Liberating HollywoodLiberating Hollywood

Liberating Hollywood examines the relationship between the feminist movement and Hollywood during the 1960s and 1970s, specifically as it pertained to the hiring practices and creative output of women directors. The 1970s was a crucial decade for women directors in Hollywood as it marked a period of significant increase in their employment statistics compared to previous decades. Between the early 1930s and up until the mid-1960s, there were only two women filmmakers in Hollywood: Dorothy Arnzer and Ida Lupino. Smukler's research shows that between 1966-1980 there were an estimated fifteen women making feature films in Hollywood and in the adjacent independent film communities. Liberating Hollywood proposes several important points of investigation: How did the employment of a creative population, paralyzed by forty years of institutionalized sexism, slowly begin to increase? How did the political struggles of the civil rights and feminist movements within the United States impact Hollywood? Who were the fifteen women, the films they made and the production communities in which they worked? By answering these questions, Liberating Hollywood will play a key role in making complete the subject of American film history by highlighting the standout, yet unknown, legacy of women directors during the 1960s and 1970s.