In a shocking answer to Hollywood’s chronic lack of female auteurs, scientists have discovered a hidden colony of female directors living in a secluded cave in southwest Arkansas.
“There appeared to be at least 35-50 female directors living in the cave, although it was unclear if any of them were actually working,” said lead investigator John Prochett, founder of the Society of Perpetual Media Mysteries. “We’d heard female directors existed, but no one could ever find them.”
“This is a breakthrough discovery,” he added, “although it’s going to take a while to determine what the find actually means.”
Questions still exist about how the directors found their way to the cave, and what they were doing there. Some speculate that the females were simply fleeing a male-dominated industry that excluded them and instead handing essential opportunities to male directors, in spite of their box office failures or inexperience.
Others speculate that the female directors had been plotting to overthrow the existing Hollywood system, and would have stopped at nothing until they had cut off all hope for future movie franchises featuring only boobs, guns, and complex male leading characters.
Meanwhile, the mere discovery of the colony of female directors has rocked the Hollywood establishment.
“I’ve always heard that the female directors were out there, but nobody could ever prove it until now,” said a prominent Hollywood director with a beard, who asked that his name and likeness not be used. “Now I guess they just need to prove that they have anything interesting to say.”
The female directors are currently in custody while their audacity to exist is being monitored by prominent media outlets.
Preliminary evidence from the she-cave reveals that at least some of the female directors had been trying to scrape together funds to shoot a ten-minute short featuring a middle-aged female protagonist, suggesting that there may be another cave nearby housing a secret colony of middle-aged female actresses.
“Maybe we should pair them with established male directors to make sure their stories come out right,” said one Hollywood director. “But any misstep at this point could mean that none of the female directors ever get a movie made ever again.”
Protchett is still in disbelief at his find. “I never expected to stumble upon something of this magnitude. Now we have to figure out what these women want.”
