Broadlines
Broadlines is an original podcast by The Female Quotient tailor-made for the 7 million (and counting!) leaders in our community. It’s the news reframed, rethought, and recharged for women who have thoughts on women’s health, motherhood, friendship, money, and everything in between. We don’t need another breaking news alert. We need a conversation that breaks the news down. Subscribe & listen today!
Broadlines
Only 1 woman is nominated for Best Director at the 2026 Oscars | Elaine Low
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This week, Rae and Natalie sit down with Elaine Low from The Ankler to break down the biggest stories affecting women this awards season, including the gender gap that's still defining Hollywood.
Did you know that no woman has *ever* won an Oscar for Best Cinematography? This year, Autumn Durald Arkapaw made history as the first woman of color ever nominated in the category for her work on Sinners, yet only 3 women total have ever received a nom in this category. Let that sink in.
This year, Jessie Buckley, Rose Byrne, Renate Reinsve, Emma Stone, and Kate Hudson are all nominated for Best Actress — but in Best Director, only one woman made the list: Chloé Zhao, who is just the second woman in Oscar history to be nominated twice. If she wins Best Director for Hamnet at the 2026 Oscars, she'll become the first woman *ever* to win the category twice, joining only 3 other women who have ever taken home the Best Director Academy Award in the 98-year history of the Oscars.
So what's really going on? Is it the films? The opportunities? Or something deeper? We dig into Hollywood's diversity problem, the economics driving the entertainment industry, and what awards season reveals about who really holds power in film.
EPISODE CREDITS...
Hosted by Natalie Lizarraga and Rae Williams
Directed by Lauren Ames
Executive Produced by Sydney Kramer and Rachel Apirian
Produced by Lauren Ames, Rae Williams, and Natalie Lizarraga
Filmed by Travis Orozco and Davielle Waldner
Edited by Davielle Waldner
BROADLINES IS ALSO ON...
Spotify
Apple
JOIN THE CONVERSATION...
Instagram
LinkedIn
TikTok
X
Website
Broadlines is a production of The Female Quotient and recorded in Los Angeles, California.
We're women. There's a lot of us. But the representation, the awards, the accolades, they're just, they're not coming for us.
SPEAKER_01Today we have our guest, Elaine Lowe. She is a reporter for The Ankler.
SPEAKER_03Being part of Hollywood is being part of a gig economy. You're facing really different challenges.
SPEAKER_01She covers the evolution of Hollywood, the business, the behind the scenes, the nitty-gritty of it all. What we are wondering is what Hollywood kind of needs to do to raise these numbers.
SPEAKER_03Well, if you're going to have women that are nominated for Oscars for directing or writing or producing, you have to actually have women working in the industry first.
SPEAKER_01When you look at this year's Oscars, women of color only make up 3.9% of all nominees.
SPEAKER_00That number is astronomically low. Welcome to Broadlines, a weekly video podcast by the Female Quotient. Where real headlines meet real conversation. I'm Natalie Lizaraga, a journalist and former news anchor.
SPEAKER_01And I'm Ray Williams, an entertainment lifestyle and culture journalist.
SPEAKER_00Today we're gonna be talking about the 2026 Oscars and how women are showing up in this year's race. All right, Ray, it is Oscar week here.
SPEAKER_01My favorite week! I know that's your whole bag. I will not actually be at the Oscars this year. I've gone the past few years. I will not be there this year because we will be at South by Southwest. We will interviewing one, like, oh my gosh. Basically your Oscars.
SPEAKER_00My it's my Oscar, so I don't I don't need to be there. Did you want to continue your tease about who you'd be interviewing? That is your Super Bowl. It's Emma Greed. There you go. So make sure you guys tune into that. We're gonna talk today, though, about the evolution of women in the media from the characters that they portray to the paychecks they are or are not getting.
SPEAKER_01We're looking at the nominations. And this year, Chloe Zhao is the sole female director nominated. So interestingly, among the top hundred movies at the domestic box office, only nine Hollywood films had female directors at the helm. And this is a report, a fascinating report, actually, issued by Stacey L. Smith of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California. And so she did this like in-depth study just about, you know, just inclusion in the industry, diversity in the industry, what that's looking like. And that was just a shocking stat to me because I'm like, what do you mean out of a hundred, there's only nine that were directed by women?
SPEAKER_00I mean, we were going over this and and the stats here, and I don't like, you know, I don't want to one-up you, but there's only one female cinematographer nominated, and that's for sinners. And we gotta look back at how we got here because there are a lot of stuff that we read and researched, and some of it is really shocking. We're women. There's a lot of us. We're doing a lot of these jobs, but the the representation, the awards, the accolades, they're just they're not coming here.
SPEAKER_01And I remember a couple years ago, I actually interviewed Mandy Walker. So she was nominated for best cinematographer, just one of a few women that's ever been nominated. At the time, obviously, if she had won, she would have been the first woman to win. I mean, absolutely delightful lady. And, you know, of course, I asked her about coming up in the industry as a woman, and she was like, Yeah, there was nobody.
SPEAKER_00If you've seen Elvis, you're wondering, how did she not win? The only thing compelling about that movie was the colors and the lighting and all of that stuff. Certainly wasn't the story. Or the man who never changed his accent after he was Elvis. I don't want to know what her reaction was, but I'm sure, you know, you're disappointed when you know you're the best of the best and still you didn't win. We see a lot of that, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01When when we look at something like this, I always have to think of intersectionality. And I always say that when something affects all women, it affects women of color probably at double the rate. And so when you look at this year's Oscars, uh, women of color only make up 3.9% of all nominees. And I know I have seen some fantastic work from women of color all throughout. So that really surprised me and honestly was kind of fucked up. But numbers astronomically low. I think for this year's Oscars, there are some historic firsts that could happen. And I think we still have to celebrate that because even though Chloe Zhao is the only one, that's no small feat. And for her to potentially be the first or even be in this category at this point, we do have to acknowledge that as, you know, absolutely phenomenal for what it is. But the overall numbers still show this major imbalance in who gets recognized and even more so who gets to actually tell the stories. Women make up about a third of the academy right now, according to their most recent diversity report. And I think if we want to start to remedy this, I think one of the places we can start is to look at the academy, which is the, you know, the voting body for the most prestigious award. And so right now, women make up one third of the Academy Award according to their most recent diversity report, so 34%. And it actually used to be worse. I thought 34% was a lot. Yeah, it used to be 25%. But I mean, that's sad, but I was like, wow. And then they had a uh inclusion initiative in 2016, so about 10 years ago, and that's where the numbers have risen since then. And I I know other academies too had similar problems, but I know like the recording academy, for instance, has skyrocketed their numbers of women in music. So I would love to see the same thing happen for film.
SPEAKER_00Well, we talk about representation in movies versus TV when it comes to women, and it seemed that there was more space for women when it came to streaming, broadcast TV. What are some of your favorite shows that involve maybe the women that we're seeing now as more evolved characters, imperfect, not the TV of old?
SPEAKER_01I wouldn't necessarily say evolved when we talk about like an Emily in Paris.
SPEAKER_02You know what I mean? I wouldn't say she is. This is literally my biggest guilty pleasure.
SPEAKER_01I wouldn't say that evolved is necessarily the word, but I think just watchable, relatable to a certain degree. Some people can relate, some people can't find, but I think relatable to those of us who are interested in that type of show and just kind of a call to the the old days of like kind of like the you know, kind of saved by the bell-esque type of like, you know, like real life situations, but just I guess more elevated.
SPEAKER_02Saved by the bell on like the most ridiculous non-real life situations. But but so does Emily in Paris though. But like Oh no, hers are absurd. I know, but like when I say real life, I don't mean like your real life, you have an exciting life.
SPEAKER_01Okay, the real, like, okay, the aspirational real like, you know what I mean? Like the suspension of belief, the like I'm not real speed. So not okay, not real life. Okay, in me, in my head, I am in Paris with Emily, okay? The Gina Davis Institute also found that when women are directors or writers, female characters have more speaking time, obviously, uh, greater agency, and are less likely to be sexualized, which tells us something about who needs to be in the seat a little bit more. And they also found that exposure to women portrayed as leaders on screen correlates with increased perception of women as capable leaders in real life.
SPEAKER_00The other thing that we needed to talk about, of course, when it comes to women in Hollywood, is how much we are getting paid or how much we're not getting paid. For we've seen a lot of women be more public about this, be more transparent about their paychecks, showing emails about what they're making in comparison to men or what they're asking for and not getting. Um, and we've seen women like Reese Witherspoon respond by taking matters into their own hands, making their own production companies, female-led content. And it's a little disheartening sometimes to think that, like, well, all these studios wouldn't do it, so I had to go do it myself. Um, I think you see that a lot more because there are other like Sean Deland and all of these other female-led uh production companies. We've had Jennifer Lawrence make it very public about addressing the pay disparities that she's seen. I think we've seen a lot of changes. Obviously, we always say this afterwards, not enough, but changes that are happening very publicly, which I think behind closed doors, it was easier to hide that you didn't have to disclose your paycheck, or the studio didn't pay you as much and they didn't have to tell anyone they weren't paying you as much or make that public. Women are now negotiating together collectively, and that is a huge difference than maybe one woman fighting for herself, and as you always put, Ray, fighting for your life.
SPEAKER_01I've always you know, I think the men have a role to play too. And I know I saw uh reports that Chadwick Bozeman had, you know, taken essentially a pay cut to make sure um that there was equality on his film. And so thank you to the the three or four men that are doing that. But I think that is also a role that that needs to happen, but it should be from the studio side. I don't think, I mean, the men shouldn't have to. I'm glad that they do. And if they the more that they do it, I think the more, you know, people will see that things need to be equal.
SPEAKER_00I also think that like it's it's visible, as you mentioned, to see women in power on screen in these powerful positions. It also gives the average viewer or the young girl out there confidence in the fact that she can kind of expand her sense of possibility. You know, I think we got like a lot of that from movies, is that you you look to it to see maybe a life that you want to lead. And if you see representation, you're more able to feel like you can do that. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Today we have our guest, Elaine Lowe. She is a reporter for The Anchor. She covers the evolution of Hollywood, the business, the behind the scenes, the nitty-gritty of it all. And Hollywood is super expansive. If you're not familiar with the industry, it's not just a red carpet. She's won awards from the LA Press Club. She's a podcast host as well for the Anchor Agenda. And she's covered everything from global programming strategy to Mindy Kaling's Growing Comedy Empire to Hollywood's reckoning over representation amid the Black Lives Matter movement. So wide subject matter here. And there's so much. So welcome, Elaine. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for joining us here. Okay, so we are kind of talking about the 29% reality. So despite the high-profile success of Chloe Zhao, for instance, and Jesse Buckley, there are reports from women in film that show that women only receive 29% of total Oscar nominations. Of course, we're coming up to the Oscars. Um, and that was in 2025. So, what we are wondering is what Hollywood kind of needs to do to raise these numbers.
SPEAKER_03Well, if you're going to have women that are nominated for Oscars for directing or writing or producing, you have to actually have women working in the industry first. And so it's really about uh raising those numbers and giving women a platform across the industry. And those numbers have been a little bit volatile in recent years. It's not linear. Uh, then again, progress rarely is linear. Uh we, you know, we're seeing uh, you know, those numbers increase here and there. Um, but really uh uh sometimes when you when you look at it, it can it can feel a little bleak when you're trying to uh you know figure out how much progress is actually happening.
SPEAKER_01So uh in the time that you've been covering Hollywood, have you seen kind of shifts and and not even just on the talent side, but just in the the behavior of the behind the scenes that would indicate that exactly what you said is happening?
SPEAKER_03Well, uh behind the scenes, when you're looking at the corporate side of Hollywood and studios and production offices, um, DEI is a conversation that has really taken a back burner in recent years. It was something that uh was prominent in 2020 and then kind of just tailed off really disappointingly. And, you know, the DEI programs, DAI initiatives uh at the major studios, um, you know, really have uh gone on the back burner, it feels like. And and, you know, that obviously has an impact on, you know, the number of women, the number of people of color we went up seeing within uh, you know, the the corporate side of Hollywood as well as on screen.
SPEAKER_01And so in 2025, there was a USC Edinburgh study that found that there was actually no difference in Metacritic scores between films directed by men and films directed by women, yet women were hired for fewer intellectual property franchises. Does this kind of prove or suggest, anyways, that Hollywood is hiring based on safety? You know, Hollywood plays it safe a little bit. Um, do you see that as a reason why maybe there is this kind of imbalance?
SPEAKER_03Risk aversion is unfortunately the name of the game these days. When you're talking about creative in Hollywood, when you're talking about behind the scenes, what kind of TV shows, what kind of movies are developed. Um, we're in a time when the economics are really tough. Uh, the the industry is shrinking, the studios are shrinking. Right now we're looking at a pending merger between Paramount Skydance, Warner Brothers Discovery, which means we're going from five major film studios to four essentially. And we just saw the merger of Disney and Fox, you know, a little more than five years ago. So this is a space that's shrinking. And what happens when you have uh a development side and a creative side that's shrinking is, you know, there you're going to make more risk-averse decisions. And that's something that I hear when I talk to TV agents, when I talk to producers and writers, is that people aren't as willing to take big swings anymore when it comes to development. And so when you have more risk aversion, what winds up happening is you go back to the creators who are safe bets, who are reliable. And that winds up having an impact on diversity and the number of women, the number of people of color, the number of new voices that are taken a chance on. And I think the last time we really saw uh, you know, new voices come into the conversation was around the era of peak TV. There were crazy overall deals and crazy deals for first-time showrunners. And the the downstream effect of that uh was that new voices were really given a shot. Um, and that meant fresh voices, young voices, people who normally wouldn't have been taken a chance on. You know, and so when you're seeing this risk aversion, the downstream effect of that risk aversion is that when you're taking fewer shots on goal, that means you are have fewer projects in development, you are hiring fewer people, and so you wind up going back to the showrunners or the creatives who you deem safe, the guys who were directing or writing shows back in the 90s for you.
SPEAKER_00So I know you cover a lot of the business when it comes to Hollywood. And we talk about women that are at higher positions in this industry, one of them being Donna Langley there at NBC Universal, and some other women that are in pretty high seats. Do you think that the shift we've seen the shift in the industry is gonna coincide with an increase of women in these powerful positions? Because there's not a lot of them, but maybe we'll see more because there are a few.
SPEAKER_03One would hope that's the trajectory that the industry would take, right? Um, but yeah, like you mentioned, we have a number of very high-powered women in the industry. There's Donna Langley over at Universal, there's Bella Bajaria over at Netflix, who is the content chief to a service that services more than 300 million subscribers. Um, and you know, you have uh one of the co-heads of Warner Brothers Pictures, Pam Abde. Uh, so you have uh uh folks in in really high-powered positions, but at the same time, like you said, it there aren't that many of them. There's so there's progress, but we would love to see more. Um, and I think when it comes to hiring, um, I mean, you know, there's that old notion, right, of people sort of hire the people who remind them of them. And so hopefully when the door has been cracked open more, uh, you know, we'll see a little more diversity in the mix.
SPEAKER_01Do you think there is room for kind of, I guess, independent, uh, even directors, filmmakers, that kind of thing, to get into executive and leadership positions in this kind of atmosphere that we're in, especially, you know, given that there are not a lot of seats at the table. But there is this kind of boom of independent content and celebrations of, you know, independent filmmakers. And I think of somebody, for instance, like like Zinzi Kugler, who, you know, is is Ryan Kugler's partner. And I they operate as a couple, but even for someone like that to kind of work her way in, if she wanted to, to something, you know, to take over on these corporate entities, do you see room for that with women?
SPEAKER_03That's actually probably what I hear most, that you have to be entrepreneurial right now. You have to be entrepreneurial, you have to have that kind of indie spirit in order to get ahead. Because honestly, the ladder is broken. When we talk about the corporate ladder, when we talk about how do we get to those positions of power, um, you know, promotions are scarce. Uh, the middle winds up getting squeezed, especially in in corporate Hollywood when there are thousands of layoffs happening around people. And the thing that I hear most from people who wind up getting laid off is, oh, it's women, it's people of color. Those are a number of people who are getting squeezed out of those positions. And um, so, you know, when you're trying to climb the ranks, that uh, you know, really poses a difficulty there. Traditionally, if you started out in Hollywood, there Hollywood sold a relatively stable fantasy of how our career worked, right? Actors started out in commercials, everybody else started out as an assistant or in the mail room and you worked your way up. Um, but really, these days, being part of Hollywood is being part of a gig economy and the studio system is so troubled. Streaming has reshaped how the economics work. And so now, if you're somebody who's trying to climb the ranks, you're facing really different challenges. Um, there's not sort of a traditional path to take.
SPEAKER_00I think, too, if we dive deeper into the changing, AI is a huge one that people are afraid of. You know, you might it seems simple enough, but you it loses creativity when it's not by a person, when someone's not really writing it. What do you think, if you could just kind of navigate that for us, what the threat is for AI for a lot of creatives and people in the industry, and where do you think it's going?
SPEAKER_03Okay, so this one's interesting because covering the strikes three years ago, the writer strike, the actor strike, AI was a huge issue, right? It was on all the picket signs. People were just no, straight no on AI. But over the last three years, we've seen so much advancement in this technology. People are deploying it on set. They're using it in pre-production, for pre-visualization, they're using it in post-production to help them edit faster. Um, there are scenarios where people are finding it useful, but uh there's a balance there. You don't want it to replace core human creativity. Um, you know, you don't want it writing scripts, you know, you don't want it replacing actors on screen. Um, Tilly Norwood, uh the synthetic AI performer is an interesting case study in that, right? Of like, oh, here's this AI generated young woman, and and agents are gonna what? Or the idea is that they'll be able to have her work. Like, I don't know what that means, right?
SPEAKER_01She had an agent and everything, and it was she was being marketed as too weird, an actress and being kind of shopped around as this actress. And of course, you know, the industry came out and was like, this is not gonna fly.
SPEAKER_03When I give a human woman a change, right, exactly.
SPEAKER_01But it's interesting that they started that to me, it's interesting, anyways, that is they started that with a a female performer, with a woman performer, because it's like, why didn't you make a Tom Cruise clone? Why didn't you make Tilly, uh Tilly Norwood? And so it kind of made me wonder if that's, you know, the first line when it comes to that kind of uh, you know, obviously we see the scenarios where AI is um is helpful, but it that first line of like AI performers, if it is kind of coming for women first, if you will.
SPEAKER_03I mean, that's a that's a sticky subject because I think you see more people very quietly using AI, and in some instances not so quietly using AI in their creative work. And the question is always where's the line and what's our own comfort level that we want to negotiate around it? Where do you draw the line on AI? As a journalist, pretty hard lines. The most AI I think I use is really in just transcription services. Um, you know, when I I record a lot of my interviews and, you know, I get the transcription, but then I always go back through it and I'm listening to it and then cleaning it up. So it's really just sort of like a first draft of the transcript. But that's literally all I use it for. Like I've actually never used Chat GPT.
SPEAKER_00Wow. I was a long holdout. Yeah. And then I folded because I saw all the cool other stuff it could do. I think that like if I'm using AI also as a journalist, I use like a starting prompt to get my mind going. And then I shut it down and then go because one, I can't trust it, I especially when it comes to facts, but it can kind of get creative juices flowing for me, like a starting point to then go from there. But it's it's hard sometimes, I will admit, to not just be like, well, just let it write the thing because it's right here and I'd like to go do something else. But it it's it's a temptation that I think is really hard because it's just so darn easy.
SPEAKER_01I was just talking about this with a friend. I just got fooled by an AI um singer that I thought was fantastic and did not realize it was AI until, you know, the conversation started. And, you know, I think it's one, I think there needs to be for me a very clear indication that it is AI so that I know where I can put the borderline for my emotions. And I think that's why Tilly Norwood, for instance, gives us pause because it's like, even if we start to to like her and to be a fan of her and we accept her, what does that mean? What does that mean? Right. And are we connecting to real performers? And I think that is a threat for the industry in a way.
SPEAKER_03And there's also the risk, right, of being left behind if you're not going to adapt to that new technology. Think of anybody who didn't want to use email in the 90s, you know, or didn't want to really use the the full force of the internet and where that would get you professionally now, if if you could imagine doing that.
SPEAKER_01There was a study that said that we are in a seven year low, so that in twenty twenty Women directed about 8% of the top 100 grossing films, a significant drop from it from 13% in 2024. And I think the question that we have, and we can't kind of talk about women in Hollywood or Hollywood and women without kind of talking about Barbie. Fight me, I don't care. It was my personality for a whole year. But we kind of saw that this would like we had this Barbie effect after Barbie, where, you know, there was a surge of, you know, women embracing the industry, women feeling powerful within the industry on screen and off-screen. But with this kind of dip, you know, does that suggest that that was a temporary peak rather than a structural shift in how studios kind of give budgets to women?
SPEAKER_03Barbie, you know, obviously directed by the great Greta Gerwig. Um, at the same time, it's an it's based on IP, right? And IP has ruled Hollywood for I don't even know how many years now, because that goes back to sort of the risk aversion. And I Barbie was such an interesting mix of that because it was based on known IP, based on, you know, a doll that's been around for how many decades, but at the same time took so many fun, creative risks. Um, but when you have an uh environment that is driven by IP, driven by sequels, driven by franchises, um, we're going back to the idea of risk aversion. Uh and when you're going back to the idea of big tent pole films like Barbie, like action movies, the directors of action movies and superhero movies tend to be men. Unless you're thinking about Patty Jenkins and Wonder Woman. Um, there are, you can probably count on one hand the number of women who have directed big tent pole films like that. And so there's also the interplay of risk aversion in terms of the underlying content and the underlying source material there.
SPEAKER_01We of course we were talking kind of behind the scenes about Bridgerton, what are we watching? For me, it's Bridgerton, um, Emily and Paris. Yes, I haven't gotten to the latest season yet. I'm kind of bouncing back between both. Um, but what is your opinion on the kind of primary drivers behind this rise in women-led companies? So we have, you know, Shawn the Land, we have Lucky Chap, Kayling International, which I love everything Mindy Kaling makes in the weirdest way, and then Hello Sunshine, of course, which is Reese Witherspoon. So do you think that that's a trend that we can lean into?
SPEAKER_03When you have uh people who are big stars, there is the uh drive to create your own production company, no matter who you are, because as an actor, as a writer, that gives you a lot more creative control. It allows you to get behind the scenes in development to really platform voices that might not have traditionally been platformed. And so that's the the benefit to having huge stars like Shonda Rhimes and uh Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling have their own production companies because then you get to see great shows like Bridgerton, which has such a different take. I actually haven't read the books, but um, but my understanding is, you know, that the the shows are a lot more diverse than the books are, I think. Um, or when you have Mindy Kaling, right? Like the sex lives of college girls, um, you know, just really great shows like that that get to platform a bunch of different voices without being like, hey, we're women, you know.
SPEAKER_01Right. You're like, hey, we're like, you know, power. You don't notice, I think, the the, and and I I hesitate to say you don't notice the diversity because you do, but the diversity of women in those particular programs, I think, are really so well done that, yeah, organic is the word, perfect, that you don't say, oh, well, you know, they've got like one black girl, one white girl, one this, one that. You don't even notice that because you're just kind of so enthralled in the storytelling and the complexity of the characters. And that I personally think that's something that's uniquely accomplished by women.
SPEAKER_03And then that hopefully perpetuates a positive cycle, right? Of girls who grow up seeing it on screen and not really thinking about it in an active way, the way maybe we thought about it growing up, of being of having to be like girl power to really platform it in that way, in a way that becomes more organic. And I don't want to say effortless because you know, everything always does require effort and does require some level of advocacy, but in a way that is much more authentic.
SPEAKER_00I think we're seeing a lot more real characters than we've ever seen before, yeah, that we can actually relate to. I feel like growing up watching TV, you kind of idolize these women for their perfection and like you kind of had a skew and being like, They're having it all what you wanted or thought it was about. And now you're seeing people that are like you, that are having struggles, emotional moments, things that you've had that become more real. Um, I do want to switch gears here a little bit and talk about pay disparity because we've seen so many headlines now more recently, women being more open about what they're getting paid or what they're not getting paid, more importantly. And a lot of those conversations used to happen behind closed doors, but now people are more public about that and trying to get equal pay when it comes to women versus men. Do you think that this is they're getting that because now it's public and maybe they're they were resistant before? Is it public pressure that's putting it on them, or they're realizing, hey, you're doing the same job, you should get paid the same amount of money. Like, is it real?
SPEAKER_03I think there's more transparency among younger women, younger people in general. And I gotta say, for all of the criticism that Gen Zs get, the one thing I love that this generation is doing is engaging in wage transparency, in actually sharing how much they make with other people. Instead of it being sort of like a, oh, I'm gonna talk to my close girlfriends about this and try to sort of feel it out. Uh, some of the young people I've talked to, sorry, it makes me sound like such an elder millennial, but I'm like, the young people I've talked to, they're like 25-year-olds, right? Who are like starting out who are like on assistant desks, they're like, Yeah, like I'll talk about it openly and I'll ask them about it and I'll and I'll say, Can I, can I publish this in the story? And they're like, Yeah, if it helps somebody else, I'll tell you that when I was a showrunner's assistant, I made 40 grand a year. And um, you know, and and somebody else told me that when she was an assistant, she was making 40 something grand a year. And the only way that she was able to advocate for a higher salary for herself was by being transparent about that with her coworkers and discovering that she wasn't being paid as much as other people who worked in the exact same position. And it's really only with that kind of openness that we can achieve, you know, pay equity.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. I remember my assistant paycheck. And I remember my boss being like, just so you know, they're not going to pay you as much as you deserve. So I'm going to have to supplement your pay out of their pocket? Yeah. And so my boss would give me an additional paycheck because I think it was like $300 a week or something. And but I will say he's like, he's like my TV dad. But along with that came being his personal assistant. So the money was like, you're gonna work for it, but you're also gonna get your benefits and everything from this larger production company. But I just remember the empathy it was was like, I know you're not making enough to live. So we have to come in and and supplement your pay. But it's just it's crazy to me that these places that make all this money, even when they're struggling, they're making so much money. But for the people that work there, they're not willing to cut the check. It's it just doesn't make any sense to me.
SPEAKER_03And your experience also speaks to the mentorship aspect of it, right? And having somebody to really fiercely advocate you, advocate for you, to to champion you. And I I don't know that young women or young people in general in Hollywood are getting that right now, just because everybody's so worried about their own jobs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I was gonna say to you, do you, you know, there's always this conversation. I think there's this um idea that, oh no, there's enough seats at the table. There's, you know, spaces for all of us. And I kind of wonder, specifically for Hollywood, for women in Hollywood, if that's actually true, if there are enough seats for everybody to go around and how we kind of overcome that.
SPEAKER_00Like you said, entrepreneurial. You have to put your own chair at the table and say, there's plenty of space, move over.
SPEAKER_03I was talking to a 22-year-old uh young woman recently for this um feature story that I was writing on Gen Z in Hollywood. And she was telling me, you know, what I really want is this concept of sponsorship, which is a very like business school term, um, which is like a next level mentorship, right? Where it's this person is not just giving you guidance over a cup of coffee once a quarter. There's somebody who's actively saying, This person has a lot of potential. I'm gonna help open the door for her. I'm going to help get her this job. And that's not really the kind of fierce mentorship I think we see much anymore in any industry, which is leading to part of the problem. Maybe we need more of that when it comes to women. When we talk about sort of the the emotional labor that women take on, both at home and in the workplace. Um, I think there's also an element of like this is something else that women have to grapple with. And and a lot of women do it enthusiastically, but it's also just one more thing. And wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to do that?
SPEAKER_00I think you're right. Our plates are full because there are so few women, and then you take on all the responsibilities because there's so few women and that you can only do it a certain way as a woman. Your plate is full of things already in in your job. And then being a mom, being a girlfriend, being a wife, being a friend, everything is just, it's a lot.
SPEAKER_03Shouldn't the onus also be on men to help open the door for young women, for younger people coming up in the industry? The onus shouldn't just be on the women who have already, you know, struggled so hard to get there. Um, it it really should be just on older generations in general to be able to advocate for those young folks, for to be able to advocate for young women and say, like, yeah, you have potential and you deserve a seat at the table.
SPEAKER_00Let's talk about one thing that always grinds my gears. Actresses experience a huge drop in representation when they turn 40. And as a fellow, 40. I think that's very unfair. One, I never thought I'd get here because I feel like I just you see yourself on TV in your 20s, and if you're 40, you know you're always 20. So if you're like, oh, it doesn't matter. Then you start seeing the numbers of female characters in their 30s, that makes up about 35% of roles, which is still low when we're talking about numbers here. But it falls to just 16% for actresses in their 40s. Now I know a lot of millennials, later millennials are now, we are in our 40s and did not we grew up seeing ourselves as teenagers and everything on TV. And now to see that drop be so dramatic is is stark to me. In contrast, we see male characters, they actually are like, you know, they go up, they get hotter somehow. As that changes, their numbers are climbing. What do you think it's going to take for us to counter that phenomenon?
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's a mouthful. If you have more women casting directors, if you have more women who are creative executives, more women who are behind the scenes making these shows, making these movies happen. And also, I think, you know, people who don't necessarily have that ageism bias um sort of in the back of their minds as they're making these creative decisions.
SPEAKER_01I remember last year actually at the Oscars kind of kind of, you know, comparing, um, we had Demi Moore who, you know, was kind of on this press run. And a lot of the questioning that she got was about the fact that she kind of had this renaissance and was able to come back in front of the camera, you know, as, you know, a more mature, I want to say older, but as a more mature woman and play this role. And then there was also kind of the kind of juxtaposition of the fact that the other frontrunner was a 20-something year old, um, was Mikey Madison for um Minora. So there was kind of this like back and forth, and there was even a conversation, I remember, in the like just kind of in the atmosphere about, you know, which one was gonna win and would Demi win because she was older. And I think throughout award season it went back and forth, you know, like she, I think she got the golden globe, don't quote me on that, but she might have gotten the the golden globe, but not the Oscar. Um, and I think this conversation has kind of continued through Hollywood. Is there, if from what you've seen, um, this kind of competition, I guess, between the 20-somethings and and maybe for you, Natalie, too, just even like, you know, coming up in the industry, even on the the new side, you know, this kind of competition between, okay, you're, you know, you're 40, 50, 60 and the kind of youngsters in the industry.
SPEAKER_03Like, aren't we past the point of pitting women against women, though? Like in media headlines, in these kinds of conversations, doesn't that just feel so supremely outdated? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's what I that's what I hope. But I think there is this, you know, there there is this, I don't know, still lingering thing. And I'm wondering where that's coming from and if that is a hindrance to the progress of women, you know, in the industry. I will say for the news side, I think um we see a lot of women anchors that are that are older and they're, you know, kind of, you know, they've been on there for, you know, 20, 30 years, and that's, you know, like when they go away, it's a big deal.
SPEAKER_00But when it comes to just like the news side, I always liked seeing young reporters come in and you just you have to encourage, I like you said, the the mentorship, you have to encourage younger people to also feel comfortable around some of that veteran space. And I feel like when you isolate them to be like, you're young, you're green, you're this doesn't, that doesn't help anybody. And so, like you said, it is kind of trite to just pin women against women for for age. But I also think that you don't see, you're not see as the stats show, you're not seeing the relatable 40-year-old. You're not seeing those things. So, like, maybe I'm a unicorn to a 25-year-old who's in the news industry. Like, you're just not seeing it as relatable. So I I think that's where the the problem arises that they're not seeing us and we're not seeing themselves. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I know I had interviewed this woman um a couple years ago. Her name is Felicia Pride, and she actually has a company called Honey Child, and it was all about women and particularly women of color in their like their their honeys, in their in their 40s and 50s. And it was, I think through I recall the first time I was seeing that particular kind of content. Because every time we talk about this, we have to talk about the fact that if women are experiencing something, women of color are probably experiencing it at double the rate. And that's not a that's not a factual statistic, but like, you know, that that usually is the case, that there is an increase of whatever is happening for women. So that's the first time I saw that kind of content. Um, so I think that's just an interesting just thing to even look at.
SPEAKER_00Is it because the stories of women in their 40s, like the bottom line is they're not gonna make money? Are people not gonna watch that story because it's about this particular part of the population?
SPEAKER_03I think there's more room than ever for those kinds of stories. And I think there is a receptiveness to it. And I think about uh all the different kinds of m films that have really um caught the public attention over the last couple of years. I think about uh, you know, Amy Adams and Night Bitch, or I think uh, you know, Rose Burns, if I had legs, I'd kick you, um, you know, of just stories of interesting, flawed, you know, not picture perfect women, and even going as far back as, you know, everybody's favorite soap, like Grey's Anatomy, right? Like, I think we've seen an evolution of time in embracing more flawed women. I I think I wonder if it's just mainly a matter of volume and being able to get more of those kinds of characters on screen.
SPEAKER_01Do you think it might be due to like the male actors, like, for instance, like Brad Pitt getting more asses in theater seats than the female actresses? I mean, obviously there's a lot of bias that that ties into that as women age and and the kind of perception we have of that. But there's a statistic that actually says that women make up 49% of major characters in streaming, uh, but they only make up 36% of main characters in major motion pictures. So there's even a difference there. So, I mean, do you think you have any ideas about what the disparity might be? I think that goes back to the risk aversion question of we're just in such a creatively risk-averse time.
SPEAKER_03So, yeah, like let's dust off Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise and get them back out there. And I love them. Yeah, I love them, defrost Tom Cruise's. I am a huge Mission Impossible man. Don't get me wrong. But when you're a studio chief looking for a hit and you're, you know, maybe your studio isn't in the best situation economically, you're gonna go back to the well. You're gonna go back to the things that work.
SPEAKER_01I think there's, you know, always these recognizable names that you can call to that will get people to the theaters. At least that's what execs think. And it's, you know, a certain amount of men and not so much the woman. You know what I mean? I don't hear as many of those conversations with like uh, okay, it's Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, you know, XYZ. I mean, I think of them like I'll go see anything Angela Bassett is in. I'll go, you know, see anything that, you know, certain certain women are in, but you don't think of those people as like the blockbuster bringers. And I wish we could change that culture a little bit from within. And I think not to not to bring up Barbie again, but I think one of the things I had hoped is that, like, for instance, with Margot Robbie, that she kind of became this iconic, and I mean, she probably is for some people, but became this iconic, like anything Margot Robbie is in, I'll go see it because she is a superstar. And I know, and and maybe we can talk a little bit about this. The studio system kind of used to be that you were working for one studio for like your entire career. And as a woman, especially, you became this iconic name for this studio. You know what I mean? And we just kind of don't have that anymore. And I feel like, not to say we should go back to a studio system where you're tied to one, but I think that is kind of a contributor to the reduction of, you know, these women like star powered names. But do you think, do you think that's true, or am I?
SPEAKER_03I don't know about that. I think you're pretty far back when you're talking about uh, you know, a dame with a six-picture deal, you know.
SPEAKER_02So I love that dame with a six-picture deal. I love that. I need it on a shirt.
SPEAKER_03I would like to be a dame with a six-picture deal. I love that. I actually want to go back to the idea of women over 40 in these in these big roles. Um, I I I wonder how much the beauty component of that plays into it. When you mentioned Demi Moore, um, I mean, that was a movie that had a lot to do with physical image, you know, the substance and how we view women uh over a certain age. And, you know, I think the common um compliment is like, oh, like you don't look your age, and like 40 is the new 30. And I you know, I and a lot of other folks are using all these serums and whatever, right? Like, and so I wonder if like I just I don't know, like I want I'm curious about what you guys think about that part of the conversation of like people who are 40 now don't really look like what we thought of as 40 when we were kids growing up.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03But how much of that is also potentially damaging?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I think there is a movement right now about aging gracefully that maybe five, 10 years ago when everyone was plumping their lips, getting Botox, and doing all that stuff, it's kind of a step back now to let's age gracefully. But if you do that, and I've heard that the roles get less and less because now you're just someone's mom or you're you're not playing anything larger than those, than those, you know, niche roles.
SPEAKER_03How many actors let themselves go gray?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, not a lot. If we're being honest, it's true. There's still just a stigma of like you're not pretty enough, or this is not gonna sell because you're not the same 20-year-old that you used to be, unless the story is about you getting old or having like I think a lot of it's like having postpartum struggles or having some sort of struggle. You can't just be a 45-year-old having a great life.
SPEAKER_01I think it's really gonna take, like you said, that entrepreneurial spirit and like independent, you know, filmmakers to come up and pitch their stuff and and women to kind of step forward as much as we don't want to have to be the burden and we would love the men to open the door. I think it might have to come down to us. With all of this, we have the Oscars coming up this weekend. Um, I'll personally be watching that best actress race. There's a number of competitive uh women in there. We talked a little bit about how, you know, maybe there were some that were snubbed, but we're gonna look and see what these women can do to elevate the industry. I already have a winner picked out in mind, but I'm not gonna say it in case I'm loud and wrong. But Elaine, we want to thank you so much for joining us today to talk about just all the things that, you know, affect women in the industry in front of and behind the scenes and what we can do to kind of make that change.
SPEAKER_00Thanks so much for having me. That was a great conversation. I think we got a lot of insight on where we stand as women. I will repeat myself, I hate to do that, but closing the gap is super important. But we do have a lot of good positives, a lot of good takeaways from what is happening. Um, one of the things that I think the data increasingly shows and kind of proven here is when women win on screen, they also win off-screen too. We're seeing more jobs, more opportunities, and the industry becomes more profitable, not less. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think for me, the takeaway is that representation actually does matter. Seeing women on screen encourages more women to be on screen. Seeing women on screen also encourages women off-screen to be things they didn't imagine that they could be. And all the stats also point to that. So I think it's really important that we keep that in mind as we decide who gets to tell the stories and what kind of stories we're telling.
SPEAKER_00All right. Thank you so much for joining us on this week for Broadlines. I'm Natalie Lazaraga. And I'm Ray Williams. See you next time. Bye.
unknownYeah.