“The distribution model failed us. The people did not,” Mabry said. She also acknowledges Ava DuVernay, whose film distribution arm, Array, helped to get the film onto Netflix in 2015. That year Mabry also got her first television directing job (“Queen Sugar,” another DuVernay assist) and Mabry — much like Rees after “Pariah” was released — has worked steadily in Hollywood ever since.
There are signs of change. Mabry stated that she has four feature film projects currently in development at Hollywood studios. Some of these feature Black queer women protagonists.
Back when Robinson made her first feature, “D.E.B.S.,” a 2004 lesbian teen spy movie that has since become a cult classic, “there was still the attitude in town that if you played a lesbian, it could ruin your career,” she remembered.
After Nina Jacobson, then a Disney studio executive, saw “D.E.B.S.” at the Sundance Film Festival, she hired Robinson to direct “Herbie Reloaded,” starring Lindsay Lohan. Robinson became the first Black woman director with ticket sales exceeding $144 million to reach at least $100,000,000 at the box office. Robinson was not grateful to Jacobson or her crew for their help, but she felt isolated.
“It was me and 200 white men,” Robinson said.
That was when she pivoted to cable, accepting an offer from the showrunner Ilene Chaiken to direct episodes of the third season of “The L Word,” the groundbreaking show about the lives of high-powered lesbians in Los Angeles. Robinson hasn’t made another studio-backed film since. (Her 2017 feature “Professor Marston & the Wonder Women” was an indie.)
She now has an all-female action film in the works at Warner Bros. 15 years later. Her desire to cast women from color in the lead roles was met with enthusiasm, not pushback.
Source: NY Times