Female Artists Are Not Their Characters (More Women Owing Their Artistry)

Many moons ago, I wrote a post about Women Artists Owning Their Artistry.  That post focused on journalism and the media's insistence on talking to women artists about the lucky nature of their success and talent, rather than engaging with the artist's work seriously as they usually do with male artists.

This week I came across another aspect of women artists, and their work still receiving less respect than the work of men.  Lena Dunham has been making headlines for throwing shade at Woody Allen during a panel at the Sundance film festival this week.  However, if you listen to the actual discussion, Dunham (along with Mindy Kaling, Kristen Wiig and Jenji Kohan) is talking about how the world generally equates female artists and writers with their characters--- assuming that the artist/author shares the foibles, issues, aspirations etc. of their characters--- whereas this happens much less with male artists.  Here is the excerpted segment:


Again, rather than engaging with a story or a character as a serious piece of art and creativity in and of itself, people prefer to spend time puzzling out how the character is a window into the neuroticism or hubris of the female author/artist.

This is problematic and sexist because:

1. It again refuses to take the art seriously, simply because it was created by a female.  The same respect, intelligence, experimentalism, and benefit of the doubt afforded to male artists are not extended to the women.
2. It is a sort of dominance display, attempting to ferret out the vulnerabilities of a woman against her will, and prove that the investigator knows the woman's mind and self better than she.
3. It is based on the assumption that women are fundamentally crazy (hysterical) or flawed, and a morbid desire to expose this.

Article Response, on Women artists owning their artistry

Last week I stumbled upon this article from The Guardian where 2013 Man Booker-prize winner Eleanor Catton speaks briefly about the unfair treatment of female writers.

Note: it's quick read for those interested in Catton, literature and women writers, but you can probably skip it.  I'm going to quote the relevant part. Catton says:

"I have observed that male writers tend to get asked what they think and women what they feel.  In my experience, and that of a lot of other women writers, all of the questions coming at them from interviewers tend to be about how lucky they are to be where they are – about luck and identity and how the idea struck them. The interviews much more seldom engage with the woman as a serious thinker, a philosopher, as a person with preoccupations that are going to sustain them for their lifetime."

Reading this reminded me of a recent(ish) quote from Mindy Kaling about how interviewers are always eager to present her as a token marginalized person who has anomalously experienced success:

"But while I’m talking about why I’m so different, white male show runners get to talk about their art."

I agree with Catton and Kaling that female artists' success and bodies of work are frequently showcased in such limited and surface manners, often highlighting luck, coincidence, or the inexplicable 'magic' of talent or natural ability.  It so often seems like a fairy tale, where fate happened to them and somehow it all worked out happily ever after, but probably not primarily through their own agency.  A story highlighting that these women work really hard, manage/lead incredible projects, and are serious thinkers, as Catton puts it, putting the work, thought, intelligence and skill into their art (just like men) never seems to make it into the forefront of these stories and articles.