Ladies, Where You At? Part 2
What did it take to not feel like I was totally crazy? Running into these two articles yesterday:
- “Anne-Flore Marxer: Pro-Spotlight,” TW Snow, Nov. 09
- “A Girl’s Take: Missing-Females on the Silver Screen,” Powder, Nov. 09
In September I was wondering where all of the ladies parts were in the latest snowboard videos. I’m not alone. Both articles talk about the challenge women have faced both getting in front of a camera and not getting left on the cutting room floor.
In the TW Snow article, Anne-Flore recounts that she was finally allowed to go on a magazine trip after a lot of persistence and paying for the trip out of her own pocket, while everyone else had the trip covered. And its not like AFM doesn’t know how to kill it. She can destroy the backcountry. According to the article, the editor didn’t want her along because it would “break-up the guys’ atmosphere.” How does she push through this kind of attitude? Anne-Flore noted,
The only thing I can do is shred the best I can and hope that my riding will outshine my gender. I also try to work with people who don’t blame me for being a woman.
Women skiers are also MIA. According to Powder, much of the women who can rock it have been left out of the biggest films of the season. Skier Sarah Burke stated,
It seems like they are dying to throw the big name guys on trips. But I really have to keep after them and make sure they aren’t forgetting me.
Film producers explain that the lack of women in big-scale productions is lack of content. If women don’t have enough good shots to include in the film they will get cut, just like their male counterpart would. The only problem, the author points out, is that when one guy gets cut there is another to take his place. When a woman gets cut, there aren’t many females standing in the wings.
Grete Eliassen, who won the 2007 Best Female Performance award at Powder Video Awards, is considered the “most versatile female skier” and her last appearance on the big screen was in a 30-second shot in the 2008 all-women film “Uniquely.”
How is Grete planning on getting more face time in 2010? Creating her own film. A film featuring both genders. She commented,
Most ski movies take the male formula and put it on women. . . We started by asking the best female athletes in the world what they want in terms of being part of a film and, ultimately, what they’d be interested in seeing on the big screen.
Grete didn’t ask me, but what I’d like to see next year is girls and guys in films together . . . None of that separate but equal BS. I love to see the guys shred, but I’d love to see more ladies in the mix too. Here’s a breakdown of a few films that came out in 2009:
- The B- 2 women out of 28 total riders
- Neverland- 2 women out of about 20 total riders
- Cool Story-0 women out of 17 total riders
- Black Winter-1 woman out of 12 total riders
- Forever-0 women out of 11 total riders (yeah, I know its a team film and they only have guys on their team)
Granted, there are some all-women films out there. Two in fact:
- Stance-features 7 women
- Peep Show-features 16 women
As good as some of these films are, I’d love to see everyone working together. Can’t we all just hang out and have fun?
What do you think? What would you like to see in shred flicks? Or is it OK the way it is?
Too bad Stance reinforced the stigma that women’s snowboarding movies suck. I have hopes for Peep Show cause those girls destroy it. Also the problem isn’t just gender based it’s the stagnation of cool ideas with shooting a film, everything is so formulatic that there’s preset expectations.
Angry Snowboarder
2 Nov 09 at 9:46 AM
Sorry but Stance sucked. The only talking was in the beginning and it was a bunch of shots of girls smiling. And why do women riders only come up with bail shots half the time? If you can’t land tricks, go practice them until you can.
Deepak
2 Nov 09 at 12:26 PM
Angry- So true, its almost as if you know exactly what is coming next even if it is a new film. Heli shot, pow turn, rail session, repeat. Throw in some diggers and you have yourself a snowboard movie. I’m looking forward to Peep Show and will look for Grete’s film next year. It will be interesting to see if they stick to the same formula or if they have some new ideas for how it should be done. That’s one reason why I like Benson’s Knife Show. That guy has some creative editing skills that make his films fresh.
Deepak- Yeah, it did suck. Um, major lack of content for sure. The thing that was annoying was that they took these female riders that are good in the park and put them out in the backcountry. How can they be expected to rock it if it isn’t something they have a lot of experience with?
Bekah
2 Nov 09 at 10:03 PM