That’s it Hollywood, you need a time out.
At a time when the film industry is being called out for a lack of diversity and just a general aversion to treating anyone who’s not a privileged white male with even a modicum of respect (I feel like there’s an ointment for that? There should be) the incredibly sexist way in which woman are depicted in movie scripts has been brought to light.
And we’re not just talking the cookie cutter action scripts where the female lead is only required to stare longingly after Shia LaBeouf (read -every Michael Bay movie ever created). We’re talking scripts where woman are depicted in an array of careers, ages and categories that, while seemingly different on the surface, all have one thing in common- nearly every single one of them is described as ‘stunning’.
This delightful fact was brought to light on Twitter (where else?) by filmmaker Ross Putman when he started an account that shares the first descriptions of female characters in film scripts.
Spoiler alert: they’re usually pretty sexist.
The hero account in question is called @FemScriptIntros, and during its brief life on this earth has already managed to amass 25.1K followers.
The character name in every description has been changed to “Jane” to protect the sexist-writers in question, but still, you get the gist.
Watch Nigella Lawson tell Mia Freedman why women shouldn’t worry about being ‘sexy’. Post continues after video.