On a lighter note (just so you all don’t think I am serious all the time) I’m on the BBC talking about how they are taking Friends off the air on Channel 4 in England after 16 years. They’re going to have to watch it on cable now.
Archive for the 'Press' Category
Here are two pieces about New Moon where Women & Hollywood was featured last week.
From CNN.com – Hey Hollywood, the Fangirls are Calling:
But successful female-centric films often are dismissed as flukes instead of viewed as trends, says Melissa Silverstein, a media consultant who also runs the Women & Hollywood blog.
Even though women are an important audience, they still are largely overlooked by studios, which want “the biggest bang for their buck,” says Silverstein.
She thinks “New Moon” has the potential to set records for a female franchise and could possibly unseat “Transformers” as the year’s biggest opening weekend.
But will it be a wake-up call for Hollywood?
“I can only wish,” she told CNN. Instead of dismissing it as a “Twilight” phenomenon, studios should look to it to build the next female-driven franchise, she says.
And on Salon- Could New Moon be a Feminist Triumph:
“New Moon finally give us an apple to apples comparison with other types of fan-driven films,” she told me in an e-mail. “The biggest films in Hollywood are the ones that come out of comic books, toys and books. Starting last year with ‘Sex and the City,’ ‘Mamma Mia’ (and both those can be dismissed because the targeted audience was older), but now with the two ‘Twilight’ films, it shows that female filmgoers can be as rabid in their fandom as male.” The question is, will the powers that be recognize young women as a robust market that’s been largely ignored and condescended to, or will they write it off as a limited phenomenon? “Studios should look at this as a golden opportunity and not a fluke!” writes Silverstein. But tapping into the passions of young female audiences means “working to try and uncover things that are bubbling in fandom and even trying to come up with exciting ideas to engage the audience,” not just waiting around for the next runaway bestseller.
Nevertheless, Silverstein is optimistic about “New Moon’s” potential to improve women’s lot in Hollywood across the board — as long as executives recognize its tremendous appeal as more than a fluke. “Hopefully, this success will infiltrate the minds of Hollywood number crunchers and seek out products for the female audience,” she says. “If people start thinking and making more movies that star women and are women driven, it can only help women at all levels of the business.”
Women & Hollywood has been in the news twice this weekend. Thought I’d share:
From Ann Hornaday at the Washington Post:
Women & Film: With female characters, why does Hollywood fear that the stronger they are, the harder they fail?
This state of affairs distresses Melissa Silverstein, who tracks women’s issues in the entertainment industry on her Web site Women & Hollywood. “One of the things making me nervous this fall is the box office of movies like ‘Jennifer’s Body’ and ‘Whip It,’ ” says Silverstein. “I call them ‘girl-power’ movies. They’re the movies I dream about for my feminist future. And the fact that people didn’t go to see those movies makes me want to weep.
“Figuring out how to reach women and young women is the challenge for this business. They don’t know how to do it well. Car companies have figured it out, yet Hollywood has not figured it out.”
The BBC World Service News Hour commenting on the lack of strong women leads (the segment starts at 36:40)
Two things I wanted to bring to your attention:
I am quoted in a piece on male stars and weight issues in the Irish Independent.
The Real Box Office Heavyweights
We have an expectation of the type of woman that we want to see on screen. We want them to be young, we want them to be really sexy,” said Melissa Silverstein, a blogger who specialises in women’s films. “As women age in Hollywood, they kind of disappear”.
“But [his weight gain] was not an issue,” said Silverstein. “Had Helen Mirren had six months off and gained 50 pounds … they never would have put her in that movie.”
Full piece here
I also want to give a big shout out to Lian Dolan one of radio’s Satellite Sisters who I connected with through Twitter. She wrote this post on her blog about why she went to see My Life in Ruins. Her post articulates exactly why I do what I do.
Here’s a quote from it but please read the whole post:
I only know ‘melsil’ through her Tweets and her blog, Women and Hollywood, but I have come to really respect her opinion. Her beat is the intersection of film and feminism. Sometimes, that is a lonely intersection! But Melissa always has something thought-provoking to say, encouraging me think about my entertainment choices in the same way I’m thinking about my food choices ( eat locally) or political choices. Thanks, melsil.
And when she Tweeted that we ( meaning ‘women’) should go see My Life in Ruins, I did what I was told. (After I read her compelling piece on the blog). I took some cold meds, bought myself some popcorn, and settled in with about 2 dozen other film goers at a Wednesday matinee.
Entertaining Lian: My Life in Ruins (Sisterspot)
Women & Hollywood is featured in Ellen Snortland’s column in the Pasadena Weekly.
I’ve been a fan of two women in particular who keep track of women and Hollywood. Melissa Silverstein publishes a weekly newsletter, “Women and Hollywood,” and blogs about the simply sorry statistics for females on and behind the screen (http://womenandhollywood.com/). I am also grateful for the intrepid work of Dr. Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for Study of Women in TV and Film at San Diego State University. Silverstein writes about Lauzen’s statistics, which are the stuff of employment horror for women.
Check out the full story.
Also, have you seen my piece on theatre for the Women’s Media Center?
A Theatre Season to Savor…With Caveats
As Broadway celebrates with the Tony Awards Sunday night, the nominations recognize some, but hardly all, of women’s great successes in theatre during the last year. The author analyses why an industry that is bucking the economic downturn continues to shortchange productions by and about women.
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