Today's filmmaker for Female Filmmakers is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to directing TV shows. She has directed episodes of EVERYTHING and that is all because of one feature film that remains a cult class. Let's take a look at Jamie Babbit!
Jamie Babbit came from Cleveland where her mother worked in a treatment program for teens which would later inspire her debut feature film. We will get to that in a minute! She got involved in acting at the Cleveland Play House when she was a child, but she later found herself interested in working backstage. She went to college for West African Studies, but she spent her summer taking film classes in New York City during vacation. It was becoming clear what her true interest was!
When she graduated from Barnard College in 1993, she worked as an assistant to Martin Scorsese's assistant. She then interned on the film The Secret of Roan Inish where she worked with fellow aspiring female filmmakers Jasmine Kosovic and Karyn Kusama. That's great company to be in! All of these women make fantastic films.
She directed five episodes of MTV's saucy 1999 series Undressed which was all about the fictional sex lives of college students. This led beautifully to her feature film debut: But I'm a Cheerleader.
That's right! Her first film is the pivotal, gay, coming-of-age comedy But I'm a Cheerleader which stars Natasha Lyonne as a perfect preppy teen girl who does not seem to be turned on by her jock boyfriend. Her parents think that she is a lesbian, so they send her to a conversion camp. The film was inspired partially on her mother's work in a treatment center and on an article Babbit read about a gay man who was sent to a reparative therapy camp.
the film allegedly had an NC-17 rating at first and Babbit had to battle censors to get the rating down to an R. What's crazy about that is that there is ZERO nudity in the film...like, not even close. The girls swap spit, but their clothes remain very on. The film was a success and it became a cult classic on the DVD and video rental circuit. It has a cult following to this day that seems to only grow with time!
Her next film was a little-known thriller called The Quiet.The Quiet has had a quiet legacy, but the 2005 thriller actually has a lot of sexy scenes. Edie Falco even goes topless as she tries to seduce a man. The plot follows a deaf girl who is sent to live with her godparents and that is when she discovers family secrets that should have been kept hidden. The movie did well in theaters, but it was not critically acclaimed.
Her 2007 film, however, was closer in feeling to But I'm a Cheerleader.Itty Bitty Titty Committee was a comedy starring Melonie Diaz who joins a radical feminist group. While it was not critically well-received, it did win a jury prize at South by Southwest and it featured two topless lesbian makeout scenes. How sexy! How do we join the Itty Bitty Titty Committee?!
Melonie joins Clits in Action which forms awareness against plastic surgery and it also seems to promote awareness of girl-on-girl action. Melonie makes out toplessly with Nicole Vicius while Carly Pope and Daniela Sea get it on in their own scene. These ladies really are putting their Clits in Action!
Her film work died down in the 2010s because she directed so many TV shows. Malcolm in the Middle, Nip/Tuck,Gilmore Girls, Pretty Little Liars, United States of Tara, Drop Dead Diva, Married, Girls, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Silicon Valley among so many others. Wow, that's a lot of great TV work! She's a TV queen who has clearly made a name of herself doing that.
Most recently she worked with Natasha Lyonne again for three episodes of Russian Doll. She directed 6 episodes of Only Murders in the Building and we have A League of Their Own to look forward to from her. Yes, there's a new baseball series that is based on the movie - or rather, the true stories that the movie was based on! I have a feeling we will get a lot of sexy lesbian scenes in that series!
Jamie has two children with her former partner, Andrea Sperling, and she currently lives in Los Angeles where she is working just as hard to make us hard as she ever has. She has a resume that is truly worth boasting about and an exciting portfolio that makes me confidently call her the Queen of TV Directing. I think she's more than earned the title, don't you?
