Features
Orange is the New Black Doesn’t Have to Apologize for Not Including Men
Orange is the New Black is a show about women, by women, based on the real experiences of one woman. It’s not perfect, but it’s good. In fact, it’s really, really good! It prominently features...
Six Reasons to See Tammy This Weekend
Tammy, the new comedy co-written by and starring Melissa McCarthy, opens today. Sadly, the film is not getting great reviews — at the time of posting, it’s at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. I may...
July 2014 Film Preview
As was the case in June, July offers lean pickings as far as major women-centric releases are concerned. Tammy, co-written and produced by Melissa McCarthy, whose star has been on the ascent since...
Jessica Williams is Leaving “The Daily Show” After Raising Its Game
Jessica Williams: “The Daily Show” Your favorite “Daily Show” correspondent is leaving the late-night program. Entertainment Weekly has revealed that Jessica Williams’ last episode will be...
Jessica Williams: Raising The Daily Show’s Game
Keira Knightley Explains Why She Enjoys Working With Female Directors
Keira Knightley is perhaps most recognized for her period collaborations with director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Anna Karenina), but she’d like to be known for something else as...
Out in the Night Traces an Attempt to Seek Justice for Queer Women of Color
In Newark, New Jersey, in May 2003, 19-year-old butch lesbian Sakia Gunn was stabbed to death after she politely turned down a sexual advance by an unknown man by telling him that she was a...
Review: The Lost Women of The Leftovers
I’ll say this for The Leftovers: it is equal-opportunity sad. Men, women, children: there is enough existential despair in HBO’s new drama to go around, and then some. Damon Lindelof’s...
Why Maleficent is the Rape Revenge Film That We Need
Warning: Lots of Maleficent spoilers ahead.Not since I Spit on Your Grave have I seen such an intrepid and compelling rape-revenge film. I am talking, of course, about Disney’s Maleficent, the...
Will 2014 Be a Breakthrough Year for Women Directors at the Academy Awards?
From my latest Forbes post on the potentially record-breaking awards season to come: “I know it is overly optimistic and a tad delusional to think that women could get two nominations for best...
Weekly Update for June 20: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs (doc) — Directed by Grace Lee One of the most notable women in 20th-century American history gets her due...
Do Colorism Issues Threaten to Stain the Aaliyah Biopic?
After years of rumors, it’s official: Aaliyah is getting a biopic. Lifetime Original Movies announced on Monday that it will adapt Aaliyah: More Than a Woman by former Time music editor...
Will the Female-Driven Drama Chasing Life Dare to Get Real About Leukemia?
Cancer is having a definite pop-cultural moment, given The Fault in Our Stars’ recent trouncing of Tom Cruise at the box office. Lucky timing for Chasing Life, the new ABC Family drama that...
The Four Things I Learned on My Recent Trip to Hollywood
From my latest Forbes post on the four things I learned on my recent trip to Hollywood: People are talking and looking for ways to make in roads all across the business. From what I’ve noticed,...
Weekly Update for June 13: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening I Am I — Written and Directed by Jocelyn Towne Here’s something you don’t see much in Hollywood: a completely original premise. In her writing and directing...
Guest Post: Notes from the Field: The Importance of Female Collaboration
This past Saturday, the Film Fatales, a collective of women feature-film writers and directors, joined other New York City-based filmmaker collaboratives for a discussion hosted by the Brooklyn Film...
Guest Post: “Nan Goldin: I Remember Your Face” is About Turning the Camera on a Photographer
Afterworking for many years as a movie makeup artist for Tom Tykwer, Dani Levy andWim Wenders, I became used to getting very close to people, no matter howfamous, young or old. After my second child...
It’s the Little Things That Make OITNB One of the Best Shows on TV
Orange is the New Black is back, and its arrival seems to have elevated the term “binge-watching” to a new level. But when did binge-watching become de rigeur for showing appreciation for a...
Guest Post: What We Can Learn About Women in Hollywood from Amma Asante’s Belle
Have you seen the extraordinary new film Belle? Amma Asante’s latest project is not just a great work, but a testament tothe equal ability of women to direct great films. In fact, Belle...
Weekly Update for June 6: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Obvious Child — Written and Directed by Gillian Robespierre Obvious Child is the kind of movie that helped me remember why I love movies. I was laughing my ass off...
Crosspost: The Fault in Our Stars: Our Love Affair with Romance and Feminism
Pain demands to be felt. So goes one of the wise lines from John Green’s bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars. The line is prominently featured in the movie of the same title — and...
Lupita Nyong’o is Going to a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Earlier this week, it was announced that Lupita Nyong’o will be joining the cast of Star Wars: Episode VII. This is big news one of Hollywood’s biggest fantasy epics, which has been told...
In Praise of “Go Fuck Y’Self” Women: Lori Petty in Orange is the New Black
Orange is the New Black is back Friday, all 13 episodes of the second season will be miraculously available at 12:01 AM on Netflix. And what a return it is. I’ve only seen the first episode, and...
June 2014 Film Preview
With only one movie with a female protagonist opening wide, June will be a lean month for women at the multiplex, even by Hollywood standards. Despite not being a feminist, Shailene Woodley will...
Weekly Update for May 30: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
FilmsAbout Women Opening Maleficent– Written by Linda Woolverton We’veall been waiting a long time for Angelina Jolie to be back on the big screen.She’s devoted her time to many worthy...
Guest Post: Telling a Female Story with a (Nearly) All-Female Crew
“There is a special place inhell for women who don’t help other women.” — Madeleine Albright And even more so when itcomes to making movies. My first feature film, Emoticon 😉, tells...
Review: We Are the Best! is an Unapologetically Awesome (and Complex) Story of Female Friendship and Rebellion
Somegirls just don’t care about being pretty. That’sa truth that none of the kids around 13-year-old best friends Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin) can comprehend.The other girls...
Quote of the Day: Dakota Fanning
Former child-actor prodigy Dakota Fanning has gone from starring in films to critiquing them. The current NYU student, who’s a women’s studies major with an emphasis on studying “the portrayal...
Guest Post: The Film Fatales Inspire DIY Chapters
On Tuesday night, afull house of Independent Filmmaker Project members gathered at the Made in NY Media Center in downtownBrooklyn to meet the Film Fatales face-to-face. Earlier this month,...
The Other Women of Mad Men
In a recent Facebook discussion about the awful events of last weekend, and whether or not our sexist cultural landscape was to blame, I was reminded by a brilliant, feminist playwright friend of...
The Normal Heart and the Erasing of Women
The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer’s critically acclaimed play that was adapted for television in a film produced by HBO, is a dramatic archive of feeling about the profound atrocities of the AIDS...
Weekly Update for May 23: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Currently Playing The Immigrant Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return — Co-Written by Randi Barnes Mom’s Night Out — Co-Written by Andrea Gyertson Nasfell Stage...
Crosspost: GendRE & IMDb: An Open-Data Analysis of the Film Industry Gender Gap
This post was originally published on No Country for Young Women. Last week, during the annual OECD Forum, I had the pleasure of discovering a new, groundbreaking initiative by entrepreneur Elian...
Why Shonda Rhimes’ Upcoming Fall Drama Is Already a Hit
No network was scrutinized more in this month’s Upfronts than ABC, which, for the past three seasons, has ranked dead last among the big four networks for viewers under 50. The female-skewing ABC...
Crosspost: Stories About Women Dominate at Cannes, Even If Female Filmmakers Are Rare
This post was originally published at Awards Daily. In case you’ve been wondering why it’s so difficult to get movies about women made, you don’t have to look any further than 2014’s 67th...
Veep’s Selina Meyer and the Art of the Tantrum
“Temperament” is a word that’s been kicking around a lot over the last week in relation to women and the workplace. But let’s talk about the thing that’s really verboten for female bosses:...
Cannes Dispatch: Women Directors Panel Reveal It’s a Man’s World, Suggest Gender Quota
Not manytopics make people squirm more than gender-based quota systems, but afterhearing significant statistics about women in the film and televisionindustries, a somewhat ambivalent panel at...
Guest Post: Directing a Feature Film With Sword in Hand
Myfirst experience in “keiko,” or fight practice in kendo, the Japanese art ofsword play, was over 20 years ago. Confronted with an experienced player’s bamboo sword, I was taken aback by the...
Weekly Update for May 16: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening The Immigrant In James Gray’s The Immigrant, Ewa Cybulski (Marion Cotillard) and her sister sail to New York from their native Poland in search of a new start and the...
Guest Post: Bridging the Generational Gap Through Technology
In 2009, a documentary idea simply fell into my lap. My two younger sisters were in highschool when they decided to create a volunteer program called “Cyber-Seniors.” Inspiredby seeing our...
Guest Post: For Female Indie Filmmakers, The Woman-Child Wins: Obvious Child and Zero Motivation
As readers of Women & Hollywood, you’re fully aware of the bleak statistics concerning women working in the film industry, onscreen and behind-the-scenes. In spite of those incredible odds,...
The Unbelievable Privilege of Being a Male Director
To say this post is a long time coming would be an understatement. I’ve been thinking about it for months. But last night I was pushed over the edge so here we are. The line that women directors...
Louis CK’s “So Did the Fat Lady” Is Not The Last — Or The First — Word On Fat Women On TV
Louis CK is getting heaped with accolades for “So Did the Fat Lady,” the third episode of his current season of Louie, which aired Monday night. I get why: it is, in its way, a progressive move...
Reading Ellen Page’s Sexuality
“I am tired of hiding and I am tired of lying by omission” film star Ellen Page said, during her much celebrated coming out speech at an HRC event in Las Vegas on Valentine’s Day. “I...
Guest Post: “No One Would Ever Say That to Larry David”: Female Showrunners and the Hypocritical Critical Edge
It’s tough out there for female showrunners. Women and Hollywood has been documentingthis for years, and it remains true that the women working in these roles — incomedy and drama, on...
Weekly Update for May 9: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return — Co-Written by Randi Barnes Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return is a 3D-animated musical based on the adventure books by Roger...
Amy Schumer and the Women of Broad City: Paving the Way for a Female “Golden Age”
Recently, a lot has been made of the so-called Golden Age of Television and the question of is it or isn’t it one. I tend to nod off during those kinds of articles because they so often turn into...
Cartoon: The Trouble With Wonder Woman
Crossposted from Dorkly.
Why Leslie Jones’ Controversial Slavery Sketch on SNL Was So Important
On May 3rd, Leslie Jones made her debut on Saturday Night Live. Jones was one of the three black women that SNL hired in January in response to the criticism over the show’s lack of diversity, and...
Special Report: Women Directors at the Box Office in April 2014
The Aprilreleases directed by women were dominated by non-fiction, with elevendocumentaries to six features and one anthology film. The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, from married...
Weekly Update for May 2: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Belle — Directed by Amma Asante; Written byMisan Sagay There’s nothing quite like Belle onthe contemporary film scene — a luxurious period film and a sweet,...