Television
Emily Spivey Signs Deal with 20th Century Fox TV
Emily Spivey has signed a two year overall deal with 20th Century Fox Television. Spivey recently left the NBC sitcom, Up All Night, which she created. The ongoing mess, of Up All Night continues...
Barbara Hall Joining Homeland as Co-Executive Producer
Homeland showrunner Alex Gansa has picked the woman (hopefully she won't be the only woman) to replace Meredith Stiehm who last year was the lone woman writer on staff. Stiehm left to work on...
Alexandra Wallace Becomes First Woman in Charge of the Today Show
Alexandra Wallace, senior vice president of NBC News, was just announced as the new executive in charge of the Today show. At a whopping four hours, the program is one of the most profitable of...
Mila Kunis to Executive Produce Feminist TV Drama for The CW
Mila Kunis will be executive producing a drama for The CW on feminism! The headline from the Hollywood Reporter “Mila Kunis to Exec Produce Women’s Lib Drama for CW” piqued our interest since...
TV Trailer Watch: The Carrie Diaries — Starring AnnaSophia Robb
The CW recently released the trailer for their prequel series to Sex and the City, The Carrie Diaries. The show follows Carrie Bradshaw (AnnaSophia Robb) in high school, right after she’s lost her...
This is What You Don’t Want When Releasing a New Product
Go Ellen h/t Upworthy
Academy Award Winning Writer Callie Khouri Slams Movies About Women As Relegated to Trash Heap
Callie Khouri gave the movie business a lot of years of her life. It’s been an up and down relationship. The up — winning an Academy Award for writing Thelma and Louise. The...
Jane Fonda to Star in ABC Comedy Now What?
As reported by Deadline, Jane Fonda will be starring in her first series ever for ABC. After a guest spot on HBO’s Newsroom this season, Fonda is attached to star in ABC’s comedy Now What?...
Women Created and Centric TV Roundup
In women and television news, some more promising deals have been cropping up from NBC, The Hallmark Channel and MTV. NBC has picked up a drama from 9 To 5 writer, Patricia Resnick. Loosely...
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to Co-Host Golden Globe Awards
In contrast to the Oscars which went with Seth MacFarlane as its host, The Golden Globes went for peak vagina by announcing that Amy Poehler and Tina Fey will be hosting their 70th anniversary show...
Woman to Watch: Issa Rae — Creator and Star of The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
Issa Rae, 27, is beginning to make her mark in Hollywood. She recently sold with Shonda Rhimes a half hour comedy to ABC, I Hate L.A. Dudes, which is about a journalist who moves to Los Angeles to...
14 Women are in The Hollywood Reporter’s Top 50 Showrunners of 2012
The Hollywood Reporter recently named their Top 50 Showrunners of 2012 for both comedy and drama. 14 of the 50 showrunners named were women. And women made up 4 of the 11 on the Showrunners to Watch...
Lena Dunham Gets A Big, Big Book Deal
Current megastar Lena Dunham is smartly trading on her success and wide name recognition and sold her first book, a book of advice to young women, entitled Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells...
Must Watch: Nashville-Created by Callie Khouri
For me Connie Britton can do no wrong. She was phenomenal as one of my all-time favorite TV characters, Tami Taylor in Friday Night Lights, and on top of that she’s an outspoken advocate for...
Anne Hathaway to Star in Mindy Kaling’s The Low Self-Esteem of Lizzie Gillespie
Mindy Kaling’s Black List script The Low Self-Esteem of Lizzie Gillespie now has Anne Hathaway attached to star. Co-written with Kaling’s former The Office co-worker Brent Forrester, Gillespie...
Guest Post: Hollywood’s Dirty Little Secret
According to the latest “Boxed In” report compiled by Dr. Martha M. Lauzen, Executive Director at The Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, released...
The Best Quotes from Tina Fey’s Entertainment Weekly Interview
I believe that we have all come to a group consensus that Tina Fey is the best. As we reported last week, NBC feels the same about Fey. And so does Entertainment Weekly! In the current issue, Fey...
PBS To Air 6 Women Focused Documentaries for Women and Girls Lead Campaign
The second part of Half the Sky aired last night on PBS — which marked the start of the Women and Girls Lead Campaign. This campaign focuses on programming that brings attention to the issues...
Must Watch — Half the Sky — Turning Oppression Into Opportunity
Forty plus years into the modern women’s movement there are still undeniable atrocities happening to girls and women throughout the world. For centuries these atrocities have gone on as part of...
Men Directed 85% of TV Shows Last Season
Here’s a sucky statistic brought to you by the Director’s Guild of America: men directed 85% of all TV episodes last season. These stats include all network and cable scripted TV...
TV Pilot News: Malin Akerman to be ‘Trophy Wife’; Ilene Chaiken to CBS
Malin Akerman will be starring in Trophy Wife written and executive produced by Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins. As Deadline had reported, Trophy Wife received a cast-contingent pilot order earlier...
Tina Fey Covers EW and Signs a Four Year Deal with Universal TV
As the sun sets on her series 30 Rock starting next week with a slew of special guests including Amy Sedaris and Catherine O’Hara, Tina Fey takes a look back at the show and her movie career in an...
The Male Dominated Emmy Awards
Last week we posted a piece about the research that showed that women created 26% of the TV shows during the 2011–2012 season. But, based on the lack of women visible onstage at last night’s...
Guest Post: 2012–2013 Fall TV Created by Women
Fall TV season has arrived. As we excitedly dive into a fresh season, what is the state of female participation in creative content? I gathered a list of new shows and looked at their creative...
Link Round Up: Multiple New Women-Created, Focused TV Projects in Development
Over the past couple days multiple networks (and Netflix) have been reporting about a slew of women-created and women-focused TV projects that are currently in development. As we reported today,...
Women Created 26 Percent of the Television Shows in the 2011–2012 Season
As we get ready to launch the new television season the statistics are out for how women fared last season behind the scenes in the TV business. According to the Center for Study of Women in...
What We’re Watching: Switched at Birth
The second season of ABC Family’s Switched at Birth returned recently and this is my pleading with you to watch it. Created by Lizzy Weiss and with a majority female writing staff, Switched at...
Today’s Lesson — You Can’t Please the Twihards
Today I learned an important lesson which I probably already should have known. The people who care about all things Twilight — the fans of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are intense....
Guest Post: A Fan Speaks — Kristen Stewart and Our Miserable Failure
The media stoning of Kristen Stewart, of Twilight fame, has been going on for about four weeks now. About a month ago, she was pictured having a fling, which she called a “momentary...
Cross-Post The Winning Weirdness of ‘Bunheads’: The Case for Amy Sherman-Palladino’s Charming Dramedy
When the news came down the transom a few days ago that “Bunheads,” the new show from “Gilmore Girls” creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, had received a back-order pickup for more episodes on ABC...
Mary McDonnell Takes the Lead in Major Crimes
While we were all obsessively watching the Olympics, one thing happened in TV land that didn’t get much note. A 60 year old woman took over as the lead on a TV show. Now techincally Major Crimes...
Note to Janice Min — Hey Pot, It’s the Kettle, You’re Black
This past Sunday the NY Times Style section featured a piece about the how hard the culture is on celebrity moms. The piece started out with a personal story by its author, Janice Min, (the...
Miley Cyrus Cuts Hair and the World Thinks She’s Gone Crazy
What is it about young Hollywood women and their hair? A couple of years ago I wrote a piece about the reaction to Emma Watson’s haircut that got page views for months and months. People were...
Guest Post: The Strong Women of Copper
BBC America is premiering its first original series Copper this week. The story follows Kevin Corcoran, an Irish-American boxer-turned-cop (played by Tom Weston-Jones) who returns to New York from...
Linda Bloodworth Thomason and Jodie Foster Take On New Directing Projects
Two new exciting female directed projects were announced yesterday. The first, from Designing Women creator, Linda Bloodworth Thomason is Bridegroom, a Kickstarter funded documentary, raising...
Our Unyielding Obsession with Jennifer Aniston
If you’ve been under a rock for the last couple of days I am here to inform you that we can all calm down now because Jennifer Aniston has finally gotten engaged. If you haven’t been under a...
Remembering Helen Gurley Brown: A Complicated Legacy
Like many feminists, I have some problems with Cosmopolitan. Growing up, it was always a kind of aspirational magazine to me. It seemed adult with its sexy headlines about sex with actresses and...
The Director of the “Greatest” Film of All Time Was A Sexual Harasser
Last week as the film world was celebrating the elevation of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo to the top of the once a decade Sight and Sound list of “Greatest Films of All Time”, the leading...
Guest Post: Should the Emmy Statue Get a Sex-Change?
Women are still going backwards and in high heels, but not in a good way. According to recent stats — women TV writers are losing ground. I just perused the Emmy website and counted only...
The Public Shaming of Kristen Stewart
Yesterday, the highest paid film actress, Kristen Stewart, — she of Twilight fame — released a very bizarre press release apologizing to her boyfriend and Twilight co-star Robert...
Political Animals Preview: The Woman Problem
This week’s episode is entitled “The Women Problem.” Vanessa Redgrave stars as a gay Supreme Court judge who is a mentor to Elaine Barrish. Have you been watching? Are you...
Remembering Sally Ride
So sad to hear about the loss of Sally Ride. She made many young girls believe that they too could go to space. Here’s some of the shit she had to go through when she first went to space. This is...
Approaching Peak Vagina: Lena Dunham and Amy Poehler Score Rare Female Double Emmy Writing Nominations
The Emmy nominations were released yesterday. There is a lot of good news to recognize most especially the fact that two women — Lean Dunham and Amy Poehler — were nominated for their...
Sofia Vergara Named Forbes Highest Paid Television Actress
Sofia Vergara is the top earning actress on television. Forbes estimated between May 2011-May 2012, the Modern Family star made $19 million, an amount stemming from her Modern Family salary,...
TV Fall Preview Trailer: The Mindy Project
Created by Mindy Kaling. I am so watching this show. Will be on Fox this fall. Fall TV Pilot Preview — The Mindy Project (Hollywood Reporter)
Great Piece at the Women’s Media Center: If Women Ran Hollywood
Here’s a piece from Dr. Martha Lauzen — the guru of Hollywood stats — that appeared on the Women’s Media Center site. She pulls a gender reverse on how Hollywood is run. Here are...
The 40 Women Who Changed Journalism
And the world over the last forty years. From the good folks at the Columbia Journalism Review. We owe our thanks to these trialblazers. Are there others you would have on this list? Jill...
Political Animals — A Reminder of What Could Have Been
Watching Political Animals with the amazing Sigourney Weaver in her TV series debut you can’t help but think back to the brutal and historic 2008 presidential election. No matter what the creators...
TV Trailer Watch: Steel Magnolias
A full cast of African American women in this version of Steel Magnolias. Queen Latifah takes on the Sally Field lead role. Also stars Alfre Woodard, Jill Scott, Phylicia and Condola Rashad and...
Fall TV Trailer Watch: Nashville Created by Callie Khouri
Finally Connie Britton is out front and center in this new show from Thelma and Louise writer Callie Khouri Fall TV Pilot Preview: ABC’s ‘Nashville’ (Hollywood Reporter)
Women and Hollywood Named One of the Top 100 Websites For Women by ForbesWoman
Check this out — for the second year — Women and Hollywood makes the cut of the top 100 website for women by the editors of ForbesWoman. This is what they have to say about Women and...