‘An indie voice for a generation of women’?: Greta Gerwig, and female authorship post #Metoo

Abstract

ABSTRACT Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut Lady Bird (2017) hit screens during an extraordinary cultural moment in which stories of the abuse women suffer at the hands of powerful men were receiving unparalleled visibility. The #MeToo movement prompted the entertainment industry to reflect upon issues of diversity, equality, and women’s roles on and off screen. As a woman filmmaker on the press circuit at the time, Gerwig was symbolically recruited and operationalised as part of the #MeToo/Times Up project. This article examines the dominant discourses circulating around women filmmakers in a post #metoo landscape, using Gerwig as a case study. In so doing, it seeks to revaluate feminist theories of authorship during a supposed watershed moment for the industry. It argues that the spectre of the (masculine) auteur not only endures in post #MeToo film culture but has actually been emboldened by the movement to further ghettoise women in the film industry.