#Feminism
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Jon Hamm
He might play a lout on Mad Men (when the hell is that show coming back on the air?) but he sure is not one in real life. The cast of Mad Men hosted a benefit for the Rape Treatment Center in LA and...
Roman Polanski In Our Faces Again
I don’t know why I feel obsessed by this story, but I am. In some ways I feel it is my feminist duty to remind people every time this guy gets the adoring press he always does that he is...
Guest Post: Retro-sexism: What’s the Allure? by Emilie Spiegel and Sarah Bloodsworth
This fall’s crop of new TV series includes The Playboy Club and Pan Am, two shows set in 1960s, both centering on young women doing “glamorous” jobs and allegedly redefining what it meant to be...
Guest Post: From Hollywood to Bon Temps, and Nary a Feminist In Sight…by Emilie Spiegel
Sunday night’s HBO lineup included both the series finale of Entourage and the season 4 finale of True Blood — two vastly different shows, herein considered together not only because they...
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Elizabeth Olsen
This younger Olsen sister has a lot to say about about how Hollywood depicts young women onscreen. Here’s what she had to say: A lot of times with female relationships and young women [in the...
Gloria Steinem: In Her Own Words
Next Monday night, HBO will end its great summer documentary series with Gloria Steinem: In Her Own Words. It’s a film that really lets Gloria’s words throughout her life as a public figure to...
Feminist Quote of the Day: Brit Marling
When talking to the Salt Lake City News about the whole “it girl” thing: When women enter the scene, they’re a commodity, and when men enter the scene, they’re actors. She hit it right on...
Sexism Watch: New NASCAR Show Title
There are not many days when I open an email and read the title of a potential TV show and do a double take. That happened to me yesterday when I opened my daily email from the folks at Vulture to...
Marion Cotillard Takes on Sexism
Sometimes the easiest way to make people aware of sexism is to make fun of it. This video cracked me up. https://medium.com/media/2d8c030d99c5ce90fe4e2976df7743d8/href Forehead Tittaes w/ Marion...
Sexism Watch: Sigourney Weaver Can’t Be An Action Star But Harrison Ford Can
Sigourney Weaver is the mother of the female action hero. Her Ellen Ripley gave us a woman who was not afraid to be a woman and to kick some serious ass. As the second film (and best in my humble...
Guest Post: Why we Need More “Warrior Princesses” Like Hermione Granger by Natalie Wilson
Don’t hate me Potterites, but I would have preferred the Harry Potter series had been instead the Hermione Granger series. Yes, I know J.K. Rowling says Harry popped into her head as wizarding...
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Emma Watson
I saw the final Harry Potter film last night and there is one moment where you see Emma Watson in a scenes from the first film and it makes you remember how young all these actors were when they took...
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Romola Garai
The 28-year-old busy actress (soon to be seen in One Day) is now appearing onstage in London at the Royal Court in The Village Bike by Penelope Skinner. In an interview with the London Evening...
Eva Gabrielsson in Conversation With Gloria Steinem
Eva Gabrielsson came to the US to promote her book There Are Things I Want You to Know About Stieg Larsson and Me and she stopped at the 92nd Street Y and had a conversation with feminist Gloria...
The Press for Transformers 3 Starts With Bashing Megan Fox
I’m sorry, but how did Megan Fox’s departure from Transformers 3 become a big press hook for the movie? Is the movie so bad that they need to distract from the actual movie to events that...
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
This is the panel entitled “New Faces of Indie Film” that the Film Society at Lincoln Center hosted this past Saturday to celebrate the opening of their new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. If...
Cross-Post: Super 8 & Spielberg’s Chick Issue by Thelma Adams
If Super 8 is truly a mash note to Steven Spielberg, as my husband says, then it also echoes some thing I detest about SS. He’s horrible on the women issue. His immediate reaction to the opposite...
Sexist Jackass of the Day: Writer VS Naipaul
Here’s what this jackass said at the Hay Festival in Britain: Women writers are different, they are quite different. I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by...
Sexism Watch: Hollywood Reporter Showrunner Roundtable
Last week I posted a trailer from a new documentary about showrunners where I called attention to the fact that they did not include a single woman in the trailer. The site received a comment from a...
!Women Art Revolution directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson Opens in NYC Today
There are not many films that are able to show the development of a true revolution and Women Art Revolution is one of them. It shows how feminism affected women’s art and how art affected...
The Writers of the Summer Movies
Notice anything in common? I found it interesting that two of them were influenced by Star Wars. It would be great to have some films about women that influence the next generation of screenwriters....
Mel Gibson Speaks Out
Writer Allison Hope Weiner did a sit-down with Mel Gibson that was posted last night on Deadline. It is the first day time that Gibson has spoken out since the tapes of him screaming and threatening...
The Jury Awards — International Women’s Film Festival 2011
The International Women’s Film Festival concluded last evening in Dortmund, Germany. Over 8,000 people saw movies, went to concerts, and went to workshops over the last five days. Pretty impressive...
A True Quote
Here’s a quote I heard from a colleague that was said by an agent who handles writers: When looking at representing a male or female writer who are both the same age and have equal talent the...
Real World and Film World Collide
Today is the release of the DVD of Made in Dagenham. Why people didn’t go to see this film when it was released last fall I will never understand. It was good, fun and about something...
What the Hell is Abbie Cornish Doing in Sucker Punch?
I must say that I found the film Sucker Punch to be very confusing. I had no idea what it was about except that it was clear that young women were in peril, stuck in a mental institution or brothel....
Noticing Sexism
This just really annoyed me this morning. And it was at the top of a story about Catherine Hardwicke. Couldn’t it say say for your inner fan? Why does it have to be for fanboys only?
Happy 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day
Here’s to hoping there is a time when women are treated equally. When we don’t have to fight twice as hard for half the pie. For girls to be able to go to school without regard for being...
Are We Equals?
With Daniel Craig- voice over by Dame Judi Dench. Directed by Sam Taylor-Wood. AWESOME
Check Out Tina Brown’s First Newsweek Cover
Bold move. The first female Newsweek editor puts a woman (Hillary Clinton) on her first cover. Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day and in honor of that, Newsweek has a...
The Dirty Little Secret in Hollywood
There is a power disparity in Hollywood. A big one. The men have got it. It is never more evident when one of the most high profile people exhibits behavior that makes the whole country and society...
From Feminist Frequency: Women’s Stories, Movies and the Oscars
This video completely speaks for itself. Think about it as you watch the Oscars.
Lisa Cholodenko Talks Women Directors: “There’s a Kind of Fundamental Misogyny in the Culture”
I caught Lisa Cholodenko being interviewed on Tell Me More on NPR yesterday and Michel Martin got Lisa Cholodenko to talk about issues related to female directors that I have not heard any women...
Sexism Watch: Worst Headline Ever
You will never believe where the headline comes from — Time Magazine Here’s the description: At a look-at-me event like the Golden Globes, nothing should trump the “Does this really...
Feminists Characters Fall Out of Contention for Awards Consideration
In early October I wrote a post talking about all the great feminist characters that were going to be seen on screen throughout the fall. I was really hopefully that several of them would make it...
Sexism Watch: New Fox Pilot Title — I Hate My Teenage Daughter
The Television Critics Association meeting in going on in LA so there is a lot of TV news coming out. A new pilot script was just picked up by Fox entitled I Hate My Teenage Daughter. Here’s the...
Sexism Watch: ABC New Pilot Title
According to EW, ABC is about to pick up a new series entitled Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23. When Cougar Town acquired its unfortunate title it reflected the premise of the show, but this...
Sexism Watch: The Black List
Once upon a time in Hollywood the black list was a very bad thing. If your name was on the black list (that supposedly never existed) you couldn’t get a gig in Hollywood. It was a sucky time and...
Disney Swears off Princesses
In a move that should have progressive minded parents across the country and the world cheering, Disney last week said that they would no longer be producing fairy tale movies, and folks that means...
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Ryan Gosling
The Weinstein Co. is taking on the MPAA for both Blue Valentine’s NC-17 rating and The King’s Speech R rating. They are so serious that they hired three top tier lawyers including David Boies to...
Stephen Colbert Asks Aaron Sorkin About the Ladies in The Social Network
Guess I’m not the only one who noticed the fact that there are so few women in The Social Network. Stephen Colbert hit up Aaron Sorkin about the lack of women on his show last night. Colbert: Can...
The Social Network
If I take off my feminist hat, I am here to report that The Social Network is a very good movie. It will be at the top of the Oscar heap and might go all the way to the finish line. One reason is...
If Women Like It, It Must Be Stupid
That is the title of the accompanying piece that talks to best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert in this week’s Entertainment Weekly which has Julia Roberts and Eat Pray Love on the cover. That...
Paramount Pictures Has a Gender (and Race) Problem
The folks at Racebending who advocate for just and equal opportunities in film and TV, have been tracking race issues related to the recently released film The Last Airbender. While doing their...
The Sex and the City Aftermath — Misogyny Unleashed
No matter whether or not you liked or even saw Sex and the City 2 what you can’t have missed is the cultural conversation that film has caused in all quarters. We’ve been talking about women...
Sexism Watch: Vanity Fair’s New Hollywood Cover
It’s not the picture that bothers me (except the women do look really glassy eyed) as much as the tired bullshit teaser heading that accompanies the photo: Annie Leibovitz photographs the nine...
Fat Actors vs Skinny Actresses
The NY Times had a piece this weekend that echoes my piece in the Guardian last Friday — the double standard for female vs. male actors regarding weight. It’s pretty simple: Guys can be fat,...