#Feminism
Emma Watson Takes Gender Equity Global & Will Star as Belle in New ‘Beauty and the Beast’
Emma Watson is making headlines for her work on and off the screen. The actress and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador has had quite a week: she announced a yearlong initiative, HeforShe’s IMPACT...
DGA Study: “Women and Minority Directors Face Significant Hiring Disadvantage at Entry Level”
The Directors Guild of America has revealed the results of a five-year study examining the gender and ethnic diversity of first-time directors on scripted series. In the five-year span from the...
A Look Back and Pushing Forward Towards 2015
As the year ends I want to thank everyone who is part of the Women and Hollywood community. As you can see we are more than just a website. We are a project made up of people who educate, advocate...
An Oscar-Nominated Director Gets Real About How Women Are Treated in Hollywood
Women and Hollywood is taking a break this week. Please enjoy one of our most popular posts of the year below. We will return with new features, editorials, and news stories on Monday, January 5....
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Terry Crews (VIDEO)
Quotes of the Day: Hilary Swank and Natalie Dormer on Girl Power, Feminism, and the Gender Pay Gap
Hilary Swank and Natalie Dormer are both promoting movies that focus on female protagonists, and nuanced ones at that — a rarity in the world of cinema. Swank and Dormer were drawn to their...
How Not to Do Gender or Racial Diversity: A Lesson from David Letterman
When David Letterman retires next year after 22 years on the air, one of the legacies he’ll leave behind is his contribution to the maintenance of late-night TV as one of the last bastions of...
Guest Post: Advice for Execs, Agency Owners, and Filmmakers Dealing with Agents Who “Don’t Do Women Directors”
So this happened this week: And I was not at all surprised. But I want to offer somesolutions. Because really, what’s the point of complaining about anything ifyou’re not going to try to solve...
The Renee Zellweger Hullabaloo: Faces, Bodies, Feminism, and Hollywood
From my latest Forbes post about the the media’s reaction to Renee Zellweger’s new look at Elle Magazine‘s annual event honoring women in Hollywood and what it says about feminism and aging in...
Crosspost: Romola Garai on Sexism in Film and Theater and Feeling Like a “Commodity”
Cross-posted with permission from The Interval. When we saw the announcement of Romola Garai’s casting in Indian Ink, we e-mailed The Roundabout right away — seriously, like within ten...
GamerGate: A War on Women Hiding Behind a Mask of “Ethics”
Being a woman in the gaming community is scary. For pointing out demeaning stereotypes of female characterswithin video games in a series of YouTube videos, feminist cultural critic AnitaSarkeesian...
Trailer Watch: ‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry’ Chronicles the Turmoil of the Women’s Movement
Feminist movements, then and now, have been largely ignored by the movies. Unlike, say, the civil-rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, which receives respectful remembrance in high-profile...
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: John Cusack
Hollywood has been kind to John Cusack, who steered his teen stardom into over six dozen acting credits. But the Say Anything icon, who appears in the industry-savaging Maps to the Stars (out early...
‘Key & Peele’s’ Lady Problem (And the Perils of Loving Comedy While Female)
Geena Davis Institute New Research Shows That Girls and Women Are Missing Onscreen and Behind the Scenes Worldwide
From my latest Forbes post on the Geena Davis Institute’s new findings on the state of film worldwide: Girls and women are missing. There are 2.24 male characters for every female character. Only...
Quote of the Day: Christina Hendricks: “There’s Sexual Harassment at Work Every Single Day” in Hollywood
A new interview with Christina Hendricks in The Guardian is making the rounds because of the (schadenfreude-tastic) revelation that the actress was dropped by her agency when she signed up to play...
Quotes of the Day: Zoe Saldana on Hollywood Sexism and Ageism
On the PR trail for Guardians of the Galaxy, Zoe Saldana, who plays the alien orphan Gamora in the Marvel movie, has been surprisingly open about the sexism and ageism she’s encountered in...
Emma Watson Takes it to the Next Level
Since graduating from the Harry Potter franchise and Brown University, Emma Watson has been carefully planning her transition from child to adult star. So far that’s meant playing teen characters...
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...
Mansplaining Away Hollywood Misogyny
This weekend, Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday took a much needed look at the correlation between Hollywood and violence. This is not the first time a critic has taken on the correlation between...
Emma Thompson on Her “Militant Feminist” Stand-Up Comedy Years
Emma Thompson is her usual, delightfully candid self in a new interview with Vanity Fair. Promoting The Love Punch — her new gray-haired, 99-percenters’ comedy with Pierce Brosnan, in which...
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...
Quote of the Day: Elle Fanning on Female Characters
In a recent interview for FASHION Magazine, the ultra-talented Elle Fanning discussed the limited roles available to women: There are still a lot of movies where women are dependent on the guy. We...
Quote of the Day: Jane Campion Acknowledges the “Inherent Sexism” of the Film Industry At Cannes
Jane Campion is Cannes Jury President this year, and she’s using her platform to speak out against sexism in the film industry. While Campion is known for being outspoken about gender inequity in...
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...
A Teachable Feminist Moment Courtesy of Shailene Woodley
Dear Shailene Woodley: I think you are a really talented young woman and I have enjoyed seeing you in several films and am actually very much looking forward to The Fault in Our Stars. But you kind...
Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott School Hollywood
When I started writing Women and Hollywood seven years ago sometimes I thought I was nuts. I would write about issues related to gender and films and there were times when I felt I was shooting my...
Ukraine is Not a Brothel Director Kitty Green Documents Where Feminism and Self-Objectification Meet
Ukraine is Not a Brothel is a portrait of Ukraine’s topless feminist sensation, Femen, which has stirred up a press frenzy across Europe. Outraged by the world’s image of Ukrainian women as...
Aaron Sorkin Mansplains Hollywood
This week writer Aaron Sorkin showed up at the Tribeca Film Festival and, in his typical way, gave us some nuggets to digest about how the privileged few in Hollywood regard the rest of us. This is...
Spotlight on Sexism: Hollywood’s Lighting Departments
We’ve already brought you the dismal numbers on female directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, editors, composers, production designers, sound designers, special...
Manohla Dargis on the Perks of Being a Male Director
Film critic Manohla Dargis continues her efforts to lay bare studio filmmaking’s institutional sexism. In her review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, published last week, she wrote in The...
Can Women Drive Studio Movie Decision Making?
Yesterday, Amanda Hess at Slate’s XX Factor blog published a piece titled “Women Buy Half of All Movie Tickets. That Won’t Mean More Female Characters.” She responds to a couple of Women and...
Jem and the Holograms Movie to Be Made Without Female Creator Christy Marx
Not being a child of the 80s the news that a live action movie was going to be out of the animated Hasbro series Jem and the Holograms passed me by yesterday. But I got an email this morning (thanks...
Guest Post: Pass the Bechdel Test — A Grassroots Campaign Aimed at the Film Industry
The marginalization of women at the movies hasn’t changed since the 1940s. That’s what Dr. Martha Lauzen’s latest research paper, “It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World” for the Center for...
In Honor of International Women’s Day: Here Are the Things You Can Do to Support Female Filmmakers and Female Films
This has been a big week for people paying attention to women and the film business. From Ellen DeGeneres pulling in great ratings for the Oscar show to Cate Blanchett using her Oscar win as a bully...
Gemma Arterton Headed to London Stage in Made in Dagenham Musical
Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace, Byzantium) is headed to London’s West End to star in a musical adaptation of Made in Dagenham, the 2010 British drama about 1960s seamstresses fighting for equal...
Suck It, Haters: Female-Led Films Make More Money
“Sorry, Cate Blanchett: ‘Films with women at the center’ don’t make money,” proclaims an embarrassing editorial by Marcus James Dixon at the Gold Derby today. Dixon was referring, of...
Study Finds Lead Actresses Get Less Screen Time Than Lead Actors
Pop Quiz: When is a lead actress not the center of her film? If you guessed “when she’s in Hollywood,” you’d be right. The New York TImes published a study of the “screen time gap”...
Sally Potter on the Cast Iron Ceiling for Women Directors
In preparation for a career retrospective next month at the Bradford International Film Festival and the publication of her book Naked Cinema, Sally Potter answered some questions for the Guardian...
Study: Female Movie Stars’ Paychecks Decrease Rapidly After Age 34
On the hit show New Girl, Zooey Deschanel’s character Jess is finally embarking on responsible adulthood. In real life, though, the perpetually youthful Deschanel apparently stands at the...
No Meaningful Change Over Time in Female Filmmaker Participation at the Sundance Film Festival Among New Research Released Today at Sundance
This morning, Women in Film and the Sundance Institute released the next stage of research on female filmmakers. Last year they released an unprecedented first phase in the work that began the...
Celluloid Ceiling Report: No Progress in 16 Years for Women in Hollywood
Every January for the past 16 years, people who care about women’s progress behind the scenes in the film industry have restlessly anticipated Dr. Martha Lauzen’s Celluloid Ceiling analysis of...
An Oscar-Nominated Director Gets Real About How Women Are Treated in Hollywood
The following is cross-posted from Lexi Alexander’s blog with permission from the author. Editor’s Note: The post below is very important. This is a woman director standing up for herself and...
Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson’s Feminist Love Fest
Holy hell. Last night at the National Board of Review awards ceremony, Meryl Streep outed herself as Emma Thompson’s biggest fan by celebrating her for being “a rabid, man eating feminist, like...
An Open Letter to Martin Scorsese
Dear Mr. Scorsese- Your letter to your daughter Francesca came to my attention and I just had a few comments in response. First, I apologize for not seeing The Wolf of Wall Street. There was a time...
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...
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...
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...
Infographic: Gender Inequality in Hollywood (It’s Worse than You Think)
In honor of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the blockbuster success of which should disprove every industry myth about women-led films being unprofitable, the New York Film Academy shares this...
Quote of the Day: Michelle Rodriguez Criticizes Guys Version of Strong Women
In a wide-ranging interview with Latina Magazine, Michelle Rodriguez proves yet again that she’s one of the gutsiest actresses in Hollywood by calling out the film industry’s skewed vision of...
October Horror Series Wrap Up
Throughout October, Women and Hollywood has been examining women in horror — coming of age, lady killers, demon girls, witches, haunted women — in television and film. We’ve also had...