Kristen Stewart Criticizes Hollywood for Falling Short on Women Filmmakers’ Rights After #MeToo
Kristen Stewart spoke out strongly on Tuesday at the Academy and Chanel’s Women’s Luncheon in Los Angeles.
The actress and director, whose first feature film “The Chronology of Water” is set to hit theaters next month, condemned Hollywood for not following through on promises made after the MeToo movement.
“In a post-MeToo moment, it seemed possible that stories made by and for women were finally getting their due, that we might be allowed or even encouraged to express ourselves and our shared experiences, all of our experiences without filter,” Stewart said, as reported by multiple sources.
She went on to highlight the struggles women face when telling stories that are “too dark, too taboo,” noting that such content often provokes rejection despite being true and important.
The actress also injected humor and honesty into her speech. “I am in a severe state of PMS today…But I relish being able to say that my nerves are close to the surface of my skin, and it is a great day for that,” she joked, earning laughter and applause from the audience.
Stewart didn’t hold back when discussing the ongoing inequality in Hollywood. “We can discuss wage gaps and taxes on tampons and measure [inequality] in lots of quantifiable ways, but the violence of silencing, it’s like we’re not even supposed to be angry. But I can eat this podium with a fork and f*c*i*g knife. I’m so angry,” she said, according to sources present at the event.
She stressed that women in the industry are still too few and often undervalued. “There are too few of us. We’re all here together now, and it seems like there’s a lot, Jesus Christ, there’s not. It’s not our fault. Sure, our business is in a state of emergency, man, and you know the last thing that I wanna do here is lose the celebration under a pile of p*s**d off rubble,” Stewart explained.
“We are allowed to be proud of ourselves and maybe to allow each other to reclaim the gratitude we’ve all become talented at performing and really taste it from the inside out.”
Throughout her seven-minute address, Stewart received several rounds of applause. She concluded with a strong message about the systemic issues women still face in Hollywood. “I am thankful to you. I am not grateful to a boys’ club business model that pretends to want to hang out with us while siphoning our resources and belittling our true perspectives. Let’s try and not be tokenized. Let’s start printing our own currency,” she urged.
Stewart’s remarks serve as a stark reminder that, while progress has been made since the MeToo movement, Hollywood still has a long way to go in supporting women filmmakers. Her words call for continued action and solidarity among women in the industry.
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