US actress and director Kristen Stewart has said she is “so angry” that progress for female film-makers in Hollywood has gone backwards after a post-MeToo boost.
The Twilight star, who directed forthcoming film The Chronology of Water, delivered an impassioned speech at a women’s luncheon in Los Angeles hosted by the organisation behind the Oscars.
“The backsliding from a brief moment of progress is statistically devastating,” she told the audience. “Such a pitiful number of films from the past year have been made by women.”
The Celluloid Ceiling, an annual report that monitors the number of female film-makers, said 11 of the top 100 grossing films of 2024 were directed by women, down from 16 in 2020.
The MeToo movement of 2017 led to a reckoning in Hollywood about men in power and female representation both in front of and behind the camera.
The following year saw only four of the top 100 films directed by women, but that number had risen to 16 by 2020, following the MeToo movement’s momentum. No figures are yet available for 2025.
‘Boys’ club business model’
During her speech, Stewart said: “In a post-MeToo moment, it seemed possible that stories made by and for women were finally getting their due. That we might be allowed or even encouraged to express ourselves and our shared experiences, all of our experiences without filter.
“But I can now attest to the bare-knuckle brawling that it takes every step of the way when the content is too dark, too taboo, when the frankness with which it serves up observations about experiences routinely experienced by women, frequently provokes disgust and rejection.”
She added: “We can discuss wage gaps and taxes on tampons and measure [inequality] in lots of quantifiable ways. But the violence of silencing, it’s like we’re not even supposed to be angry. But I can eat this podium with a fork and [expletive] knife. I’m so angry.”
The guests listening to Stewart’s speech included Sarah Paulson, Julia Louis Dreyfuss, Tessa Thompson, Riley Keough, Zoe Deutch, Claire Foy and Kate Hudson.
Stewart received several rounds of applause over the course of her seven-minute speech, according to Hollywood trade publication Variety, which was also present.
“I am thankful to you,” she said. “I am not grateful to a boys’ club business model that pretends to want to hang out with us while siphoning our resources and belittling our true perspectives. Let’s try and not be tokenised. Let’s start printing our own currency.”
New films from Chloé Zhao, Kathryn Bigelow and Mona Fastvold are among those in the running in the forthcoming Oscars race, but the best director category is once again expected to be male in majority.
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