'Frozen' Director Hopes Movie Leads to More Women in Creative Leadership (Video)

For her, the bigger accomplishment is that she’s the first writer, not just at Disney but at any major animation house, to become a director. Most animation helmers tend to start as animators and story artists before working their way up the ranks and eventually being handed the reins to a feature. Lee, who has been with Disney’s animation division for a little more than two years, was working on 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph as a writer when she was drafted by Disney and Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter to work on Frozen’s script. Her vital contributions led to being upped to co-helmer alongside Buck, who directed Tarzan and Surf’s Up.

Jennifer Lee, Disney Animation's first female director, tells "CBS This Morning" that she hopes her film's more modern princesses will inspire a shift.

Frozen director Jennifer Lee became Disney Animation's first female director when she co-helmed the hit movie with Chris Buck. It's a change that she told CBS This Morning was long overdue and hopefully leads to more shifts in front of and behind the camera.

In fact, Frozen, which Lee also wrote, focuses on two female characters, a rarity among last year's top-grossing movies, in which women made up only 6 percent of directors, 10 percent of writers and 29 percent of major characters, according to a recent San Diego State University study. Lee is the first female director whose film has made more than $1 billion at the global box office.

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She told CBS This Morning that she hopes her success leads to a shift in the type of stories told and who tells them.

"What I've heard a lot in the industry is that it's boys that drive the moviegoing. And what I think we keep showing again and again is it's not that. It's everyone [that] drives it. And I think that gives us a greater opportunity to do more dynamic characters that are male and female," Lee said.

Lee noted that although the main characters in Frozen are princesses, they're more modern than Cinderella.



"These girls are very different from Cinderella," she said. "Their wants and goals and dreams are much more, I think, contemporary. And I think you'll keep seeing that shift."

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Lee added that she hopes her film also leads to more women in creative leadership positions.

"We need more women in creative leadership," she said, "We just do, so if it inspires anyone to say, 'Well, I can do that' or just casually think, 'There's no reason I can't,' I mean, then great, so let's keep talking about it until there's the day where we don't have to anymore."

Watch Lee's full CBS This Morning interview below.