British actress Thandie Newton joined the crowds of people who protested violence against women yesterday as part of the One Billion Rising campaign. In an interview with CNN, she explained about her own experience of humiliation and exploitation during 'casting couch' style interviews she undertook as a teenager.
Newton said she was "definitely objectified to an extreme" as a 16-year-old due to the things she was expected to do in auditions. She told of one "horrific incident" as an 18-year-old where the director asked her to sit with her legs apart and the camera was positioned up her skirt during a screen test.
Newton said she was told to "put my leg over the arm of the chair, and think about [...] how it felt to be made love to by this person." It later emerged that the director played the interview video to other people in his personal time.
Newton went on to say that "we all need to recognise our part in trying to be aware" of sexism and exploitation. "It's really bizarre that violence against women isn't a number one priority," she said. One Billion Rising describes itself as a "global strike" and a "call to men and women to refuse to participate in the status quo until rape and rape culture ends." Comedian Ruby Wax and politician Yvette Cooper also joined the crowds in Westminster.
In 2011 filmmaker Susanna White (Parade's End, Generation Kill) led a campaign to help female directors achieve equality in television. White is part of Directors UK, a group which fights for directors's rights in the industry, which set up the Women's Working Group. In January, the group released an update on the group revealing statistics that showed that while 27 per cent of Director UK's members were women, an average nine per cent of episodes of drama series were directed by women in comparison to 91 per cent by men.
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