https://www.ted.com/talks/alicia_malone_the_overlooked_legacy_of_hollywood_s_first_female_directors

While looking for my second event for my blog post, I decided just to browse the Ted Talk website and came across Alicia Malone’s talk called “The overlooked legacy of Hollywood’s first female directors.” This immediately caught my eye because I hope to one day potentially join the broadcast media and news sector of work, which may be similar to a woman’s role in entertainment. I have always learned about female leaders and guides within the journalism role in my classes such as Barbara Walters and Katie Couric, however I wanted to take this opportunity to learn about female pioneers in the entertainment piece of broadcast.

Malone calls storytelling one of the most powerful gifts given to humans, and film is one means that we have the ability to tell a story. These films are also able to preserve history and exporting culture according to Malone. However, she notes that these stories tend to be told from one perspective: the male perspective. Even today, 96% of films released in Hollywood are directed by men. This has caused the number of stories films choose to tell to hold certain patriarchal beliefs and stigmas. However, in order to change this, the leadership over these films needs to change. Whenever someone regards Hollywood as a “boys club” that probably won’t ever change to Malone, she likes to note that some of the first filmmakers were women including Alice Guy Blaché. In fact, before the 1920’s, there were more female movie makers and directors in Hollywood than there is today. Blaché ended up being one of the first directors ever to create a film that would tell a story. So my question now is, if the business first began with a large number of female leaders, how come there is such a lack of them in the Hollywood leadership positions today? Did men simply choose to take back Hollywood and the women had little power over keeping a piece of it for themselves, or has the overall standards of leadership in our time somehow taken a step back.