WrenchNinja
Member
Hope the new directors have a better eye for action
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Marvel stays winning: Jessica Jones Hires All Women Directors for Season 2
- Thread starter excelsiorlef
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This is great. Marvel seems to be doing really well in terms of pushing diversity in basically all their mediums.
As someone who really enjoyed JJ's first season, I am, however, a bit worried about season 2. The (initial) sense of mystery and the mesmerizing performance of
where major reasons why I enjoyed JJ a lot, and I am not sure what to expect from season 2 now that she is
. The action was only a minor part of JJ but it was pretty terrible, as well as some of those sidecharacters that might take a more prominent role in subsequent seasons. If JJ is to be a full on superhero with "sidekicks" ( ala Luke Cage in his own series), there need to be some vast improvements on the aspects that were lacking in season 1.
As someone who really enjoyed JJ's first season, I am, however, a bit worried about season 2. The (initial) sense of mystery and the mesmerizing performance of
David Tennant
free from Killgrave's games
You realize this is the same argument that gamergaters used. Who cares about all this PC nonsense? I just want good games. Or remember when games were just about having fun? I heard it before.
This stuff does matter, it goes beyond just your entertainment.
Eppy Thatcher
God's had his chance.
Don't care who's behind it cause I trust Marvel to pick people who can execute on their vision and make badass characters and stories of these comics i've loved for decades.
Bunch of female directors doesn't change that at all. Would be really cool to find a female director that i could point to like the Russo Bros in the action department. Just like really adept at portraying kinetic and clear HARD superhero action?
Anyone have a name for someone like that that i could go youtube?
Bunch of female directors doesn't change that at all. Would be really cool to find a female director that i could point to like the Russo Bros in the action department. Just like really adept at portraying kinetic and clear HARD superhero action?
Anyone have a name for someone like that that i could go youtube?
Lexi Alexander is pretty good. She trained under Chuck Norris, I believe.
edit: she directed punisher war zone
It does go beyond one's entertainment but it isn't doing many people favors when the final product could be subpar. I don't want to bring up all the misogyny and bullshit with Gamergate
because God knows people will force any issue into a simplistic black-white scenario with that shit
I'd argue how those subjects are handled have more of an impact on the audience than whether or not a director with particular set of genitals made the episode and gets a break down the road. The handling of these issues was arguably the largest positive of the first season of Jessica Jones.
It disturbs you that I felt that she was a dull note in a show I enjoyed and was glad that she was no longer part of it?
She's a terrible actress
Miss.Selfdestruct
Member
You mean like...Jessica Jones Season 1?
But seriously, these "they should hire the most qualified person for the job!" arguments are tired as fuck and appear every time a minority gets the opportunity to do anything. I like how it's automatically assumed they're not qualified to do the job because they're all women. When it's all men? Nobody says anything and it's perfectly normal.
And this isn't even taking into account that women bring something different than men would especially to a show about women. Like if there was a show about Asian-Americans, maybe "Asians who grew up in America" would be some of the best candidates to direct that because they have perspective that someone of another race probably wouldn't have? There are various factors that go into hiring decisions, and not all of them have to be #1 BEST TV DIRECTOR. Perspective, experience, relatability can also be part of that decision.
What? The Knick is probably the only show there which fits the comparison with True Detective. Can you even really name a single director from House of Cards Seasons 2-4 who is an actual attraction as a known director? I can't say I can name a single director of Mr Robot offhand or remember a single time where a director was mentioned in relation to people recommending me that show. Same with Utopia (the UK series I assume?).
Direction is not unimportant on TV, but the fact is that it is often not the focus of attention or a big selling point and that remains true today. You might have a big Hollywood director launching a new show by producing it and directing the pilot, but by and large most viewers have no idea who directs the majority of TV nor do they care. When people talk about Lost, how often do you hear people talk about Jack Bender? Almost never? He directed all the major episodes of the series!
Yea im in the same boat about this kind of stuff, if somehow I get a job in usa I dont want that the reason I got hired is because im mexican but because im good for the job.
lightskintwin
Banned
This is the dumbest shit i've read. They didn't hire unqualified people due to their race or gender.
When it was handled in season 1, it was done well. The other half of the season with the subplots and whatnot was a typical ABC Television trash fire.
I think these arguments and comments are only brought up when it's announced that "only women are going to make/direct/star/etc in this movie!" Look back at the GAF thread for when Patty Jenkins was announced as director for Wonder Woman. That thread is almost devoid of that shit. The thread for Ryan Coogler directing Black Panther is pretty much the same. It's a discussion of the director's past work and how it would fit the movie.
People are responding with the "I just hope they find the most qualified person to do the job" not to be antagonistic. I remember similar comments in the True Detective threads when Fukunaga wasn't returning for Season 2.
Anything less than a response of applause to the announcement of Jessica Jones' second season having only female directors isn't a detraction.
I'd add Breaking Bad to this list. Rian Johnson episodes were kind of a big deal. There was quite a buzz in the final season when he was coming back to the series to direct "Ozymandias."
lightskintwin
Banned
But there's no final product to critique, so why should anybody be concerned about TV directors. i literally have never heard people concerned about TV directors. TV showrunners and writers, sure. But TV directors? I don't know, son. Sounds like a detraction.
It really bothers me that they feel the need to make push female directors on female projects. Why not instead put more female directors across all of your shows, and keep each one diverse? Why does the Black Panther movie need to have a black director. Why couldnt Dr Strange or something else? Just seems like marketing bs to me unless I'm missing a reason
This is what you're going to get with an announcement on anything with a decent profile (a Netflix Marvel show is kind of a big deal) and a forum thread specifically created to discuss said announcement.
We're only discussing directors because directors is the topic brought specifically to us.
OrangeGrayBlue
Member
Having been on a lot of sets of tv shows, it wouldn't even be abnormal for Iron Fist to have all white male directors. Like, Marvel wouldn't have to go out of their way to make that happen. White guys have such a monopoly on directing that if Marvel were to get their stable of directors for each episode by drawing names of DGA members out of a hat, you'd probably end up with 13 white guys anyway. Which is exactly why a conscious effort to subvert that trend should be taken. What you would consider to be offensive if done overtly actually happens already, and with staggering frequency, covertly.
If you were to broaden this idea to tv shows where, say, 90%+ of a show's directors were white males, you would probably be describing over 90% of all television. It is a stupefying hegemony.
I don't think that's a good comparison to Knick and True Detective at all. Rian Johnson on Breaking Bad is more akin to Miguel Sapochnik on Game of Thrones. An episode director who wasn't noticed until he did a good episode on that series, and fans who knew about it looked forward to future episodes by the same director. But no one would think of Breaking Bad as a Rian Johnson show in the same way they think of Knick and True Detective S1 as Steven Soderbergh and Cary Fukunaga shows. That's just not how it works on TV.
It really bothers you that a showrunner on a series who happens to be a woman, working on a show about women, would think it was a neat idea when a woman on the staff suggested that they should try to use the show as a vehicle to give more women directors a chance to work on something with more mainstream visibility? Really? Get some fucking perspective.
lightskintwin
Banned
But my point is there's nothing to be concerned about at this present time, unless an announcement that a season of a TV show is being directed by all women really grinds your gears.
Except what is the point of saying that? As if you assume the people in charge of hiring these directors aren't concerned about how qualified the people they're hiring are to do the job. As if they hired these people because they were women and just hope for the best.
Do you regularly spend your time questioning hiring decisions? Like every time you hear someone got hired you think to yourself "Well, I just hope he was the most qualified person to do the job"?
Does it keep you up at night not knowing for sure if the people hired for whatever was the most qualified person to do the job?
I just got an idea for a website: a ranking of TV directors sorted by "most qualified" so people have something concrete to point to whenever TV episode directors are announced.
OrangeGrayBlue
Member
I'd also add that no one would ever hear about a white guy being hired for something and think, "I just hope he was the most qualified." The whole "most qualified" argument seems like a veiled way of saying that white guys are inherently competent. If anything, this prejudice means that non-white/female directors are considerably more likely to be excellent at their job while it's actually white guys who would be more likely to be subpar.
Scrooge McDuck
Member
I feel like people who keep bringing this up are imagining that TV directors are selected through some kind of aptitude tests or something. To begin with, TV are often playgrounds for directorial debuts.
Johnson's not as synonymous with his series as Soderbergh or Fukanaga, but he's a much bigger deal the Sapochnik. He made Looper in the middle of Breaking Bad and Brick several years before. "Ozymandias" is considered to be one the best episodes of modern television.
OrangeGrayBlue
Member
I don't think a lot of posters here understand that by the time you would even be in consideration to direct a huge tv show, you would already be more than qualified to direct it. Getting into the directors guild isn't exactly a walk in the park. It requires years of on-the-job experience in most instances.
You're assuming that the execs who hire these directors are infallible and completely committed to the final artistic quality of the product.
Shit, man. Every time there's a casting decision of an actor or an actress we're doing the same thing - questioning the hiring decision and whether or not the actor can pull it off. I don't see why it's so bizarre to you for people to do the same for a director.
That's retroactive though, which is my point. Johnson is a "big deal" because of what he did after his debut in the series and how he contributed to the conclusion of it. When he first worked on the series starting with The Fly, most people didn't know who he was and didn't care. Breaking Bad is not a series people watched because Rian Johnson was involved.
Sapochnik has already directed what most consider the best episodes of Game of Thrones, and he is expected to return in the final season and possibly even direct the series finale. The episodes he directed are considered to be some of the best medieval battle scenes in television. But no one started watching Game of Thrones because they heard he was directing something in the same, and while his direction certainly elevates the show, no one thinks of Game of Thrones as his show.
In that way, both directors are similar. Meanwhile, with Knick and True Detective S1, from the very start, it's very clear that the directors of the respective shows were a major component of the vision for the series and they wouldn't exist without them. That's why it's a different comparison completely.
lightskintwin
Banned
If what you're saying is true, then why hasn't anybody name dropped a specific director that they're concerned with due to their previous work or lack of experience in this thread?
A Link to the Past
Banned
I'm reminded of someone saying that Chris Pratt doesn't count as a white guy being given a huge leg up, because he was an A-list star before Guardians of the Galaxy. Solely because he was a major supporting character in Parks and Recreation. It's never enough to make the argument of first-timers, because white men are not only given that advantage as first-timers, people will actively deny their status as first-timers because they were cast in a cult TV show.
In this thread? Probably because none have been announced. Hence the comment "I just hope they hire who's best." When there's an actual announcement regarding who's directing an episode, I imagine there will be a "I hope she can pull it off" the same way people said it about Peyton Reed when it was announced he was taking over Ant-Man from Edgar Wright.
lightskintwin
Banned
C'mon now, you're being way too naive.
A Link to the Past
Banned
Also, the problem with Henkka's comment is that his response to this implies that casting only women distracts from the quality of the show.
If that's the excuse you want to use for not acknowledging the reality of the situation, go for it man. Fight that fight against the cruel message board villain you've dreamed up in your head.
lightskintwin
Banned
Nice, exaggerate what I said and make it bigger than what it is.
excelsiorlef
Member
I love the underlying assumption that they can't be hiring the best because there's no men involved as if all those all male directed shows just hired the best but here they must be settling for lesser talent...
You have forgotten the most important, most universal rule of hiriing discussions:
There's always a more qualified white male.
SparkleMotion
Member
So these are the top eight directors available to hire in terms of talent?
The comic book movie medium is pretty much filled to the brim with low budget and to directors getting their blockbuster shot. Of the top of my head.
Kenneth Brannagh did a lot of low budget before Thor
Russo bros
Trank
James Wan did low budget horrid before FF7
Thor 2's director
Mark Webb
To name a few.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
How would you judge and rank this? Be detailed.
StanleyPalmtree
Banned
i find it noteworthy that not a sing nay-sayer to this development has given any specific reasons any of these women shouldn't have been hired as directors.
the way i see it. the industry is extremely slanted in the favour of white men. its hard to say if this is because of any explicit bias, or if its just what the industry grew into due to the culture it developed in, but it is, and thats a real problem. one that isnt just going to fix itself any time soon, it needs many big pushes in the right direction.
this is a small push, but one that could set a very helpful precedent for similar efforts in the future. so im all for it.
the way i see it. the industry is extremely slanted in the favour of white men. its hard to say if this is because of any explicit bias, or if its just what the industry grew into due to the culture it developed in, but it is, and thats a real problem. one that isnt just going to fix itself any time soon, it needs many big pushes in the right direction.
this is a small push, but one that could set a very helpful precedent for similar efforts in the future. so im all for it.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
We got some kick ass female directors in Denmark like Susanne Bier (Brothers) and Lone Scherfig (An Education)^_^
I think diversity is interesting. When you see things like this, it's an experiment. It will be interesting to see how it stacks up to previous season! I have no idea if it will be good, but it will probably be quite interesting to see if it can be felt that the entirety of it was made by a female directing cast.
I wonder how many of the other staffers are women too?
I think diversity is interesting. When you see things like this, it's an experiment. It will be interesting to see how it stacks up to previous season! I have no idea if it will be good, but it will probably be quite interesting to see if it can be felt that the entirety of it was made by a female directing cast.
I wonder how many of the other staffers are women too?
User 73706
Banned
1. pure directing skill
2. bestest for job parameters
3. amount of not minority blood in them
3. penis to verjubjub ratio
StarCreator
Member
This is great, especially since it seemed the directors were hired primarily based on merit, which is really the way it should be. I hope this show ends up great and that more doors are opened in the future.
Also was not aware until this thread that Elisa Maza's voice actress from Gargoyles (Salli Richardson) was also a director.
Also was not aware until this thread that Elisa Maza's voice actress from Gargoyles (Salli Richardson) was also a director.
lightskintwin
Banned
LOL That's how you know Salli Richardson?
StarCreator
Member
Yes. I'm aware she has quite a lot more acting work on her resume, but none of it I've actually seen. I knew she was an actor but not a director as well.
heliosRAzi
Banned
It should always be the best person for the job in a perfect world, but it's not. Men are given more opportunities to direct and to gain experience, but women aren't. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's great that the Jessica Jones team is doing this.
lightskintwin
Banned
I don't get it, this is great news, why does anyone have an issue with it?
I know you can't please everyone, but people talk about straight white men dominating the industry then someone decides to go with all women directors for a show centered around a female lead, and it's an issue?
I've just noticed that whenever the industry does go in a positive direction, like Disney, Marvel, and others have been, the reception is always much cooler than I really expected. I didn't expect 100% approval or anything, just maybe something a bit warmer, I don't know.
I, for one, love the direction the industry is taking and excited for a new season of JJ.
I know you can't please everyone, but people talk about straight white men dominating the industry then someone decides to go with all women directors for a show centered around a female lead, and it's an issue?
I've just noticed that whenever the industry does go in a positive direction, like Disney, Marvel, and others have been, the reception is always much cooler than I really expected. I didn't expect 100% approval or anything, just maybe something a bit warmer, I don't know.
I, for one, love the direction the industry is taking and excited for a new season of JJ.
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