Methodological approaches to women's work in Hollywood

For Hollywood, a growing wave of political, economic, and cultural backlash swelled by the late 2010s as male-dominant film industry structures and cultures were increasingly called into question. Contradictory conversations, cancellations, and calls for action increasingly addressing systemic gender inequity and the marginalization of female filmmakers frame my thinking as a media industries scholar about the current industrial moment. Two questions drive this chapter: (1) what methodological approaches to women’s work in Hollywood have media industry scholars employed in the past and (2) what approach can we develop moving forward? I first look at the rich cycle of recent archival work that complicates long-held assumptions about women’s exclusion for most of the twentieth century Hollywood studio system. From there I consider the data-driven trend for mapping gender inequity through quantitative employment studies. The remainder of the chapter then explores gender in relation to limited mobility in the contemporary studio system. Grounded in industry interviews and trade coverage, the chapter offers a different approach to understanding how women navigate work conditions and culture in twenty-first century Hollywood. I encourage media industry scholars to rethink the field’s earlier investment in measuring gender parity by tracking employment data or more specifically who is in the director’s chair. Instead, by focusing on precarious employment, intersectional disparities, and the global pandemic, I highlight the value of on-the-ground methodological work for examining how women navigate working conditions and struggle with career mobility in this transformative industrial moment.