Jennifer Aniston and Hollywood’s problem with women

The enduring mystery of how Jennifer Aniston continues to be called a movie star, despite a CV that includes four times as many flops as it does successful films, is being hotly debated this week following the dismal failure of her latest flyweight rom-com, The Switch.

In our news pages on Tuesday, I looked at some of the various theories cited for the fact that Aniston, who can still generate an annual salary of around $27m, has a box office track record that goes up and down as frequently as her eyebrows [you can read the piece here].

Reasons cited for Aniston’s failure to regularly open hit movies include the so-called “curse of Friends,” the fact that her private life is more interesting than fiction, and her failure to extend beyond lightweight “rom-coms” in which she plays needy 30-something women in search of a man.

So far lost in the discussion, however, has been one extremely important point: for all the criticism,  Jennifer Aniston’s topsy-turvy film career ultimately reflects as badly on the industry behind the movies she stars in as it does on her.

This week saw the subject of Boxed In, the fascinating annual report from the study of enter for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. It reveals that behind the scenes, Hollywood remains very firmly a man’s town.

The report reveals that indicate that women accounted for a mere 27% of individuals working in powerful behind-the-scenes roles in film during the 2009-10 season. And that measly figure represented an increase of 2 percentage points over last season. Though Kathryn Bigelow’s historic Oscar triumph was meant to herald the arrival of a new era, women account for just 16 percent of film directors and 39 percent of producers. Just three percent of directors of photography have two X chromosomes.

The report will be published on the institute’s website [here] later this week. In the meantime, with relation to Ms Aniston, it’s worth wondering if her films might be doing a little better at the box office if they were made by an industry that’s just a little bit more representative of the audience it hopes to reach.

Recent Posts on Arts

• The Fall 'Darkness Visible' - Series 1, episode 2
• ‘Vicious’ – Series 1, episode 4
• Game of Thrones 'Second Sons' - Season 3, episode 8
• Made in Chelsea – Series 5, Episode 7
• Kate Simko: A picture paints a thousand notes

• http://73ray99.com 73ray99

  I’ve only heard Jennifer Aniston on television a few times though’ve seen her plenty of times in the papers. I do wonder whether people see Rachael or Jennifer. Many celebrities probably experience this phenomena but not many on the same scale she does.

• http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NS35P2ISYUK5LOHLQWXGY4HF5Q Robin

  The movie Nine featuring Oscar winners Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, and Judi Dench bombed just as much as Jennifer Aniston’s last picture. I didn’t see any reviewers saying these actors should stop. Also, I think as a box office draw, at least in the U.S., Jennifer Aniston is a bigger box-office draw than Daniel Day-Lewis. I don’t see any articles telling Day-Lewis he is a failure as an actor.

• http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=706546336 Vic Baker

  Robin, I don’t really think you can compare Jennifer Aniston to a double Oscar-winning who’s a proven stage and film actor. Maybe the real problem is that she’s just not offered anything meaty. She’s trapped in this ongoing world where she can only play love interests – in movies that don’t bomb – and needy career women – in movies that do bomb. I do believe she has talent, and you can see that in The Good Girl and Friends With Money for example, plus it takes talent to be that good a comedic actress as she was on Friends. However, unless she starts trying to break out of that box, she’s going to carry on doing these below-par movies until finally the industry gives up on her. She’s a victim of her own press unfortunately.

• http://peterreynolds.wordpress.com/ Peter Reynolds

  I thought this was a cheap, thoroughly sexist and snide attack. I’m really not interested in gender ratios at all. It means nothing.

  Sure, she sold out for – HOW MUCH?

  Wouldn’t you?

  She’s paying for that now with her “artistic integrity”, if you like. Personally, every time I see her in a movie, she’s better than I expected her to be. I thought she was fantastic in “Derailed”. She still makes me go “phwoooar!” – even at my age. She can be my friend any time!On Daniel Day-Lewis?The greatest living actor of our time.

• Pingback: STUART