Glass Ceilings, Glendale & Girl Power in "First Time Female Director"
Glass Ceilings, Glendale & Girl Power in "First Time Female Director"
But like "Funny Haha" Girl Power not "Ew Cringe Yikes" Girl Power
This piece is part of the Tribeca 2023 coverage here on “I Care About…” //
First of all, I would like my reward in the form of tacos and cash for being right about the early aughts being back.
I’ve seen butterfly clips, Jojo is back in action, and I swear to God it feels like a Delia*s Catalog is about to show up in my fucking mailbox. The good part of all of this is that it’s not just in fashion and music — it’s in films too. Think about the silly but fantastic comedies that were coming out then. We had Wet Hot American Summer, Superbad, Napoleon Dynamite, Stepbrothers, and the list goes on of films that were so stupid but so funny. The thing is ‘tho…most of them had cismale dudes behind them. Like yeah, they are great but also I am a high key over comedy films being such a fucking boys club.
I heard about First Time Female Director during SXSW when I was doing research for my interview with Meg Stalter. I was scrolling on IMDB and Letterboxd — let’s be honest it was mostly Letterboxd — and saw she was in the cast for this film. There wasn’t a lot of info out about it at that point, but it had Chelsea Peretti credited as writer and director so I was like “Bitch eye ameth intrigued.”
It stars Peretti too! As Sam, A playwright at a theatre in Glendale who gets the opportunity to put on her show after replacing a male director who was accused of sexual misconduct. She isn’t entirely confident in her ability to perform and neither is her cast. We follow her from table read to opening night and it’s a funny mess the entire time.
This isn’t her first time as a writer, she’s done some episodes of Parks and Recreation — Amy Poehler is a producer on this film — and Kroll Show, BUT this is the first time she is directing.
Obviously one of the main themes in the film is about how women are treated versus dudes. A lot of dudes are trash and a lot of them get worse when they get into (unearned) positions of power. Oftentimes women are expected to do so much more when they have clawed to get into those same positions, while men get to do the bare minimum and cruise through multiple raises and promotions. The same thing happens to Sam, her cast treats her like shit but praises their old director and even miss him despite him being a garbage human being.
It also hits on Black women putting in double the work and still not getting the same opportunities as white women. Xosha “I’m hella talented, funny, and perfect” Roquemore kills her role as Star, a playwright & box office attendant at the theatre. The moments between Star and Sam are my favorite parts of the film but one specific one stands out.
Star is congratulating Sam on her new position and tells her how much she wants to do her own writing. Sam gives some {unsolicited} advice and tells her to just “Have fun with it!” INSERT MASSIVE EYE ROLL HERE. Sam then starts talking about a white woman’s favorite thing — glass ceilings — and how they have got to go.
Star then says “My glass ceiling is blocking me from getting up to yours so…” and I scrumpt the loudest scream I have scrumpt this Tribeca season ‘cos CORRECT. This hit kinda hard ‘cos as I have been looking for a new gig I have been hearing things from well-meaning white folks about how easy it’s going to be for me to find a new role somewhere. Yes, I am great at what I do and yes any place would be lucky to have me, but I’m still going to be working three times harder than any white queer looking for an editor role and that’s just simply the truth.
The film is witty, it’s smart, and some teenager is gonna find it 10 years from now and turn it into their personality. Mockumentaries are making a comeback and this generation of pop culture is chock full of them with Abbott Elementary, Theatre Camp, What We Do In the Shadows, and now First Time Female Director. They aren’t the easiest genre to make interesting or humourous, the slightest misstep and you can lose your audience to boredom, but this one managed to keep me in it the entire time.
Extras:
There are some folks in this film who I find annoying but I think it works for them in these particular roles.
It’s giving Waiting for Guffman without as many talking heads and that’s a good thing!
The videos are from yesterdays premiere of the film :)
The cameos in this film are INCREDIBLE!
Watching Blake Anderson in this movie made me wanna rewatch Workaholics which was quite the era for good ‘ole Shelli Nicole.