Behind the Scenes With Hollywood Stuntwoman Ann Coccagnia

Note to self: Stuntwomen are not to be messed with in the dark alley of gender inequity.

They will kick your keister to kingdom come for media coverage that buys into sexploitation and blow you away with unabashed candor and first person wisdom straight from the workplace trenches.

Meet Ann Coccagnia, Hollywood stunt woman, People magazine research pro, athlete, and real-life action hero. Ann is one of my “People Shaping Youth” interviews soon to come on the celebrity circuit, so consider this a “prequel” piece much like the one I wrote on Danica, ‘Selling Smarts’ prior to the full interview here.

As a child, my household ran like a “point-counterpoint” public radio show, so it’s no surprise that Ann Coccagnia’s pithy prose and forked tongue appeals to my sense of balance. Her incisive wit and intelligent observations are worthy of publication “as is” for she cuts to the heart of media’s portrayal of women in film and beyond.

Without further ado, here’s Ann’s unedited reply to my e-mail (with permission, of course) sounding off on media’s overt messaging to “be sexy” 24/7. Our next interview will expound upon how this relates to children’s behavioral cues, impacting society as a whole.

Hi Amy, Thanks for your follow-up. Attached is my headshot…

1) Beware, if you still want to interview me, I can be very incendiary…For example…

2) I completely disagree with Danica’s premise that we need to tell girls that math is “sexy.”

I’m so damn tired of being told that everything I do has to be “sexy.” Jeezus, it’s math.

What are girls going to be told next? “If you’re flossing your teeth, make sure to have your daisy dukes and full make-up on!?” Although I respect that the woman made some kind of effort, it still smacks of the grander problem.

3) In short, I’m pursuing a career in stunts and action acting. I have a journalism degree from the University of Florida (Go Gators!). I was a private investigator in the Sunshine state for some time until moving to Los Angeles (and the foremost reason I moved here was to escape the relentless “sunshine”). I parlayed my research skills into a day job running the research department at People Magazine in Los Angeles, while I market my stunt work…I also contribute articles to Inside Stunts Magazine, and my home is Venice, CA.

4) Working at a pop culture magazine and trying to break into the male-dominated stunt world (any field involving athletics tends to harbor patriarchy) I witness the full brunt of sexism non-stop.

Celebrity magazines and stunts…geez, how bad can it get for a woman? (although in each field, there are some wonderful individuals among the crowd, even though they often succumb to “group-think”…I’ll touch on that in a moment.)

5) My main “hot button” centers around the constant “disclaimer” placed on women who dare to play in the boys’ sandbox. I think the most horrible thing that we tell women, is that if you do anything “male” you need to make sure you maintain your “femininity” at all costs.

You show me a man who’s ever been pulled aside in one of Danica’s calculus classes or on a movie set or in a boxing ring and been told, “It’s okay, you know, if you do this, you’ll STILL be attractive. Really, it’s OKAY, Bobby.”

For once, I’d like to be given a gun and someone’s a__ to kick and not have to make an excuse about it…e.g. wear a tight leather outfit, bat my eyelashes while I’m doing it, or proclaim, “Gee, now that the bloodbath is over, I can’t wait to go shopping! You know, do some GIRL stuff.” (by the way, I haven’t done any of those things)

6) When I vocalize complaints about the above problem, invariably the comment that I hear the most is, “Well, sex sells.”

Sure, we all love sex and there’s a place for it. And I understand that if you’re going to be forced to look at movie actors for three hours straight, eye candy is nice. But I have two rebuttals: Why not sex up the men more for us?! Why not make a movie where all the women are competent and clothed and the men are scantily clad set decorations? That’s the way most movies are with the gender roles reversed. Give the female audiences a taste of it. I’m sick of everything being seen through male eyes. Why is it only the woman who needs to do all the “look at how hot I am” crap? Sexualize the men more for the female audience.

Or, let’s just take a break, shall we?

Let’s make a movie with a good, solid story, and a riveting plot with gripping action and trust me, the audience will not mind that every actor isn’t in a G-string (male and female).

EVERYTHING doesn’t need to be sexualized. Yes, I love sex, too, but Bruce Willis wasn’t in his underwear when he did the movie Die Hard and I still had a great time watching that flick. Men will watch women who aren’t hyper-sexualized if a believable woman is in a riveting “Die Hard” type of film.

7) Funny thing, I often find, when talking, individual-to-individual, many women, and some men, agree that sexism is pervasive in the industry (although many men don’t want to give up trying to force every women to be in a G-string for their movies. And gawd forbid they hyper-sexualized a man because that’s “gay.”) However, people only seem willing to talk about gender inequity, quietly, behind closed doors. When it comes time to speak up, I have yet to see anybody ask for change in public.

Everyone seems to sigh and say, “Well, that’s just the way it is, even though we disagree with it.”

That irresponsible acquiescence is something I’ve noticed about human beings in general; they always have the “system” to blame. Yup, the big, bad system, that WE make…The “system” is an unadulterated representation of the individual decisions that we all contribute.

Most people are just too scared to make a “scene.” In the end, it’s all about money...Don’t want to miss a paycheck…even if it means another woman has to look stupid and more girls get the message that they are simply objects of “consumption.”

6) Some examples of sexism that tick me off in Hollywood and the stunt industry:

• — Stuntmen most always refer to women as “baby”, “honey”, and “sugar” with the concomitant “good doggy” tone of voice. They never talk to other stuntmen that way.

• — I’ve been counseled to let people in the stunt community know I have a boyfriend so the women won’t think I’m out to sleep with their husbands and boyfriends (of course, in order to get jobs!) I’m sure men don’t receive that advice.

• — Stuntwomen tend to be very competitive and not supportive. Then again, sometimes I can’t blame them, because men do all the hiring, so why waste your time befriending a woman, I guess…

• — I get told time and time again to stay “skinny” so actresses will want me to double them.

• –I played on the stunt softball league in which a woman is allowed to NOT hit and just walk. I was told to just walk, not even attempt to hit. Of course, I hit! There are other stupid rules in the league that “pander” to poor little girls who can’t play. And on the field the men took many opportunities to NOT include the women in the plays, lest we foul it up. —I’m on the People Magazine softball team, currently, and in our last game, the pitcher threw a ball right to me to tag someone out at second and our shortstop cut me off to make the play. He had NO business taking that play from me, but he didn’t want to risk me trying to catch the ball. He later apologized.

• — When I’ve had my headshots taken, each time I try to explain to the photographer that I don’t want a “beauty” shot, I just want a waist up, basic, smiling headshot.—Without fail, each one always tries to talk me into positions that no man would ever do: turn around and sultrily look over your shoulder, lie down and rest your head on your hand, cock your head to the side and shrug your shoulders real “girlie.” Invariably, I get into an argument with the photographer, “No, I just said that I don’t want a “beauty” shot. Just photograph me, head-on with a big smile.”

• “But,” he’ll say, “don’t you want to look…SEXY!?” Ah, yes, our favorite word.

• People don’t even seem to know what to do with a woman if she doesn’t want to sex it up. They’re floored.

• One time, a number of years ago in Florida, a stock photographer asked if he could take some stock photos of our swim team. He tried so hard to get me to stick my butt out and lean over the starting block. That didn’t happen, and when I said no, he huffed that “sex sells.” Those were the EXACT words he used. Of course, none of the men were asked to look “hot.” They were only asked to look strong, powerful, and competent.

• — I’ve been asked to do completely unpadded stuntwork in lingerie, several times. And, ironically, sometimes it’s women offering me the work…sigh. I could go on.
  
• …But you probably have enough to go on for general questions for your article…

• Still want to interview me??? —Ann Coccagnia

Actually, yes, Ann, I do. Now more than ever…

Shaping Youth is all about using the power of media for positive change and if we don’t bring to light the aspects that NEED changed, our silence is part of the problem.

Complicity can come from inaction just as well as action. Seems the last thing kids need is to grow up trying squeeze themselves into some narrowcast role pre-determined by media…

Do we really need central casting to determine depictions of gender, race, sexuality, IQ, or appearance ideals to children?

As I’ve said many times before, media is defining children before they can define themselves.

Cues to be ‘sexy every second’ are just as misguided as the cues that “smart isn’t sexy or sexy isn’t smart.”

As Ann so aptly said, “let’s just take a break…EVERYTHING doesn’t need to be sexualized.”

Seems to me, both Ann and Danica manage to jolt us awake from “sleepwalking through stereotypes” and call attention to the media stupor that seeps into our soul by sheer volume.

Though they appear to be opposite sides of the same coin, I think they’re actually BOTH flipping the dialogue in new directions and are actually shining examples of change.

What do you think?

A few resources: on media/gender inequity:

This study “Now You See ‘Em, Now You Don’t: Gender & Racial disparity in TV for Children brings much of this research to the forefront.

Also see Common Sense Media’s blog on gender inequity (yours truly is in the author sidebar at left, also in commentary below, see ‘Shaping Youth’ re: GEPD stereotypes workshop). And a comprehensive study called Where the Girls Aren’t about gender and film that’s offline for awhile, but will no doubt post again soon. Stay tuned!

Visual Credit: BrandX Pictures