BY Women and Hollywood
Beyonce Caps a Banner Year for Pop Feminism
It’s been a great year for female empowerment in pop. Madonna and Lady Gaga became music’s top earners, Top 40 hosted ballads and art-dance songs about female strength, former riot grrrl...
Infographic: Women and Hollywood — Better Luck Next Year…Or Next Decade
Change is the keyword in Hollywood these days. A globalizing marketplace, the exportation of work from Los Angeles to every other corner of the world, the replacement of celluloid by digital, and the...
Infographic: Women and Hollywood – Better Luck Next Year…Or Next Decade
Change is the keyword in Hollywood these days. A globalizing marketplace, the exportation of work from Los Angeles to every other corner of the world, the replacement of celluloid by digital,...
Weekly Update for December 13: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Saving Mr. Banks — Written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith A perfectly cast Emma Thompson plays Mary Poppins writer P.L. Travers, who is locked in a epic, 20-year...
Crosspost: Heroines of Cinema: An A to Z of Women in Film in 2013
It’s at times like these that twenty-six letters seems awfully few. Not that this list is intended as an encyclopedia. Instead, please see it as a mere sample of the films worth seeing, the...
TV: New Black Comedienne to Join SNL (Finally)
Public protests from castmembers, widespread media scrutiny, and the existence of many talented black comediennes have finally convinced longtime SNL producer Lorne Michaels to add an...
EDA Awards Honor Women Directors and Writers, Names Actresses Who Need New Agents
The Alliance of Women Film Journalists, in which our own Melissa Silverstein is a member, has announced their Best-of-2013 list. The big takeaway? Female critics have more or less the same tastes as...
The Big O: Can a Woman Win an Oscar Without Falling in Love?
Ifthere’s a lesson to be learned from likely multiple-Oscar nominee Saving Mr. Banks — other than, grammatically speaking, the climatic Mary Poppins song “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” should...
Geena Davis: “We Are Enculturating Kids to See Women and Girls as Not Taking Up Half the Space”
Geena Davis wrote a must-read essay for The Hollywood Reporter’s “Women in Entertainment Power 100” issue, in which she notes that women and girls only make up 17% of all film characters over...
Forbes Releases Top-Earning Women in Music List
Madonna didn’t become the Material Girl for nothing. At 55, she’s still going strong — and making bank. After her last album, “MDNA,” debuted at the top of the pop charts, Madonna...
The Crash Reel Director Lucy Walker on Snowboarding and Simone de Beauvoir
British director Lucy Walker is best-known for her Oscar-nominated film Waste Land, a profile of artist Vik Muniz’s work with Brazilian catadores, or workers who collect recyclables from...
Golden Globe Noms Reflect the Status Quo of Hollywood Sexism
The 2014 Golden Globe Awards have us excited about Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s return to hosting duties and… that’s about it. With no women directors (minus Frozen co-helmer Jennifer Lee) or...
Quote of the Day: Manohla Dargis: “The Movie Industry is Failing Women”
There’s a sadly routine, but still important article, in Variety today about the lack of women-directed films this award season. Only two narrative features are being discussed at all, Nicole...
TV: Why You Should Watch Nashville
The ratings for Nashville, ABC’s drama about the personal and professional tribulations of artists on all rungs of the career ladder in the titular city’s country music scene, aren’t exactly...
THR Releases “2013 Women in Entertainment Power 100” List
The Hollywood Reporter released its annual “Women in Entertainment Power 100” ranking, which the publication described as a reflection of “a TV industry in flux, ongoing volatility at the film...
Death Walks in High Heels: The Silent Avenger of Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45
In recent years there has been a surge of renewedappreciation for the rape-revenge film and, surprisingly, most of thesechampions have been women. The genre was validated to some extent (albeit...
Ava DuVernay to be Honored by Adrienne Shelly Foundation
Ava DuVernay will receive the Adrienne Shelly Foundation’s Third Annual Woman of Vision Salute. Named after actress and filmmaker Adrienne Shelly, the non-profit organization helps support women...
When Does a Fluke Officially Become a Trend?
My latest piece from Forbes: The big news last week was rightfully the passage of a towering figure in history, Nelson Mandela. So it’s not surprising that most people — including...
Trailer Watch: The Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending
The Wachowski siblings are back with a new film, Jupiter Ascending, that looks much more conventional in form than their last project, the time-shifting Cloud Atlas. Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones,...
Melissa Leo Steps Up to Fund Women Screenwriters
Actress Melissa Leo has already proven her awesomeness in The Fighter, Frozen River, and one very special, very scary episode of Louie. (If you’ve seen it, you definitely know which one I’m...
Few Women-Directed Films to Premiere at Sundance
A disappointingly few number of women-directed narrative and nonfiction features will debut at Sundance. Only three women filmmakers from a total of sixteen will enjoy the prestige that comes with...
Bette Midler to Play Mae West in HBO Film
HBO bucked the general biopic trend of focusing on a subject’s early struggles this year with Behind the Candelabra, which explored the last years of Liberace’s life. Now the studio will do the...
Women-Centric TV Shows Dominate WGAs
If the so-called Golden Age of Television — a cultural epoch that deconstructed traditional masculinity while reveling in violence and guilt (The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad...
RogerEbert.com Devoting This Week to Women Critics
Gender gaps don’t just plague the film industry, but the field of film criticism too. As we reported earlier this year, the numbers are pretty dire: The study took a look at the 2,000 reviews...
Sherri Lansing, Keri Putnam, Callie Khouri, Kasi Lemmons to be Honored at Athena FF
The Fourth Annual Athena Film Festival will present former Paramount and 20th Century Fox chief Sherry Lansing with the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as salute Sundance Executive...
Rashida Jones Speaks Out Against the “Pornification” of the Music Industry
Near nudity is the new normal. The race to the skimpiest bottoms among female pop stars (and video vixens in the background) arguably began in the eighties, when Madonna writhed around on a MTV VMA...
Awards Roundup: Europe, Boston, LA, NY Online, British Indies, and IDAs
The first major award weekend yielded honors for directors Susanne Bier (Love is All You Need), Haifaa al-Mansour (Wadjda), Sarah Polley (Stories We Tell), Jehane Noujaim (The Square). Results from...
Trailer Watch: Mia Wasikowska Seeks Adventure and Meaning in ‘Tracks’
Few actresses can get me as instantly excited about a film as Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska. I’ll see almost anything she’s in, though I’ll admit to being turned off her...
Happy Friday: Listen and Watch Idina Menzel Sing the Hell Out of Let it Go
If you haven’t seen Frozen yet and you needed something to tip you towards the theatre, Disney has released the most powerful sequence and centerpiece of the film — Idina Menzel as Elsa...
Judy Blume and Lena Dunham on What It’s Like to be Pioneers in Sexual Frankness
Lena Dunham and Judy Blume interviewed each other for a book called Judy Blume and Lena Dunham in Conversation: Two Cultural Icons Discuss Writing, Feminism, Censorship, Sex, and a Sixth-Grade...
Weekly Update for December 6: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Expecting — Written and Directed by Jessie McCormack After years of struggling to conceive with her husband, Lizzie (Radha Mitchell) has given up hope of having a...
A Look Back at November’s Women-Directed Movies
Frozenhad already made history when it opened on November 22 for an exclusive 5-dayrun at El Capitan, Disney’s restored movie palace in Hollywood. ScreenwriterJennifer Lee directed Frozen...
Sarah Polley, Wadjda director Haifaa al-Mansour Among National Board of Review’s Best-of-Year Picks
Directors Sarah Polley (Stories We Tell) and Haifaa al-Mansour (Wadjda) and actress Adele Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color) were the only awardees among the National Board of Review’s...
Wonder Woman Casting Suggests Hollywood’s Never Giving Diana Prince Her Own Movie
I don’t want to see a Wonder Woman movie, but I desperately want one to exist. As a child of the eighties and nineties who grew up on TV rather than comic books and only knew Lynda Carter from...
We Are Mis-Represented
Great video from the folks at The Representation Project proving that there is still so much work to do. Here’s to a world with better media representation of women. It’s what we all need. Way...
Sundance US Competition List a Disappointing Tumble from Last Year’s Equality Benchmark
At last year’s Sundance Festival, the future looked rosy, with half of all U.S. narrative features and documentaries in the Park City lineup coming from female filmmakers. It was a promising...
Hillary Clinton Biopic in Talks to Shoot Next Year
It’s hard to believe any bio of Hillary Clinton could have more flair or be more inspirational than the one the former Secretary of State wrote for her Twitter account: “Wife, mom, lawyer, women...
Director Anna Condo: “Cosmetic Surgery is Ruining Cinema”
Casting is key. Without great characters, there can be no great story. And without great actresses, there can be no great films. I remember clearly the day I watched an actress “act.” Icould...
Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers to Receive DGA Diversity Award
Sometimes it feels like Women and Hollywood is really just a Shonda Rhimes fan club in disguise, but we can’t help getting excited everytime the Scandal creator is recognized for being the force...
Sarah Polley, Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lawrence Are NYFCC Picks
The New York Film Critics Circle released their best-of list yesterday, and director Sarah Polley was the sole female awardee in a non-acting category. Polley’s meta-memoir Stories We Tell was the...
Five Women Directors Make the Documentary Oscar Shortlist
Once again, the Oscar documentary shortlist for the 2014 ceremony, announced yesterday, is an idiosyncratic mix of crowd favorites and obscure titles. Women directors were behind the camera on five...
Chicken & Egg Pictures Helped Fund 23 Documentaries by Women Directors This Year
Chicken & Egg Pictures, the “only nonprofit film fund devoted solely to supporting women documentary directors,” announced last week that it would help support 23 nonfiction features...
Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch: A Glimpse of the Future We’re Fighting for
Not too long ago, it seemed as though Variety had never heard of a woman director other than Nicole Holofcener. But its “10 Directors to Watch” list for 2013 gives female filmmakers a much...
Gotham Shows Brie Larson Some Love for ‘Short Term 12’
Brie Larson won the IFP Gotham Awards’ Best Actress Prize for her luminous performance in the social-work drama Short Term 12, beating out seeming front-runner Cate Blanchett as a modern-day...
Clio Barnard Only Sight & Sound-Approved Woman Director
Director Clio Barnard must be tired of collecting awards by now. Here’s another for her scrapbook: her debut narrative feature, The Selfish Giant, landed on film magazine Sight & Sound’s...
Nikki Finke Gets the Last “Toldja” in Funny or Die video
When Nikki Finke started writing Deadline back in the days of the writers strike it was a revelation. Here was a woman pushing the envelope all across Hollywood — agitating and...
Why Big Weekend For Frozen And Catching Fire Is A Great Thing For Women In Hollywood
Latest piece for Forbes This past weekend was a record breaker at the box office for films starring female characters. Catching Fire from Lionsgate continued its march towards being one of the top...
Why is Everyone Pointing at Me?
2008 was a watershed year for me. I was nominated for my eleventh Emmy — for a composition I had created in three days for a science-fiction show. But what was most remarkable to me about the...
Women and Hollywood December 2013 Film Preview
With the exception of big showcases for Oscar favorites like Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts (August: Osage County) and Emma Thompson (Saving Mr. Banks), December looks to be an anemic...
Teen Heroines Kick Box-Office Ass During Holiday Weekend
Move along, Black Friday. Thanksgiving weekend belonged to Katniss Everdeen and Frozen’s Anna, who helped propel female heroines to the top of the box office. Not only did The Hunger Games:...
A Frozen/Fire Holiday Weekly Update for November 27: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Frozen — Co-Directed and Written by Jennifer Lee: I was hugely surprised by how much I loved Frozen, which is written and co-directed by Jennifer Lee. It is about...