The Gender Casting Couch

Parminder Nagra in Bend it Like Beckham

She was introduced to us in a film about football, actually she was introduced to us - curiously eyebrowless - in The Bill I believe but Bend it Like Beckham was her big break. Since finding fame as a sporty tom boy Keira Knightley has slightly changed tack, going from be-corseted pirate princess to inaccurately portraying Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (not her fault - read the book, it's brilliant) with a break playing the totes historically accurate Guinevere in 2004's King Arthur. However in spite of a highly successful film career we are probably most familiar with Keira from various Chanel adverts, silently wearing beige leather and her signature pout. It is therefore surprising to see her publicly desiring more interesting and gritty female roles and criticising how men direct women in films.

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In an interview with the Sunday Times Culture magazine Keira discussed how from now on she would be avoiding period dramas due to the time spent getting dressed for the role taking up most of the production: "The bitch is the time spent getting ready...It was the practicality of life that made me think, after Anna Karenina, how this would be nicer if I got two hours more sleep a day."

Whatever, most women who appear in period dramas have gone on record talking about the huge amounts of time spent in discomfort on set due to wigs, corsets and massive skirts in order to achieve historical verisimilitude. Why is this interesting? 

It is interesting to see a woman reach a certain point in her career where she can publicly say 'no more' to a certain aspect of her career. But Keira doesn't just stop at rejecting films that require a corset. 

In the interview Keira also criticised male directors portrayal of women. When she works with women directors Keira believes she doesn't: "have to do this loveable, soft version of what the female sex has to be".

"When I watched The Godfather, I was Al Pacino. I wasn't his f****** wife."

Keira believes that female directed film "...allows men to understand women, as opposed to them being something pink and fluffy...There's a weird view of femininity we put into our culture that has nothing to do with the experience of being a woman."

When it comes to what she envisaged for herself in films as a kid it is interesting to see how Keira cast herself: "My friend was saying that she loved 1970s movies, and we both realised that’s because we see ourselves as the main guys in them...When I watched The Godfather, I was Al Pacino. I wasn't his f****** wife."

OF course Keira is fortunate that she's at a point where she can afford to say such things. However so are various other women in Hollywood and they choose not to. Much of this I think is the confidence that comes with both getting older and, for Keira, being steadily successful. 

Is it enough to just say these things? Perhaps not. Keira branded herself a "complete hypocrite" for saying these things whilst starring in high fashion adverts portraying the tiny, sexy, silent woman. 

Which means that Al Pacino role for women is still probably quite far away. 

Squeamish Kate