Hollywood is, despite occasional claims to the contrary, risk-averse. This means going with tried-and-tested. And 99% of the time, this means white male directors. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. I don't really see this as something that can be debated with ambiguity.

The thing worth discussing, I think, is how exactly to achieve an actual equality of opportunity. I remember somebody (half-certain it was Geena Davis) saying that if you look at a crowd scene, it's only about 20% female. There's nothing stopping us from having it be 50/50 (and, sidenote, shouldn't this be easier to do, considering women generally get paid less than men anyway?). This is non-speaking, relatively passive work, and we can't even get that right. Pretty disheartening. So having fairer proportions of male/female directors isn't going to be easy to do.

I'm sure that this is a top-down (white males at the top make most of the decisions) and bottom-up (less women pursue directing, maybe?) problem, though.

About that last point. A question, for those of you who went to film school: roughly what was the female/male ratio?

You had me at "Peter Falk".

Heh. Colon.

I know I'm late to the party on this one, but: bobdamn, this episode was AMAZING. I'm a music-theory geek as well, but I never really used much theory when I play something. This episode has inspired me to pick up the guitar again and do something a little more conscious and clever. THANKS!

I agree with the problems of how the Hero's Journey is used (mistaking the symbol for what it symbolizes, etc), I was using it as a shorthand. But really, Heathers doesn't really go anywhere satisfying. Mean Girls does kind of the same thing, but when the film ends, it feels like an ending. But Heathers ends kind of... hollow? Unless the pointlessness is the point. The explosion lighting her cigarette is pretty badass though.