Research Seminar: ‘Visibility, invisibilities and hypervisibility of female professionals in the Dutch screen industry’

Based on research in collaboration with professional organizations I discuss how female screen professionals navigate challenges in their work through visibility, invisibility and hypervisibility.

LT G.12, Clothworkers Building North

My research focuses on the experiences and perspectives of female professionals in the Dutch screen industries. While the presence of specific demographic groups in film and television, qualitatively and quantitatively, is usually discussed in terms of representation, I use the concepts of visibility, invisibility and hypervisibility. Visibility means being seen and recognized. Invisibility means not being seen and recognized. Hypervisibility means some aspect of one’s identity is seen in extremis and other aspects are neglected, and is related to stereotyping (Buchanan and Settles 2019). These three are not mutually exclusive and may occur rather simultaneously (Settles et al. 2019). The three concepts provide an opportunity to discuss representation in more dynamic ways.

Based on six qualitative and quantitative research projects conducted in the past five years in close collaboration with professional organizations, I will discuss how female professionals have been made visible, invisible and hypervisible, but also how they visibilize, invisibilize and hypervisibilize themselves. They do this, for instance, through immasculation, which Margolis et al. (2015) describe as identifying with male ways of being and doing, and blokishness, which Topić (2023) describes as assuming masculine behaviour. I argue that visibility is a productive concept to understand how female screen professionals navigate gender related challenges in their profession.

Dr. Willemien Sanders is a researcher at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry and the department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, where she obtained her PhD with a thesis on documentary filmmaking and ethics. She has lectured at Utrecht University, University of Groningen, Free University (Amsterdam) and Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research interests include but are not limited to documentary film and non-fiction, and film and television production, with a focus on questions of ethics, production cultures, and gender. She has conducted research on independent production companies in the Netherlands as well as on digital storytelling with archive material and data. She is currently the researcher for the foundation Vrouwen in Beeld (Women in the Picture. Her recent research includes the experiences and perspectives of actresses and camerawomen, the representation of women in fiction, and the gender pay gap. She previously co-headed IAMCR’s Media Production Analysis working group and is now a member of its International Council. She is also an avid traveller.