This border collie will eat your fear for BREAKFAST.
This border collie will eat your fear for BREAKFAST.

 

But you know what? Fuck it. Uncomfortable circumstances: I’m running at you, too.

Last week, the Executive Producer of one of our projects had me and my husband over for lunch. A recent cancer survivor, this woman had just left behind an impressive career as a fashion executive to pursue a passion project (a film we’re working on together), and to take on an entirely new career. She told us she’d never really thought about her retirement portfolio because it was scary—money brought up fear for her. And when cancer and a stroke temporarily slowed her down, she took stock of her situation and realized she was no longer passionate about her work, and that her retirement fund could have done so much better if she had just learned a little bit about how it all works when she was younger… So now she’s training, in her 60s, for a new career advising young women on how to invest wisely.  She’s not running toward what she fears, she is sprinting at it, grinning like a puppy, ready to pounce on it and chew-love it to PIECES. It’s an incredible sight to behold.

*this box is empty.
*this box is empty.

 

So right now, when I’m scared, I think of her. I think of my mother who raised three children while working two jobs. I think of all the other women fighting the good fight in this industry—and of the women around the world living in desperate situations, denied the most basic of human rights. I think of my marvelously supportive husband, and of the million good things that are easy and good and delicious in this life, and I just have no more room for–not a single f#ck to give about–my fear.

 

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Kimberly Dilts is a Los Angeles-based writer/producer/performer currently crowdfunding her second feature film, Auld Lang Syne, on Seed&Spark. The film is being written, directed, shot, and produced by women. She has worked off-broadway, at a hedge fund, in Haiti, and in TV and film, sometimes at the same time. Special skills include dreaming, playing the fool, and passing the Bechdel Test.