Written by, Eugenia Chung
One interesting thing I’ve noticed while briefly being in the film industry in Kyrgyzstan is, female actresses are tired of the “stereotypical beautiful nice woman role.” In fact, some of the well known up coming actresses all requests “Could you make a role that is more unique, out of the box, and unconventional?”
Photo Credit: Sam Barataliev
One of the most famous and nationally beloved actress also adored the idea of the film, but after much much dilemma, ended up declining a role we had for her because the character was too “normal.” She said, “I’m too tired of taking a role that is always the same type of personality. I want to take on something different.”
This took me to quite a surprise in two different ways.
One, I love love love how bold these actresses are to want to take a role that is more “shocking” and I love how they are tired of being the “perfect woman.” There’s something more organic, dynamic, and quite powerful in the way that they want to take on characters that give a totally different vibe and image into the culture.
Two, this shows me that many storytellers or writers of this field in this nation are still portraying women in a “picture perfect” and “ideal” way. There is still a very limited type of female characters created in the stories that fill this culture it seems. In a sense, it kind of resembles the underlying social gender roles or more so personalities women are expected to take on.
I’m not an expert at gender roles, nor am I anywhere near an expert in the film industry culture here in Kyrgyzstan, but from my little experience over the past 3 years... This was just an interesting note-to-self type of observation.
This also makes me question as well whether the female characters we have on our film are being portrayed dynamically… Are we adding on to the stereotype? Or are we in a way, bringing a more organic variety of personalities that actually represent the women in this country well? Something to keep note on for myself. I hope we're doing it well.
Just dumping my thoughts here to keep record of the little interesting things I encounter as we continue this project.