Where Are the Female Directors? In Television!

Reading up on the Oscar aftermath, I came across a couple of pieces about the "Bigelow Effect," the idea that Katherine Bigelow winning the Best Director Oscar for "The Hurt Locker" back in 2010 would open doors to more female directors. Salon had a good one, and so did The Washington Post. The problem with the whole idea of a Bigelow Effect is that if there is any impact, it's far, far too early to make any assessments. Gender disparity in mainstream commercial filmmaking is a systemic issue, and two years is far too short a time for anything to effect the kind of positive changes that would yield more female Best Director nominees and winners.

And yet, in the past couple of years I have been seeing more female directors emerging, in smaller indie films, in documentaries, and especially directing television. In fact, one of the most under reported entertainment stories of the past few years is probably the inroads that female directors have been making at the Emmys. The Primetime Emmy Award directing categories have gone through a lot of permutations over the years, ranging from two to six awards depending on how the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences was feeling that year. However, to keep things simple, let's compare the categories that are the most analogous to directing award for the Oscars - Directing for a Comedy Series, Directing for a Drama Series, and Directing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Dramatic Special.

Including Bigelow, there have only been four female nominees for the Best Director Oscar in total. The others were Lina Wertmüller in 1976, Jane Campion in 1993, and Sofia Coppola in 2003. The Emmys also had their first female nominee for a directing award in 1976, Joan Darling for the classic "Chuckles" episode of "Mary Tyler Moore." She was nominated again the next year for "M*A*S*H." The first female winner of a directing award came in 1985, Karen Arthur for an episode of the police drama "Cagney & Lacey." For the rest of the 80s and 90s, across those three Emmy directing categories, there were one or two female nominees in the mix, more often than not. 1992 was a banner year, with one female director nominated in the Comedy category and two in Drama. Betty Thomas won in 1993 for the HBO comedy "Dream On," and Mimi Leder won in 1995 for "ER." Leder has been nominated for five directing Emmys to date, and went on to direct several feature films, including "Deep Impact," "The Peacemaker," and "Pay it Forward."

In the 2000s, however, the nominations dried up. From 2002 to 2005 women directors went totally missing in the categories for any dramatized material, though they were maintaining a good foothold in the Directing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Series/Special and Directing for a Informational/Nonfiction Program categories. If you'll permit me a quick digression, in 2005, four of the five nominees in Nonfiction, including winner Kate Brown, were women. Other notables here include Eleanor Coppola, who won for her "Hearts of Darkness" documentary in 1992. Patricia Birch, won in the Variety, Music, or Comedy category twice for "Great Performances" in 1988 and 1992. Ellen Brown has been nominated six times for directing "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," and Beth McCarthy-Miller, one of the only four directors of "Saturday Night Live" since its inception, has picked up four nominations for her efforts on that show, plus another for the 9/11 telethon. A long story short, there are a lot of good female directors working in areas people tend to overlook.

And in recent years, they're become more and more prominent in the bigger categories. From 2006 to 2008, the Emmys were back to consistently having one or two female directors nominated per year in the Comedy, Drama, and Movies and Miniseries categories. Then things took a turn. In 2009, Millicent Shelton and Beth McCarthy-Miller were both nominated in the Comedy category for two different episodes of "30 Rock," while Susanna White with "Generation Kill" and Dearbhla Walsh with "Little Dorrit" were up for Movies and Miniseries, a category that Walsh won. In 2010, there were three female nominees up for the Directing for a Drama Series Emmy, probably the closest thing to the television equivalent of the Best Directing Oscar. They were Michelle MacLaren for "Breaking Bad," Lesli Linka Glatter for "Mad Men," and Agnieszka Holland for "Treme." This whole post came about because I've been catching up on "Mad Men," and noticed multiple credits for female directors. And Oscar watchers should note that Agnieszka Holland's recent feature, "In Darkness," was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film this year, representing Poland.

2011 was the best turnout for female directors at the Emmys yet. In Comedy, we had Pamela Fryman for "How I Met Your Mother," Gail Mancuso for "Modern Family," and Beth McCarthy-Miller for "30 Rock." This puts Beth McCarthy-Miller at seven directing Emmy nominations, the most of any female director. In drama, Patty Jenkins was nominated for directing the pilot episode of "The Killing." She's probably best known for directing Charlize Theron to an Oscar win with "Monster," back in 2003. Finally, the husband and wife team of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini were nominated for directing the HBO made-for-television film, "Cinema Verite." They've done several documentaries and features together, including "American Splendor." That adds up to five nominations out of the fifteen for these categories. It's not parity, but the numbers are starting to look pretty significant.

Now what bearing does all this have on the mainstream movie world? Television and film have traditionally been very separate universes, but lately that's becoming less and less the case. Patty Jenkins was up against Martin Scorsese and Neil Jordan in the Drama category, while Berman and Pulcini's fellow nominees in Movies and Miniseries included Olivier Assayas, Todd Haynes, and Curtis Hanson. The track record of women at the Emmys also puts to rest the claims that there are no female directors out there worthy of note, or that women aren't interested in directing, or that the subject matter of their work has to be radically different from the men are doing, or that there's no audience for the media that they create. Show of hands - how many readers out there didn't realize that women were responsible for directing so many episodes of "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men"? Or "Mary Tyler Moore," for that matter?

Now, there are some differences in how a television director and a film director are positioned. On a television series, the showrunners tend to have more control, and it's the writing that tends to drive the shows. But when you get down to basics, the directing jobs are the same. Telelvision directors may be less visible and wield less clout, but they do just about everything that a feature film director does. And more than a few great film directors got their start in television. The rise in female directors in television is a very good sign that we may see a similar trend in films - not immediately, since the film world has a lot more hurdles to overcome and the culture is far behind the times in many ways - but in the not-too-distant future. Clearly something has happened in the past few years that have allowed female directors to gain some momentum.

I don't think it was the Bigelow Effect, but that sure didn't hurt anything.
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Finally, for your perusal, a list of every woman nominated for a directing Emmy - compiled from IMDB:

1976

Comedy
Mary Tyler Moore - Joan Darling (CBS)

1977

Comedy
M*A*S*H - Joan Darling (CBS)

1981

Comedy
Archie Bunker's Place - Linda Day (CBS)

1984

Comedy
Buffalo Bill - Ellen Falcon (NBC)

Movie/Miniseries
Something About Amelia - Randa Haines

1985

Drama
Cagney & Lacey: "Heat" – Karen Arthur (CBS) - WINNER

1986

Drama
Hill Street Blues: "Two Easy Pieces" – Gabrielle Beaumont (NBC)

1987

Drama
Cagney & Lacey: "Turn, Turn, Turn, Part II" – Sharron Miller (CBS)

1988

Drama
L.A. Law: "Handroll Express" – Kim Friedman (NBC)

Informational
Great Performances: Patricia Birch (co-director) (PBS) - WINNER

1989

Variety/Music/Comedy
The Debbie Allen Special - Debbie Allen (ABC)

Informational
Destined to Live - Linda Otto (NBC)

1991

Drama
China Beach: "You, Babe" – Mimi Leder (ABC)

1992

Comedy
Murphy Brown: "Send in the Clowns" - Lee Shallat-Chemel (CBS)

Drama
China Beach: "Rewind" – Mimi Leder (ABC)
The Trials of Rosie O'Neill: "Heartbreak Hotel" – Nancy Malone (CBS)

Variety/Music/Comedy
Great Performances - Patricia Birch (PBS) - WINNER

Informational
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse - Eleanor Coppola (co-director) (Showtime) - WINNER

1993

Comedy
Dream On: "For Peter's Sake" - Betty Thomas (HBO) - WINNER

Drama
Sisters: "Crash and Born" – Nancy Malone (NBC)

1994

Comedy
Mad About You: "Paul Is Dead" - Lee Shallat-Chemel (NBC)

Movie/Miniseries
My Breast - Betty Thomas

Variety/Music/Comedy
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno - Ellen Brown (NBC)

1995

Comedy
The Nanny: "Canasta Master" - Lee Shallat-Chemel (CBS)

Drama
ER: "Love's Labor Lost" – Mimi Leder (NBC) - WINNER

Variety/Music/Comedy
Barbra: The Concert - Barbra Streisand (director for stage) (HBO)
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno - Ellen Brown (NBC)

1996

Drama
ER: "The Healers" – Mimi Leder (NBC)

Movie/Miniseries
The Late Shift - Betty Thomas

Variety/Music/Comedy
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno - Ellen Brown (NBC)

1997

Movie/Miniseries
Bastard Out of Carolina - Anjelica Huston

Variety/Music/Comedy
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno - Ellen Brown (NBC)

1999

Drama
Ally McBeal: "Those Lips, That Hand" - Arlene Sanford (FOX)

Movie/Miniseries
The Baby Dance - Jane Anderson
Dash and Lilly - Kathy Bates

Variety/Music/Comedy
Saturday Night Live - Beth McCarthy-Miller (NBC)
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno - Ellen Brown (NBC)

2000

Movie/Miniseries
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge - Martha Coolidge

Variety/Music/Comedy
Saturday Night Live 25 - Beth McCarthy-Miller (NBC)
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno - Ellen Brown (NBC)

2001

Drama
The West Wing: "Shibboleth" – Laura Innes (NBC)

2003

NonFiction
Journeys with George - Alexandra Pelosi (co-director) (HBO)

Variety/Music/Comedy
Saturday Night Live - Beth McCarthy-Miller (NBC)

2005

Variety/Music/Comedy
Elaine Stritch: At Liberty - Chris Hegedus (co-director) (HBO)

Nonfiction
Jockey - Kate Davis (HBO) - WINNER
Queer Eye - Becky Smith (BRAVO)
American Masters - Susan Lacy (PBS)
The American Experience - Laurie Kahn-Leavitt (PBS)

2006

Drama
The West Wing: "Election Day, Part 1" – Mimi Leder (NBC)

Movie/Miniseries
Mrs. Harris - Phyllis Nagy

Variety/Music/Comedy
Saturday Night Live - Beth McCarthy-Miller (NBC)

Nonfiction
Children of Beslan - Ewa Ewart, Leslie Woodhead (HBO)
All Aboard! Rosie's Family Cruise - Shari Cookson

2007

Movie/Miniseries
Jane Eyre - Susanna White

Nonfiction
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib - Rory Kennedy (HBO)
Thin - Lauren Greenfield (HBO)

2008

Drama
Boston Legal: "The Mighty Rogues" – Arlene Sanford (ABC)

Nonfiction
The War - Lynn Novick (co-director)(PBS)
Autism: The Musical - Tricia Regan (HBO)

2009

Comedy
30 Rock: "Apollo, Apollo" - Millicent Shelton (NBC)
30 Rock: "Reunion" - Beth McCarthy-Miller (NBC)

Movie/Miniseries
Little Dorrit (Part 1) - Dearbhla Walsh – WINNER
Generation Kill - Susanna White

Nonfiction
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired - Marina Zenovich (HBO) - WINNER

2010

Drama
Breaking Bad: "One Minute" – Michelle MacLaren (AMC)
Mad Men: "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency" – Lesli Linka Glatter (AMC)
Treme: "Do You Know What It Means" – Agnieszka Holland (HBO)

Nonfiction
By the People: The Election of Barack Obama - Amy Rice, Alicia Sams (HBO)

2011

Comedy
30 Rock: "Live Show" - Beth McCarthy-Miller (NBC)
How I Met Your Mother: "Subway Wars" - Pamela Fryman (CBS)
Modern Family: "Slow Down Your Neighbors" - Gail Mancuso (ABC)

Drama
The Killing: "Pilot" – Patty Jenkins (AMC)

Movie/Miniseries
Cinema Verite - Shari Springer Berman (co-director)

Variety/Music/Comedy
Lady Gaga Presents: The Monster Ball Tour at Madison Square Garden - Laurieann Gibson
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