To Find Great Roles for Women, Look to Book Publishing

A terrifying shift has taken place in Hollywood. The way film is discussed online for the past ten years, really springing from the rise of fanboy culture, has all but erased the need for stories about women. When all anyone can talk about is male-driven comic book and/or superhero films, action shoot ’em ups, and nearly every other cinematic cultural icon, you’re usually looking at males up one side and down the other.  This has not always been the case. I know because, as they say in The Shining, I’ve always been here. I know that film fandom springs from Jaws and Star Wars – only in today’s incarnation of said fandom, the badass that was Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leah is all but erased.

It’s more than depressing — it’s disgusting. Women have been sidelined as mothers or side dishes, where they can be defined by whether or not they move the boner meter.  Scarlett Johansson is doing very well in the boner-driven film culture both on the snooty side of things and on the fanboy side of things. She’s in the club. Also in the club is Marion Cotillard, who can rally the film critics with her work in art films while also whipping up fanboy frenzy in The Dark Knight. Can you even exist if you don’t put on some silly stretchy suit and dwell in the fantasy universe? I don’t know.   I cringe every time a respectable actress is announced starring in some new superhero franchise, usually as the side dish. “I’d like some boner fodder with my main entree, please.”

Thankfully, this is simply not the case in the world of book publishing where women readers drive content. You would not know this by visiting the New York Times Sunday Book Review, where it is mostly (and still) focused on male writers of a certain race and class.  All of Hollywood’s problems with women and under-served ethnic groups can be answered in the wildly diverse and thriving publishing industry.

If only they’d listen. Completely ignored by the Academy this year was Gone Girl, as we know because we’ve been writing about it all year long. Not only was Flynn’s success as a writer ignored by that antiquated establishment – but all of the women who drove the box office on one of the year’s biggest hits were not only ignored, but dismissed outright. You heard “mom’s beach book” a lot on dumb humor sites. You heard “trash novel” a lot. If women are interested it must be cheap. The forever loop of Jonathan Franzen’s arrogant dismissal of having been chosen for the Oprah Book Club.

Even still, Gone Girl sits atop every bestseller’s list you can find anywhere. It’s a cultural phenomenon and Oscar? They still have their dick in their favorite hand – wank, wank, wank.  Gone Girl, as it turned out, was “too much” for the mostly male voters who were too icked out by it. Women can take it, of course, because women have their periods every month and are used to icky things. Women also (some of them) give birth and wear high heels. Yeah, I’m not sure where women got stuck with the label of being the weaker sex, especially where delicate sensibilities were concerned. The Exorcist, Jaws and The Godfather are just some so-called “trash” novels that went on to become, as Gone Girl has, a great film.  But the Academy still cling to their blankies, as we can see by their 2014 selections.

The latest hot prospect The Girl on the Train has just been picked up by Dreamworks. They smartly saw that it was being devoured in a Gone Girl like fashion. There are three strong female parts in it, all of the first person unreliable narrators. It’s Hitchcockian, suspenseful, wicked smart through and through.  Will it be made into a major motion picture? I hope so.

Such was not the fate of another similarly popular novel, Big Little Lies, which has been given to David E. Kelly to be shopped to cable outlets. Why not movies? Starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon (both very good choices).  The Australian set novel would be a fantastic opportunity to unite Kidman and Naomi Watts, should they be able to pull that off. Hell, throw in Cate Blanchett and you have one of the most powerful box office draws I can think of. If you’ve read the book you’ll be able to see why. For some reason, though, it did not get that kind of movie deal.

I’d like to dream cast Girl on the Train but before that, I’d like to also mention a couple of novels that could be optioned. I am not sure they have been yet. Lisa See has been writing thoughtful, suspenseful and very emotionally powerful books for many years now. Only one has been made into a movie and that was Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Perhaps because it was more than slightly botched by its director that makes her books a tough sell. In the right hands, though? Cultural phenomenons.  One of the problems is finding a popular enough Asian star.  Chinese is the preferred ethnicity and how many popular young Chinese female stars are there roaming around Hollywood? Why does it have to be a name, though? I know women would go see it if it was good, regardless of who is starring in it. Why do we have to be stuck back in that bygone era? Why not take a chance on an unknown?

Lisa See‘s Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls and her latest, China Dolls are all ripe material to be mined and turned into films women will want to see. Make movies for us and we will turn out. Not just the tweens among us but we fully grown women. Just look at the success of Gone Girl. We can’t let this moment pass us by. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen.  Every stupid reason people give for why movies about women don’t make money was shattered this year.

China Dolls has been bought by an all-female production company to be directed by a woman.  That’s the latest update. So watch for that film when it is made.

Another great book is called Brown Girl Dreaming.  A National Book Award winning novel written in verse about growing up in South Carolina in the 1960s and 1970s when segregation still ruled the day. What a fantastic film that would make. So far I haven’t heard any sort of movie deal in the works but here’s hoping.

Now, I’d like to dreamcast Girl on The Train (if you haven’t read it, OMIGOD).

I feel very strongly that Kate Winslet was born to play Rachel, the alcoholic discarded wife. If it were me, I’d case Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Megan, the wife who goes missing. And finally, because you need a perfect blonde for the part, Anna would have to be played by Rosamund Pike.

One thing I really like about British TV is that they don’t make a big deal about their diverse casting choices. They simply cast people of color in parts regardless if they’re meant to be “white” or not.  That is what I would do if it were up to me with Girl on the Train. But if they need it to be an all white cast, I would dream cast Emily Blunt as Megan.

Here’s hoping for a broader view of 50% of the world’s population. Here’s hoping Hollywood won’t continue to erase women from the picture, and here’s hoping the writers and the critics and the bloggers will nail them to the wall every year, like this one, when all of the films in the Oscar race revolved around a male character, as though women don’t matter. It greatly limits storytelling overall, makes them look like they are caught in a time warp, way back in the 1950s. Mostly, they’re missing out on potential money to be made by women who would pay to see their beloved books turned into films.