Rise of Reese Witherspoon: from pretty lady to boss lady of the Hollywood

This last decade saw a lot of change come for women. More and more women across the globe realised their potentials and took back their power. Saw them stand up for themselves when faced with injustice, create new opportunities for themselves when all seemed to have shrivelled up in this “man’s world” and most importantly share their stories, the stories that they wanted to hear, that they made, about the things that affected them.

Reese Witherspoon is one such driver of change. An exceptional woman, she has been involved in almost every major project that led to female empowerment. From spearheading Time’s Up movement to becoming an entrepreneurial icon as seen today, the actress does it all.

On being asked about Witherspoon, Meryl Streep told Vogue “On top of the acting and producing and the books and Draper James, she also carves the pumpkins! She raises three kids. She maintains friendships. I know what it’s like to be in this business and also raise kids. You remember that book I Don’t Know How She Does It? That’s Reese!”

But things weren’t always so smooth for her.

There came a time in her life when she felt the industry wasn’t churning out roles that portrayed the complexities of lives and emotions of women. Yet every actress in town badly wanted to do those shallow scripted roles, as no other kind were available. Frustrated with situation at the time, she told the NY times how a conversation with her husband sparked the idea of creating and funding the roles she wanted to do herself that led this go-getter shift in the industry.

“I talked to my husband around that time, when the movies weren’t working for me,” she recalled. “And he said, ‘Are these movies you want to be making?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m waiting for the scripts to come in.’ And he said: ‘You don’t seem like the kind of person who sits around and waits for the phone to ring. You read more books than anybody I know, so why don’t you start making them into your own material?’

“And I thought about my mom, who said, ‘If you want something done, do it yourself,’” Witherspoon continued. “You can sit there and complain about it, or you can do something about it. Instead of having people make calls for me, I called every studio head myself: ‘Hey, it’s Reese!’ I’ve known everybody for 27 years. They knew me when I was 14 years old, all of them. I’ve made movies at pretty much every studio. It’s still the same 200 people who are working in our business.”

This new-found insight led to her co-founding Pacific Standard, the production company which was behind the making of Gone Girl (2014), a movie that saw Rosamund Pike portray a complex, multi-layered and frankly a twisted character with immense depths to its personality.

And eventually develop the role of Cheryl Strayed in the movie Wild for Witherspoon, based on memoir book of same name that earned her Oscar nods. In a time when production houses were not so keen on investing in Film and TV made particularly from the point of view of the female kind.

And now with Hello Sunshine, her production company which she set up in collaboration with Otter Media in 2016. She has enabled many actresses than herself to live out their “once in a lifetime” role opportunity more than “once” and make it a real possibility for people work on their passion projects and have the confidence to invest in it themselves.

Her work in the show Big Little Lies for HBO network, based on the book by Liane Moriarty, was ground-breaking. It showed that the stories centred around a group of females exploring issues more than just catty fights and love life, has a demand in the market and if done rightly can be very rewarding, both monetary and creative satisfaction-wise. Putting their money where their faith was, leading actresses Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman also co-produced this show, solidifying their status of smart ambitious women who aren’t afraid to go after and create the projects they want.

And now Witherspoon is working to make her name in the hyper competitive world of streaming market with shows like The Morning Show for Apple TV. Based on CNN anchor Brian Stelter’s book Top of the Morning, the show just concluded its season finale with an explosive exposé that reflects the harsh realities of working in media industry. Its plot centred around the crucial #metoo movement and abuse in workplace and the toxic cycle of powerful perpetrators covering up the dirty deeds of abusive people.

The Morning Show launched Apple's entire prestige TV venture, the first all-original video subscription service, on November 1 with its reported $15-million-an-episode budget.

Also upcoming is miniseries Little Fires Everywhere adapted from Celeste Ng’s book with same name, due to release March 2020 on streaming platform Hulu. Staring Witherspoon along with Kerry Washington, who are also set to executive produce the show.

On asking how she found working on this project, Washington told E! News "I'm doing it with Reese Witherspoon. We're starring in it together, we produced it together," she stated. "I loved the book and I loved the show and I love her." at the 2020 Golden Globes.

Also in works, movie based on the novel The Gilded Years by Karin Tanabe, A White Lie is about the first black woman to attend Vassar College, in the 1890s. Zendaya, is set to star and co-produce the film with Witherspoon under the Hello Sunshine label.

What Witherspoon put to motion, first with her work with Pacific Standard and now with Hello Sunshine, led to the development of full-blown movement, with more and more leading ladies taking back the control and decision-making power over their fates.

Showing the world what all women can achieve when they believe in themselves and unite to work for their dreams. That women aren’t just side characters, to be lauded for their appearance or their ability to complement their male-counterparts while they do the heavy-lifting of advancing the story forward.

But much is left to achieve still. Now that plenty of works are done by women, about women – for general entertainment, recognition for their work still is a long battle to wage and win.

In the categories specific to females, like best actress or supporting actress, there is still plenty considerations made for female oriented cinematography. But when it comes to gender neutral categories like best directorial and best film/series, nomination let alone awarding the works of women is a rare thing to see still.

And the problem is not that their work is not up to the mark, so they aren’t winning the awards, the problem is that they are not even being recognised in the first place.

And even if they are nominated, odds usually are one female against four males, even though plenty of work done by women for the given awarding year had been hailed for recognition and showered with praise.

Commercial hit Wonder Woman (2017) directed by Patty Jenkins, was omitted from all categories at Golden Globes and also snubbed at the Oscars, including best picture, best director and best actress for Gal Gadot, despite grossing $821 million worldwide.

Whereas Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (2017) which was hailed as the perfect movie, the best-reviewed independent film of 2017 was also snubbed at the Globes same year for directorial work. Although Oscars did nominate Gerwig for best director with no win.

And this year, Gerwig’s Little Women (2019) with an A-list cast including Meryl Streep, Laura Dern, Emma Watson, Saoirse Ronan and a 95% fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating, was yet again overlooked by the HFPA at the Globes, receiving only one nomination for best actress.

Frozen II (2019), a film that broke the year’s top 5 titles at the box office, co-directed by Jennier Lee and Chris Buck was also failed to be recognised by the awarding committees for its directorial work.

And Hustlers (2019) directed by Lorene Scafaria, based on the true story of the lives of a group of stripers scamming wealthy Wall Street clientele to survive in the 2008’s economic collapse, also received no nomination for its direction.

(*Oscars nominations have not yet been released for year 2020 so that data have not been included)

Even Big Little Lies, production of Hello Sunshine, failed to recognise the talents and vision of its female director Andrea Arnold, who was called in to shoot and make the second season of the show and was made to work under the impression that she had creative control and was expected to see the show through until it aired last summer. But in time of editing and scene cuttings, decision making control shifted and was given back to season one’s director Jean-Marc Vallée. Which led to making a show dominated by some of the most powerful actresses in Hollywood with fiercely independent woman director hired to direct, now being forced to watch from the director’s chair as scenes were re-shot and edited in the style of her male predecessor.

Now that the bar has been raised by the works produced, presented and pushed forward by the boss lady of Hollywood, Reese Witherspoon, her next challenge lies in getting and giving the recognition her fellow female peers and herself deserves from the world. Bringing this shift might prove to be the hardest of challenges she and all these powerful representatives of women kind have to overcome. Yet it also has the potential of being one of the most uplifting challenge once succeeded.