“’Star Wars‘ is not for me,” filmmaker Ava DuVernay tweeted this week, and with that, millions of female “Star Wars” hearts broke. Well respected and loved for her online social presence, DuVernay perennially factors in on fan-made director wishlists whenever the oft-held conversation about the lack of representation behind the camera at Lucasfilm resurfaces. But after Disney‘s “A Wrinkle in Time” is released, we shouldn’t expect DuVernay to venture into a galaxy far, far away.
However, we do know one new filmmaker who is leaping into the “Star Wars” universe. Just yesterday, on International Women’s Day of all days, Lucasfilm issued a press release naming “Iron Man” helmer Jon Favreau as the newest filmmaker to join the “Star Wars” ranks, named an executive producer and writer of the live-action TV series set to debut on Disney’s streaming service. This announcement and its decidedly poor timing have reignited the fire with fans wondering why no women, or person of color, has been hired to helm a “Star Wars” project.
As it should.
Since the Disney purchase in 2012, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy has hired a variety of filmmakers to helm “Star Wars” projects. J.J. Abrams (twice), Rian Johnson, Colin Trevorrow, Phil Lord, Chris Miller, Josh Trank, Ron Howard, Gareth Edwards (and perhaps Tony Gilroy), David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and now, Jon Favreau. That’s 12 filmmakers in 6 years, and each one of them is a white man. As they say, two is a coincidence; three’s a trend…and 12 is, well, problematic to say the least.
Now, the standard rebuttal to this trend is that Kennedy is hiring filmmakers who she thinks are the “best people for the job.” Of course, everyone wants Lucasfilm to hire the best filmmaker for the task, but the question remains, are white men the only suitable candidates to direct “Star Wars” films?
This criticism isn’t anything new for the studio and they’ve been besieged with flack for several years now. With each new hiring, the issue flares up like a rash, and the critique isn’t exactly without merit. In fact, one could argue that Kathleen Kennedy brings it upon herself as the Lucasfilm President has been vocal about hiring female directors, but has failed to do anything about it yet.
“There’s nothing we’d like more than to find a female director for Star Wars,” Kennedy said, in an early 2015 interview around the release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
Attempting to put her money where her mouth is, Kennedy reportedly took multiple meetings with female filmmakers. However, the Lucasfilm chief is quickly becoming her own worst enemy. Publicly admitting that she wants female directors and overall diversity behind the camera is one thing, but following through with that vocal promise is quite another, and people are taking notice. Perhaps, this comes down to trust issues, but it also doesn’t explain the original intentions.
With the recent turmoil behind the scenes of most of her “Star Wars” films, Kennedy has clearly been reluctant to take on further risk. Hiring Josh Trank (removed from a “Boba Fett” film), Lord and Miller (fired from the Han Solo movie), and Gareth Edwards (pushed off of “Rogue One” in favor of ‘Bourne‘ veteran Tony Gilroy) were all risks, and each one of them were seen as failures, to different degrees, in Kennedy’s eyes, at least from a publicity perspective.
Since then, Kennedy has exclusively hired white male veterans who likely aren’t making many rookie mistakes: Ron Howard (to clean up “Solo: A Star Wars Story“) and Favreau. There’s no secret that Kennedy is looking squarely at filmmakers that she can trust will do the job, and in a way that is in line with her specific vision.
But it’s not like by hiring relatively blockbuster-untested newcomers like Edwards, Trank, Lord, and Miller, like she was risk-averse, to begin with, which have made subsequent comments sounds disingenuous (to be fair, Edwards had already directed “Godzilla“).
“We want to make sure that when we bring a female director in to do ‘Star Wars,’ they’re set up for success. They’re gigantic films, and you can’t come into them with essentially no experience,” she said. “We want to really start to focus in on people we would love to work with and see what kinds of things they’re doing to progress up that ladder now, and then pull them in when the time is right.”
These statements show precisely why names like Jon Favreau get hired, and women like Reed Morano, Michelle Mclaren, Dee Rees, Niki Caro, Amma Asante, Sarah Gavron, S.J. Clarkson, Linda Woolverton, and Marti Noxon, get passed up every time. But as many Hollywood figures have stated in the past, it’s difficult to get experience when you can’t get hired in the first place.
And the frustrating part is, it’s not like Lucasfilm doesn’t already value diversity. Look at the “Star Wars” story group. It’s lead by Lucasfilm’s Senior Vice President of Development (and African American woman) Kiri Hart. Two other central members of the story group include Rayne Roberts (another African American woman) and Carrie Beck, and the story group — which also includes another African American woman, a Chilean, an Asian American and all of one white guy —was instrumental in including the George Lucas-created female character Ahsoka Tano (and two other lead female characters) in the popular animated show “Star Wars Rebels.” There was even an entire New York Times piece about the female-led story group and “The Women Who Run The Star Wars Universe” which, if you want to look at it cynically, was a good PR piece to combat all the recent negativity. On the other hand, it’s a genuinely necessary story worth being told.
I digress. If Kathleen Kennedy wants to expand its hires beyond white men and taking one look at the diverse Lucasfilm leadership and “Star Wars” story group suggests that she does, then she needs to think outside the box a little bit. If she wants “progress up the ladder,” then Kennedy needs to realize that she’s at the top of that structure, and in the most prominent position to help.
Kennedy should just look at Marvel Studios President (and fellow Disney-ite) Kevin Feige and see how taking chances on smaller filmmakers like Ryan Coogler and Taika Waititi have massively paid off. Odds are, “Black Panther” will be the year’s number one film, domestically, and Coogler only had two films under his belt before his superhero epic, neither of them blockbuster-sized. The truth is, new voices bring new stories, and going with those that are in the Lucasfilm “family” severely limits progress in “Star Wars.”
To be fair, Kennedy and Lucasfilm as a whole has made great strides for diversity in front of the camera. Just glancing at the casts for the new Skywalker Trilogy, ‘Rogue One,’ and ‘Solo,’ shows that Lucasfilm is making sure that POCs and women are at the forefront of these films. Hell, look at George Lucas’ original trilogy. You can count the number of females on the one hand, and only one of them really had lines. Compare that to Rey leading the newest trilogy, Jyn Erso at the helm of ‘Rogue One,’ and three significant leads in ‘Rebels’ and you can see that Kennedy is making significant strides. But we’re not there yet.
There’s an interesting line in the statement from yesterday’s Jon Favreau announcement. “This series will allow Jon the chance to work with a diverse group of writers and directors and give Lucasfilm the opportunity to build a robust talent base,” Kennedy said. Is it just me, or does that sound like a semi-insulting suggestion that the “Star Wars” TV shows are going to be a diversity training ground? (i.e., “you’re not going to direct a feature yet, but someday you might under our new program”).
Look, Kennedy has said all the right things, hired diverse people in leadership positions, and made sure films have had diverse casts, but the fact remains that when push comes to shove, she just can’t hire a female director. And sorry, Patty Jenkins and Kathryn Bigelow just can’t direct everything themselves. There’s a major sea change in the air and “Black Panther” and “Wonder Woman” are just two shining examples of what kinda of creative and financial success can be wrought through allowing diverse voices to tell their stories.