Reese Witherspoon, J.J. Abrams, Jordan Peele, and More Take On Time’s Up Challenge to Hire Female Directors
Posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2019 by Hoai-Tran Bui
2018 saw a dramatic dip in female directors working in Hollywood — an already low-statistic that can’t afford to take any more hits. This in spite of the work of the Time’s Up and Me Too movements that have taken Hollywood by storm, making accountable the powerful men and abusers who had eluded justice before.
But it’s not enough just to call out abusers, Hollywood needs to prop up underrepresented women as well. That’s what the new Time’s Up Challenge is about: encouraging Hollywood’s movers and shakers to work with a female director in the next 18 months. Proposed by Tessa Thompson, the challenge is called the #4PercentChallenge, based on the measly fraction of women who have directed the top 100 studio films in the last decade, and has already been accepted by dozens of directors, producers, writers, and actors.
