ABSTRACT
The gender cleavage is one of the most important structuring differences in front of and behind the camera in the cinema. Women have always been shown in Australian cinema, yet they still do not participate to the same extent as men do in creative, technical and administrative positions. The opportunities for, and wages of, women actors and performers are nowhere near as great as for men. And a distribution of roles limits what parts women can play in Australian film-making. Surveys show lower participation rates of women than men, their concentration in particular sectors of the film industry and the bias towards male leads and male-centred story-lines on-screen (see Cox and Laura 1992). The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) survey of films released from January 1993 to November 1994 listed six of thirty with female leads, and a further four with female co-leads-one third with women in central roles. And of these films, five were directed by women (Prisk 1994:7). This roughly confirms that little has changed since 1991 and 1992.1
This picture contradicts Australian cinema’s international reputation as a ‘womenfriendly’ film industry which encourages the work of women. There are its high profile women directors (Campion, Armstrong, Turner, Moorhouse, Tass)—one of whom, Jane Campion, is Australasia’s most high-profile and lionized auteur director. There are its important producers (Linda House, Pat Lovell, Patricia Edgar, Glenys Rowe, Margaret Fink, Joan Long) and actors (Judy Davis, Wendy Hughes, Nicole Kidman, Jacqueline McKenzie, Helen Morse, Sigrid Thornton). There is an impressive stream of feminist film-making with titles as diverse as On Guard (S.Gibson and Lambert 1983), Serious Undertakings and For Love or Money. There are the women who have been regularly employed at the highest levels of the film industry. At the time of writing, the chief executive of the Australian Film Commission (Cathy Robinson), the head of SBS-TV (Sawsan Madina), the director of Film Victoria (Jennifer Hooks), the head of the Australian Film Institute (Ruth Jones), and the head of ABC-drama (Penny Chapman) are all women.
