Triple Threat!
Part Two

<< Continued from Part 1

Lisa: It is and it's now obviously that I'm directing and stuff, I mean, I've tried to find the balance because I do think that it is an issue...

Mary Kraft (photo: Primal Pi)

Mary: I would imagine in your world, yeah.

Lisa: ...where we use women as, you know, eye candy, and so there has to be a balance with me coming across as the overly aggressive female, which nobody likes, or the kind of kiss up, slutty type person also—so it's definitely a line that I have to walk. I've experienced it recently just with dealing with the crews and the level of respect...like, last week I was the assistant director on two gigs and the level of respect that I get now is completely different than I used to get, because I direct now so much with them and so it's definitely...I just feel like it's all about you and the way that you treat people. It just comes back.

So I don't think it's necessarily, like [Jen] said, in my field a gender thing, because if I act like I have respect for myself and I'm professional...you know, there are certain things that guys just think that women are gonna do or be about so of course if it's the wrong time of the month—as it was last week (laughter). I showed up to the set like, "How am I gonna get through this!?!" But somehow I put my game face on, because I know that those are the weak moments that they expect for us to have, and people always want that excuse, "Oh, it must be the wrong time of the month for her." So I never want that to be said.

But opportunities, I think that they're here for the taking. You just gotta go grab it. My philosophy is Atlanta is a novelty town, and so it's all about marketing yourself and just hyping up your own kinda thing, and then people just gravitate towards it... so it's kind of cheesy in a way.

CinemATL (LW): What do you mean, novelty?

Lisa: It's like, oh wow, Jermaine's back because he created Mariah's big thing right now. Jermaine never left, he's been right here in Atlanta, but now he's really hot again so opportunities will come his way.

Now that he's starting a film company people will take him a lot more seriously even though he has such a long body of work, but it's just about what's hot right now and parlaying people's perception. You know what I mean? So it's all about just being hot and I think Atlanta, and my side of the world right now, is hot so it's just about milking that...

CinemATL (LW): Spinning it.

Lisa: For all it's worth! It's all about the spin.

Jen: From an actor's point of view (laughter)! From what I see as an agent I think that there are definitely still a lot more nice roles that are available. The majority still tend to go to men. It's still, I think, harder for women. The writing....

Jen Kelley (photo: Primal Pi)

Mary: Oh my God...uggh...anything from commercials to even just little corporate training video, voiceover things. The female parts are never written. It's like they did a first draft and never went back to it—like, "Yeah, whatever." All right, now if it's a man this is gonna be hilarious. That's still an issue—it still is. Very rarely are the female parts completely fleshed out.

Lisa: I know now that I'm doing a TV show I look at different things and I've had lot of focus groups. Our show is very guy heavy, and it hit me one day and I was just really like almost upset—I haven't had a lot of female artists on the show. A lot of the celebrity drops I use are the guys, and it's because it's been my experience that, you know, you talk about most networks—and even when I used to work in radio—it's like, "What's your target demographic? 18 to 34 female." It's always the same damn thing, but females don't necessarily gravitate to females. So if we're the buying power...

CinemATL (LW): That's what's so funny about music—you just keep seeing women in the music videos and it's like, who wants to look at that? Do women want to look at other women in these videos?

Lisa: No, I think the perception is that this man is "the" man, and in order to be "the" man he has to have the supporting cast of all of these women, so it's about validating him. And so the girl who watches is like "Wow, that guy, he's cool, because he's got all the girls."

CinemATL (LW): He's validated.

Mary: Yeah.

Lisa: It's very sick, it's weird, and when I just woke up and saw that one day I was like "Why am I perpetuating this foolishness?"

CinemATL (LW): You need validation?

Lisa: I told Jilene [Coggins, show creator and executive producer of The Envy Life] last week, "Get India Irie on the phone"—I felt so cheesy saying it like I was out in LA or something like that—"we don't have enough women on the show!" So Jilene calls India Irie and we're getting ready to put her on the show. But that's just sick, really.

Jen: As a female writer, when I look at the writers on feature films and Saturday Night Live...there's so few female writers, and who better to write for a female than a female. So I feel it's part of my job as a writer in any script that I'm working on is to create real and memorable female characters.

Lisa: Right.

Jen: And so I just encourage other women out there to actually write, and write for women.

Lisa: Right, right.

Mary: It actually worked to my advantage in one instance, because the guys over at Cartoon Network that do voice over stuff for a couple of the Adult Swim shows, they admittedly say, "You're the only girl we know! We don't know any other girls." Or, "We don't really have much written for her, because we can't write for girls...so make something up!" So they've actually let me create a lot of the, not so much the story line, but they'll let me go and somewhat create the thing, and I'm like, "Okay, hmm...maybe it's not such a bad thing (laughing)."

Lisa: So it's just more about people's comfort zone and relationships...is it just that simple?

Jen: I don't know exactly why but when you look at Hollywood, all the male actors are paid more, the female actors are always sort of below...and they don't bring in the box office either.

Lisa: That's my point, though!

Jen: It's like women don't go and support other women.

Lisa: That's my point. So it's a Catch 22?

Jen: Yeah! It's hard to find, other than Julia Roberts, it's just a few, a handful of women that command the same salary as a male and a lot of that is because of the box office, So I don't know the answer to it.

Lisa: But you still feel like we definitely have a responsibility, when we can infiltrate, to do quality work, so at least whatever image you're putting out there is gonna be something that you're proud of...but that's crazy, wow!

Mary: But female or male, just better roles; just better, more interesting characters, stories, everything. I just enjoy seeing honesty, male or female. One thing actually, the 40 Year Old Virgin that we were just joking about today...

Lisa Cunningham shares her opinion. (photo: Eric Bomba-Ire)

Lisa: Right.

Mary: It had so many funny girls in it...funny ladies, funny ladies.

Lisa: Gotcha

Mary: And I think a lot of it had to with the fact that it was improvised, they let them improvise a lot—they're probably a lot of improv background people, but, man, they got such good funny parts in it, and they let them go and they were as funny as any of the guy parts. Or funnier to me, but that was a surprise...not like Wedding Crashers.

CinemATL (MK): There's some funny women in that.

Mary: Uh, hmm.

CinemATL (MK): If you don't think Isla Fisher is funny, I don't know, but anyway (laughter). Speaking about acting and typecasting, is it easy to get typecast and, being in Atlanta, is it even that easier because it's such a small community?

Mary: I don't think I have been typecast yet, except that I get called in for a lot of mom stuff. They'll maybe call me back for something and [they're like], "Oh, I didn't you were weird like that (laughing)...that you could do it." So, no, it's a surprisingly a wide range of things for me, but I would imagine it's pretty easy to get typecast.

Jen: I think in the film world you have a little more leeway, but in commercials it's all about your look, and every once in a while you can show them something different and they'll be like, "Oh, yeah, let's go that direction." But more often than not, they want the mom look, and that's true I think anywhere.

CinemATL (LW): It's almost death by definition.

Jen: Right. Commercials...in the film world I think there's a little more leeway with the types. Often times I don't think they have a set picture of the person.

Continue to Part 3 >>

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photo by Merrill Brady/Primal Pi

Filmography Highlights

Lisa Cunningham
The Envy Life (producer)

Jen Kelley
Recharging the Batteries (writer/producer)
Vineyard (writer/producer)

Mary Kraft
Stomp! Shout! Scream! (actress)
Aqua Teen Hunger Force (voiceover)
Squidbillies (voiceover)
Return of the Jackalope (actress)
Aliens Among Us (writer/actress)

More Features:

• Cover Story: Triple Threat
• Establishing Shot: Kirkwood
• The Insider's Scoop: D.P.

On Set Reports:
• Blood Car
• The Signal