Goal for the week: to only watch things directed by women. Successful? Almost. I didn’t really think about it, but this weekly theme made it nearly impossible to watch a series (to watch anything, but particularly a series) since most shows switch directors every episode. So, even if the first episode was directed by a woman (rare) odds are the second episode was directed by a man (common). Also, unless I was using my computer, it was actually impossible to figure out who the director was on literally any streaming service. They’ll happily give you the cast, but never any crew. Even then, I could only find the director on Netflix if it was a movie; if it was a series, I had to search for it myself via Google. I’m exhausted.

Day 1, I found a “documentary” on Kanopy that was actually a professor’s lecture (literally standing in front of a podium) with some blurred out scenes sliced in called Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality (2014), which was essentially about the brutality and violence against women in porn. It was interesting to think about, but I didn’t think she really introduced any new content, though she would hint at it. Such as, “What will this do to young boys who watch this violence against women? I don’t know”. It also only focused on het porn, so it would’ve been interesting if she would have delved deeper into gay porn or the fetishization of lesbians in porn. Just sayin’.

Then, I got to Lez Bomb (2018), a movie that everyone on Letterboxd seems to hate, but in reality I just think they were trying to read too far into it. It’s a movie about a woman who brings her girlfriend home for Thanksgiving with the plan of coming out to her family, except hijinks ensue! It’s a comedy, it’s not meant to be Schindler’s List, for crying out loud.

There’s this expectation that queer cinema has to be tough and deep and depressing to be good, and if it’s not, it’s assimilationist. I disagree. Gays can be happy too! They can have klutzy storylines and be selfish or a pushover or a people-pleaser. They don’t have to be in pain over their sexuality or screaming from the rooftops. They can just “be”. The writing also reminded me a LOT of my family during the holidays, so that felt pretty comforting.

Then, I fucked up. I was puzzling on Tuesday night after a work out (sidenote: look at me being a well-rounded adult!) and was trying to find something to watch at the same time. I was struggling because Netflix hates to credits directors, and since I’m two seasons behind on She-Ra and the Princesses of Power I figured it was safe enough to go in blind. Nope. I watched the first two episodes of season 3. Episode 1 is directed by Steve Cooper, and episode 2 is directed by David Woo. According to Wikipedia, episode 3 is directed is by Jen Bennett, but now I feel scorned and don’t want to watch the show until this challenge is over (plus, episode 4 is directed by a guy anyway). Curse my hubris!

Wednesday, still licking my wounds and twice as careful, it took my a solid half hour checking the crew list on every single thing I came upon. I finally found one directed by a woman (thank God for Sofia Coppola) and decided to watch The Virgin Suicides (1999). I had read the book in high school but remembered very little about it, so I was more or less able to go in blind. It’s a solid movie- well shot, though I will say the narrator sounds like he’s bored with the impending demise of these teenage girls. He’s basically just some random guy centering himself in a group of sister’s ultimate suicides. Woe is him.

Bathtubs Over Broadway (2018) is about a David Letterman writer who is obsessed with collecting vinyl records of “industrial” musicals, AKA musicals that were privately funded by corporations to be performed at their trade shows/yearly summits. Martin Short was in an industrial show, which was major news to me.

This documentary is a really good example of something Hollywood seems to keep forgetting: women can direct things that are not “girly” stories. It doesn’t have to be a romantic comedy, a coming of age story, or about two best friends in order to be directed by a woman. That’s never seemed to stop men.

I knew this was gonna be hard, but it’s SO hard. I’ve literally had to search “list of films directed by women” and search individual titles on Netflix. Random scrolling does not work.

Thursday was rough, man. I watched all four episodes of Exhibit A, which is a documentary series about people being wrongly convicted of crimes based on shoddy forensic science. Really sad, bruh. (Word to the wise for those interested in watching it: episode four is about a hate crime committed against a black gay man).

The, I watched Lady Bird (2017). I’d been putting it off because I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy it, and I was right! It made me want to call my mom but also not because I knew it’d end in us bickering. I followed that up with Hot Girls Wanted (2015) about young girls (18-20) entering into the amateur porn industry. Also really sad, because these girls seemed to know they were being fucked over, but pretended like they didn’t, while this gross ass guy who found them on Craigslist acted as their “manager”. Apparently I found the only genre guaranteed to be be directed by women: documentaries about the pornography industry. Go figure.

Thursday night I desperately needed some self care (check Twitter for a reminder) so I paused the challenge and decided to catch up on The Masked Singer. This show managed to cheer me up in ways I don’t think anything else could, so I don’t feel bad about taking the time to take care of myself. This carried over into Friday where I just re-watched Queer Eye all day.

On my last day of the week, I FOUND A FUCKING LIST BY KANOPY OF MOVIES BY WOMEN TO STREAM. #$^$))#$%&#$(.

So, I watched The Love Witch (2016).

It’s a modern movie with the aesthetic of a 1960s movie (since it was shot on 35mm) about a witch who casts love spells on men, with unintended results and it’s incredibly entertaining to watch once. It has a lot of quotable lines that I wish I remembered better but-

According to the experts, men are very fragile.

The Love Witch

Unofficial Ratings

Pornland

Good content, but it was really hard to get through because A. it felt like I was taking a class and was missing notes and B. the lecturer has a really grating voice that made me want to hate everything she said even though most of her points were spot on.

Lez Bomb

It was fun to see a “classic mix up” comedy but with actual stakes (such as: coming out). There’s also so much else going on in this movie that you almost forget the main narrative (in a good way IMHO).

The Virgin Suicides

I’m glad that I finally saw this so I can say I finally saw this, but I have no intentions of seeing this again.

Bathtubs Over Broadway

Really niche documentary about a really niche facet of theatre/musical history and I absolutely adored it.

Lady Bird

More or less the same review as The Virgin Suicides. The reason for this one, though, is that it hit way too close to home to ever be enjoyable for me, and instead just brought up some rough memories from high school.

Hot Girls Wanted

I didn’t realize until halfway through that I had already seen this documentary before.

The Love Witch

Watch it for the aesthetic. The plot is a little thin, but it’s great as an homage to 1960s pulp horror (which was it’s intention, so kudos there!).

Exhibit A

I cannot even begin to tell you how relieved I was to find something true-crime related that was directed by a women. I couldn’t find any horror movies (that I hadn’t already seen) but this fulfilled my weekly murder quota well enough!

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Also, my lovely friend Sarah had the fantastic idea of me compiling my own list of movies directed by women that weren’t included this week (either ones I’ve already seen or ones I want to see but ran out of time for) so expect that to go up sometime this week! I considered adding it to this weekly roundup, but it’s already too long as it is, and I feel this new list deserves its own post.

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Please Check Out My Letterboxd! Happy Watching!