Women in the Performing Arts Project: Research plan and context

Women in the Performing Arts Project: Research plan and context Dr. Deborah Dean Industrial Relations Research Unit University of Warwick UK

Research objectives and methods • For the first time, to build a European-wide picture of advantage and disadvantage in performer labour markets. Main focus on gender and age • Importance of good response rates from each country - the more representative the findings, the more impact they will have on policy and practice • Survey; Interviews; Documentary analysis; Review of existing research

Working as a Performer survey • A unique, European-wide picture of the working realities of performers • The survey looks at performers’ social identities and how they relate to employment in the television, film and live performance sectors and to what people see on their stages and screens

The survey • Background information • Going for jobs • Working patterns and income • Employment opportunity • Age • Social identities • Caring responsibilities • How do you see yourself represented? • What would improve employment opportunities for you?

Analysis of survey data • Quantitative analysis (‘what’ is happening): e.g. will show clearly if there are national patterns in the gender of performers who report a decline in work after a certain age • Qualitative analysis (‘why’ is it happening): What can the patterns tell us about why performers’ experiences vary by gender, age, nationality, and so on

Interviews • ‘Gatekeepers’ – such as agents, directors, producers, casting directors, television executives • What influences decisions about access to work (who gets what job) • Connections with survey findings - how and why do the statistics exist and persist?

Acting is a gender-integrated occupation… However Thomas’s (1995) UK research showed: • 1. That there is less work for women performers overall, particularly in television and particularly over the age of 40 • 2. Before age 40 a generally equal number of roles, but men have more lead roles • 3. Work opportunities: a woman performer’s decline as she ages, but a man’s increase as he ages

So, why? • Dean (2004, 2005, 2007): studies from 4 year UK project looking at women performers’ access to work, pay and career longevity • Methods:In-depth semi-structured interviews with 87 people (women performers; drama schools; agents; casting directors; producers; directors; writers; television commissioning executives; union officials) Observation of auditions in theatre and television

Access to work • Gatekeepers do look for acting talent and skills. However, often they look for these in the ‘right’ package, based on society’s ideas about types. And so do performers themselves… Some examples -

A performer had lost 25 kilos (4 stone /56 lbs) and was trying to convince herself to go for roles she had never gone for before: “If it said ‘Karen, 20s, attractive’ - I’d just ignore it”

Director, (White female)on the decision to cast a performer in a role: “Does she read as a mother figure?”

Television producer 1 (White female) “If you have a minor part in a drama and it’s a businessman, everyone thinks fine, he’s a businessman, with his attaché-case, fine. They don’t speculate any further than that, he is what he is. If you’ve got a female, a businesswoman, you can’t accept it in the same way, you think – is she frigid, is she ambitious, does she have kids, if she has kids how does she manage? You know, all of that baggage which kicks in whether you like it or not”

Pay Performer couple had a baby together - “I can actually argue for more money for him now. He’s getting more, she’s getting fewer auditions. Men are perceived as not having to choose. You can use all these things in your line of negotiations where with his partner - if she has a job, she’d be expected to stay with the kid” Agent 1 (White female)

Career longevity • The smaller number of roles for women over 40 are often filled by well-known performers • Childcare/caring issues • Different ranges of acceptability of ageing and appearance for men and women

“If you’re a character actress then your longevity is likely to be that much greater. Whereas, if you are an ingenue, a beautiful leading lady, you then have the ageing process to cope with…For them, reaching 35 or 40 is a difficult time because at some point they have to cross over from leading lady into character lady. Whereas a man, his longevity is that much longer. I mean, he can be a leading man into his 50s and 60s” Agent 2 (White male)

“In this industry your time of maximum flourishment career-wise, for a woman is 20 to 40… because actually women are only considered interesting up to when they’re 40. I mean there’s a huge generalisation, but you know what I mean, and within that they’ve got to manage child-bearing and rearing. It’s surprising women have careers at all, in performing” Television producer 1 (White female)

TV casting directors(White females)talked about having to tell male directors and producers that they were not “casting your fantasies” One went on to say that “actually, often we are, of course.”

Leading performer (White female) • “Diane Keaton has never had anything done [plastic surgery] and she did that movie First Wives’ Club, with Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler, both of whom have had tons of work done. ‘Oh my god, Diane Keaton looks so bad’. I was like — she looks like a woman, she looks like a woman in her 50s. I would love to think that I could help people accept themselves…not try to change it. I think it’s a personal challenge, to fight the voices constantly coming at me, from agents, producers, not towards me necessarily, but the sort of din in the background in New York, in Los Angeles, and all the places where I have to spend time, of women changing the way they look in order to fit into this career. And to fit to the world really, but it’s particularly stressed if what you want to do is act.”

Central conclusions relevant to FIA project • Stereotypes persist and are used in access to work not only by employers but by performers as well • Working realities and disadvantage/ advantage inside performing are tied to working realities and disadvantage/ advantage outside in society

Women in the Performing Arts Project: Research plan and context