Warner Brothers to Women: Drop Dead!

Have you heard about the recent proclamation from Jeff Robinov, the president of production at Warner Brothers? Coming off the box-office disappointments of Nicole Kidman’s “The Invasion” and Jodie Foster’s “The Brave One,” Robinov has decreed: “We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead.” Apparently Robinov won’t even read any screenplays that feature women in principal roles. This story was first reported last week by entertainment writer Nikki Finke. I kept waiting for some kind of rebuttal or clarification from the Warner Bros. honchos. None came, and others have said that this report is an accurate accounting of the studio’s new policy. As a lifelong movie lover, I am so appalled by this asinine decision that I’m almost rendered speechless. Obviously, women are responsible for all the crappy Warner Brothers films in recent years, including Kidman and Foster’s latest bombs, right? As if either of those films came anywhere near portraying a three-dimensional female character. Needless to say, both of those turkeys were written and directed by men—I’m looking forward to Robinov's ban on male directors and screenwriters.

It seems particularly sad to me that such a statement would come out of Warner Brothers, a studio that came into its own by featuring strong women in leading roles. For years Bette Davis was called “the fourth Warner brother” because of her complete dominance in the studio’s box office. Other Warner Bros. dames who ruled the lot in the glory days included Olivia de Havilland, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan, Alexis Smith, and Jane Wyman. Nice to know that had he been head of production back in the day, Robinov would have refused to make the following Warner Bros. films:

Jezebel
Dark Victory
The Letter
Casablanca
Now, Voyager
Arsenic and Old Lace
To Have and Have Not
Mildred Pierce
Dial M for Murder
A Star Is Born
The Bad Seed
The Pajama Game
Auntie Mame
Damn Yankees
The Nun’s Story
Gypsy
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
My Fair Lady
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Bonnie and Clyde
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Driving Miss Daisy

And that’s just a fraction of the Warner Bros. catalog that is dependent on its powerful female leads. Is it any wonder that most of the films coming out of mainstream Hollywood today are unwatchable? Strong well-written female characters are already so scarce, can you imagine even fewer of them making it to the screen? Does the American public really just want action movies starring brilliant actors such as “The Rock?” I fantasize about Bette Davis rising from her grave at Forest Lawn, trudging over to the gates of Warners in nearby Burbank, and screaming a paraphrase of Norma Desmond’s line from “Sunset Boulevard”—“TELL HIM WITHOUT ME THERE WOULDN’T BE ANY WARNER BROTHERS STUDIOS!”

Not that Warner Brothers was a bastion of feminist sensitivity in the 1930s and 40s—far from it. Many of the studio’s top actresses loathed the insufferable Jack Warner. Two actresses sued Warners, claiming that the studio’s control over their careers amounted to nothing short of slavery (Bette Davis lost her suit but Olivia de Havilland won in a landmark decision that sounded the death knell for the old studio system). But unlike Robinov, at least Jack Warner recognized that it made no sense to produce films that ignored slightly more than half of the human race.

Noted women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred has said that if Jeff Robinov’s statement proves to be true, she will call for a boycott of Warner Bros. films. I wouldn’t dream of spending good money on most of the crap that studio spews out today, but I don’t think I’d join an official boycott either. I’d just dial the clock back about 65 years and enjoy the best work the studio ever produced.

Comments

[mark]

Warner Brothers: WHAT A DUMP!

I was out of the room, metaphorically speaking, when "women's pictures" were downgraded to "chick's flicks". Well, not so much out of the room, exactly, as in a different room still engrossed in those movies who's credits include the type of designations such as "Gowns by Adrian" or "Miss Hepburn's hairstyles by Sidney Guillaroff".

I choose to view the current position of Warner Brothers as part of a larger cycle. I choose to believe that it will pass. In the mean time, I'll probably forgo the antics of horny teenagers. I'll still be in that other room waiting for one more close-up, Mr. DeMille.

[Stephanie]

Danny, I was interested as always at your take on this. (My favourite part of Gloria Allred's comments included this: "[W]hen movies with men as the lead fail, no one says we'll stop making movies with men in the lead."

SAD. (But now I want to watch or re-watch all of the movies on your list!

[Pam G]

Shocking and stupid. Another example of how far we have not come since the days depicted on Mad Men. I think I already boycott most of the main stream crap produced by today's Warner Bros. and others without any form of organized boycott. Another night of TCM is on my schedule.

[rankin' rob]

Understand, Danny, that in the age of v-casts and broadband, you can make a great 21st century film without the withered cocks of the Hollywood Studio System and their silly edicts. Best of all, you can cast women, let women shoot it, write it, direct it, cater it, et al. Quit soaking in your nostalgia bath and stick it out there and make a movie of your own in this fragmented "content" environment. I promise, my family will download it. We'd even buy tickets at the local metroplex for it. We're behind you, and if you sell 500 copies each time you'll break even with the tax man in the age of endless media choices. Popular Culture is usually years behind reality in any event. Fuck Time Warner. And we've got short attention spans these days. So get cracking. From a couple of your biggest fans in the ATL.

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

This is fucking unbelievable! He sounds like he is having a Psychotic Break!!! Help Us And Save Us From This Man.....!

He cannot possibly have an kind of "artistic" vision..It's all about greed and an underlying dislike of women...!

OY, Danny....OY!

Do come by because I rewrote and reposted an edited version of one of my first posts...when YOU and Kendall were my only Readers! I think it is a much better post now.

[churlita]

Yeah, I guess it's time to support indie films even more. What a dumb ass that Jeff Robinov is.

[david]

Isn't it funny how, the more (supposedly) enlightened we become, the more accustomed we become to idiotic pronouncements like this?

Still, I don't think guys like this say anything without first calculating its effect on the public. To be wrong and assinine is OK, the thinking goes, as long as you're also sensational. He figures that the studio will get attention from his remarks, and perhaps screenwriters and directors, in an attempt to prove him wrong, will start trotting out products worthy of the phenomenal actresses still waiting for a decent script.

[Scott Egan]

Danny, your excellent post prompted me to check out ranking list of worldwide gross receipts on worldwideboxoffice.com.

I was surprised to see that you have to go all the way down to #64: 'Pretty Woman' to get your top grossing movie featuring a female lead. Astonishing. 64! I never thought that movies starring a female perform so miserably at the box office.

At the end of the day, Time Warner is a business and exists only to make money (NYSE Ticker: TWX). Since movies are nothing more than a consumer product, it makes sense for the producers to focus on their core consumer habits and stick to making goods that sell.

Agreed: Robinov could have been more tactful. Likely his comments were aimed at Wall Street, who bumped up the stock twenty cents the morning after his announcement.

Cheers.

[deborah]

Danny,
How do we get this to the honchos at Time Warner? I want to rub their faces in it. Maybe the ghosts of all those heroines past will return to haunt them on Halloween night. My only consolation is that some of the best TV shows this season have strong female leads -- Damages with Glenn Close, and Mad Men whose female characters are clearly choking under the constraints of the 50s. Anyway, I always learn so much from reading your blog. This should be in a book -- hint, hint, hint.

[Eternal Jewish Family]

Your blog articles are always so great. Maybe Deborah is right and you should indeed publish a novel of some sort.