Sandra Bullock explains why action movies are difficult for women: “It limited us”
Hollywood has always been a man’s world. Like many other industries, women pursuing careers in film are generally confronted with more boundaries and afforded fewer opportunities than their male counterparts, leading them to be underrepresented in the sector, particularly in the director’s seat. There are a number of challenges that women face when they venture in front of the camera, too, which Sandra Bullock sees as notably prevalent in one particular genre.
Since taking her first steps into acting in the late 1980s, Bullock has amassed a mammoth filmography. She’s fronted rom-com classics like The Proposal, appeared among the star-studded ensemble cast for the gender-flipped heist sequel Ocean’s 8, and starred in a slew of action flicks, from the Speed series back in the 1990s to Bullet Train just last year.
Despite her lengthy love affair with action movies, Bullock once shared her gripes with the genre during a conversation with the Sydney Morning Herald, suggesting that it placed more limitations upon women in the industry. At the time, she was starring in Barbet Schroeder’s Murder by Numbers, a film that sat more in the thriller genre than the action world, but she still felt compelled to share her thoughts on the genre.
Bullock suggested that there were “wonderful parts for women” in the 1940s and 1950s but that those roles were few and far between by the dawn of the 1990s. She attributed this change to the genre that makes up so much of her filmography. “I think the minute the action genre hit, it completely changed how women were utilized in films,” she stated. “It limited us”.
The action genre certainly has, historically, restrained women to a certain role. In many of the most successful franchises in the genre, such as John McTiernan’s Die Hard and Tony Scott’s Top Gun, women are mainly relegated to the role of love interest rather than getting involved as leading players in the action. Those roles are primarily reserved for white men.
More recent entries into the genre, such as The Matrix in the late 1990s, as well as Atomic Blonde and Furiosa more recently, have worked to amend this. They place women at the centre of the fighting, expanding their role beyond the romantic partner. This can be seen in Bullock’s own filmography – in 2013, she starred alongside Melissa McCarthy in Paul Feig’s The Heat, driving the action scenes. Still, there is work to be done within the genre behind the scenes to ensure that women aren’t objectified in these roles.
Bullock also observed her peers back in the early 2000s pushing through the limitations placed upon women in the industry. “But we’re coming back,” she said at the time, “Certain women have blazed through and made money. Look at Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore – brilliant actresses. And Julia Roberts has done an amazing job.” The latter, she suggested, came in as a “strong woman with a great sense of humour,” opening the door for other actresses to do the same.
Though the action genre has, historically, proven particularly hard for women to break into, the limitations that Bullock observed extend across filmmaking as a whole. Even now, over two decades after her initial comments, women are still underrepresented and mistreated in the film industry. There may be more and more action movies with women placed at the centre, but there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure equality exists within the film industry.
