Messenger Mountain News/ Rediscovering Hollywood’s Forgotten Women Filmmakers

In her book "Backward in High Heels: Past Present and Future of Women Working in Film," author Alicia Malone suggests that as film evolved from a curiosity into a storytelling medium, the studios identified middle-class women as an ideal target audience and hired female writers and directors. 

The same success that led to the creation of a flourishing film industry ultimately pushed women out, as studios consolidated from hundreds of smaller production companies to a handful of monolithic studios helmed by male moguls during the early years of sound. 

“From 1930 onward, Hollywood became a boys’ club,” Malone writes. “Women have been trying to make their way back into the industry for almost 100 years.”

Continue reading the full article here.