Sarah Jessica Parker: Hollywood Feminist

Way back in October Maxim, the misogynist magazine that masks as a "lad" magazine called Sarah Jessica Parker the "unsexiest woman alive" How disgusting. Words do matter because all these months later it still bothers her and her husband. Might I suggest that the female actresses who pose for the cover oft his magazine make a decision not to. Maybe if women said no to this type of language and misogynist behavior they might shut up.

PS- We love you SJP and can't wait for Sex & the City!

Sarah Jessica Parker Hurt by Unsexiest Label (Zap2it.com via Charlotte Observer)

27 Rue de Fleures- a New Musical

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas have always been fascinating figures I know very little about. I barely had any sense of what they looked like except from the cover of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (which I shamefully admit to have never gotten through), but I have been fascinated nonetheless to learn and read about them - their lesbian marriage, how Alice was Gertrude's wife, how they hosted the most interesting salons in their Paris apartment, and also how the Jewish Stein was able to evade the Nazis while living in the French countryside. Everything was written about them like they were one. Yet always it seemed like Gertrude was dominant.

A new musical at Urban Stages in New York City takes a look at the most famous "Boston marriage" from the perspective of wife, Alice B. Toklas. It explores their days in Paris and the salons where they hosted Picasso and others of the artistic intelligentsia.

The all female cast is led by Cheryl Stern as Alice and the indomitable Barbara Rosenblat as Gertrude. Book and lyrics are by Ted Sod, music is by Lisa Koch and the show is directed by the Urban Stages artistic director, Frances Hill.

While making a musical on a small scale is quite a challenge there were some touching and funny moments especially from the supporting cast playing a revolving band of characters in Gertrude and Alice's lives.

I'm still just a s fascinated as I was before -- maybe now when I next pick up the The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, I'll be able to get through it.

Play runs through April 6. Get more info and tickets: Urban Stages
Read Janet Malcom's New Yorker piece on Gertrude and Alice: Strangers in Paradise

Marketing Judd Apatow's New Movie

I've been noticing lots of stealth ads around New York City for the new Judd Apatow produced anti-romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It's about another schlub who gets dumped by his overachieving girlfriend and winds up at the same hotel in Hawaii with her and her new musician boyfriend. You can't really tell they are for a movie, but they are really offensive and have started to piss me off.

The one that set me over the edge was: "Yes you do look fat in those jeans- Sarah Marshall" "You Suck Sarah Marshall" and then today I saw one that said: "My Mother Always Hated You."

Way to ratchet up the misogyny, Judd. I'm definitely boycotting this film. Anyone want to join with me?

Women at the Box Office This Weekend

Opening This Week- La Misma Luna
La Misma Luna was, suffice it to say, an unexpected pleasure. While I do like my share of foreign films, I sometimes walk into them expecting something overly serious and sometimes difficult to relate to. This film was nothing like that. La Misma Luna (Under the Same Moon) is a beautiful and touching film which tells the incredibly relevant story of a mother and son separated by the US border each trying to survive the best they can without one another.

La Misma Luna Review
Interview with Patricia Riggen

Remaining in Theatres:
The Other Boleyn Girl
Juno
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Penelope
Mad Money
Girls Rock!

News Briefs

• Geena Davis is coming back to TV. She will star in Exit 19 a new drama on CBS. Davis will portray a homicide detective in Manhattan while juggling two kids as a single mom in the suburbs of Long Island. Awesome. (Cynopsis)

• Angela Bassett has joined an elite club with her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Angela Bassett Gets Hollywod Star (AP via Yahoo)
  

• Kimberley Peirce opens her second film Stop-Loss next week, 10 years after the groundbreaking Boys Don't Cry. The movies is very interesting and well done. What's even more interesting is that she is the first woman to make a fiction film about the Iraq War. Women have been making great docs, but she is breaking new ground here.

Peirce on women directors: "I think women are probably not as driven to just turn out the numbers," Peirce said, when asked why she hasn't made more films. "It's a weird thing. Look, I want to make a lot, but I want to love them, because they're a part of me, you know?" Kimberley Peirce (LA Times)

• Questions for Laura Linney (NY Times)

• Can Mary Parent Make MGM Roar Again? (LA Times)

• Annie Lennox Steps Up, Sings Out to Fight AIDS (VOA)

Katherine Heigl, Hollywood Feminist

I gotta admit that this woman has guts. Most people who have been hit with the backlash for comments made about women's place in Hollywood would probably keep their mouths, but as her film 27 Dresses is about to open in England, Heigl again goes on the record about the whole Knocked Up is sexist controversy. (By the way, Judd Apatow has count it four films he's produced opening this year.) Here's some of what she said to the Guardian.

Those comments provoked quite a backlash, and Heigl was described as ungrateful and a traitor. Some people even suggested she would never work again. Was she surprised at that? "I was. Maybe it was naive of me," she says. "I think that the reality of starting to become successful is that [some people] want to slate you for something - put you in a box and put a label on what sort of a person you are. I'm not wild, I haven't been to rehab, I don't do anything eccentric - I'm really boring. So that's where they have to go." She stands by her comment, but says the sexism element "didn't lessen my enjoyment of the movie. That's where the comedy lies, between these polar opposites and stereotypes of female-male behaviour. I don't know a lot of guys that act like Ben, but we know that some exist. I don't know a lot of women who act like Alison, but again we know that some women do. Those are the stereotypes, and they're exaggerated. But it seemed to me that she was such a stiff, she had such a stick up her ass. I wish she had been a little more fun."

"I would never want to be malicious or ignorant," she continues, "but I didn't think that comment was any of those things. It was my opinion and I'm allowed to have one. Isn't it the land of the free?"

I'm sure some people are thinking, yes, Katherine you are allowed to have an opinion, just as long as you don't say anything that matters. Clearly, this woman has a rational brain and is not afraid to stand up for herself and others. (She was one of the first to speak up last year during the Grey's Anatomy homophobic incident that got Isiah Washington fired.)

Full story: Katherine Heigl (The Guardian)
(photo credit: Wire Image)

SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) Day Launches on March 29, 2008

It's not news to anyone who reads this site that it's a tough climate for women artists. A new international holiday, SWAN Day (Support Women Artists Now) has been launched by the Fund for Women Artists. The first one will take place on Saturday, March 29th. It's not too late to participate and show your support for all types of women artists!

Martha Richards, Executive Director of the Fund for Women Artists, answered some questions about SWAN Day. More info: SWAN Day

Women & Hollywood: What is SWAN Day & why is it needed?

Martha Richards: SWAN Day (Support Women Artists Now Day) is a new international holiday that celebrates women artists that will take place on the last Saturday of Women’s History Month (March). As a symbol of international solidarity, there will be parties, performances, exhibits and other events featuring women artists all over the world. The public will be encouraged to attend these events and to make donations to their favorite women artists. There are currently almost 140 events across the U.S. and in 8 other countries. They range from a festival of women-fronted rock bands in New London, Connecticut to a performance of "Tales from the Far Side of Fifty" by women aged 56 - 84 in Oceanside, California. All-day festivals are being planned in Washington, D.C.; Cranston, Rhode Island; San Diego, California; and Las Vegas, Nevada.

By focusing attention on the work of women artists, SWAN Day will help people imagine what the world might be like if women’s art and perspectives were fully integrated into all of our lives.

Also, SWAN Day is designed to empower women artists to do more fundraising for their projects. Since government and foundation funding for the arts has decreased over the past decade, women artists need to approach more individual donors, but many artists are shy about doing that. By validating the contributions of women artists, SWAN Day helps them feel more confident about asking for money. They are proud to tell prospective donors that they are part of an international celebration.

W&H: How can people get involved in their community?

MR: The easiest way to participate is to attend a SWAN Day event. People can use the official SWAN Day Map to search for events in their area. Many people are celebrating SWAN Day by having private parties where they get together with friends to watch a movie that is written or directed by women or to talk about their favorite women artists.

If there are no events in their area, they can organize one of their own – the event can be a party, performance, exhibit, or any other activity that celebrates women artists. People are welcome to post their events on the SWAN Map by filling in a form Sign Up

W&H: If you can’t organize an event, how can you participate?

MR: Another way to participate is simply to send a check to your favorite woman artist. You can find someone to support through the WomenArts Network, an online directory of over 1,000 women artists Women Artists Network, or you can choose to support any other woman artist that you know. Almost every woman artist has projects that she cannot do because of lack of funds, and any woman artist that you support will probably use the funds wisely. You can also make a donation to The Fund for Women Artists to help support future SWAN Days by clicking on any Donate Now button SWAN Day

Many people are celebrating SWAN Day by wearing t-shirts, jewelry or other items with swans on them. You can order t-shirts, hats and mugs with the SWAN Day logo Buy SWAN Day materials or you can download the SWAN Logo from the Publicity Tools section of SWAN Day and put it on items of your own.

Think also about writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper or create an op-ed piece about the status of women artists. In San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, New York, Boston and Washington, DC, women have asked their Mayors to issue a SWAN Day proclamation, and we are optimistic that each Mayor will respond. If you want to contact your Mayor, The Fund for Women Artists has posted sample proclamations.

W&H: Why is it important to support women artists?

MR: It is important to support all artists these days – men as well as women. We are living in such war-torn times and we need better tools for understanding each other. The arts provide some of the best ways for people to learn about each other and to become more tolerant of differences. If we invest more money in the arts, we will have a better chance of creating a more tolerant and peaceful society.

It is important to focus on supporting women artists because in the past women have been ignored and severely underfunded. We have been deprived of the creativity of half the population because women have not received the funds they need. We have missed out on the inspiration, empowerment, and healing that their art might have provided. Women artists should be funded because it is the fair thing to do and because we need to see beautiful and moving works of art that reflect women’s perspectives.

There is a myth in this country that when there is no arts funding, great art will still be made by “starving artists”. Actually women artists are much more likely to be serving as your waitress than “starving.” When there is no arts funding, women artists are often forced to take menial jobs that take up most of the time that they should be devoting to their art. As a society, we are wasting a major asset when we force these talented women to do jobs that squander their talents instead of developing them.

W&H: What would you like to see come out of SWAN Day?

MR: SWAN Day is inspired in part by Eve Ensler’s V-Day celebrations which raise over $4 million a year for programs responding to violence against women. In the same way that organizers of V-Day events donate a portion of their proceeds to local women’s shelters, SWAN Day organizers are encouraged to use their events as benefits for their own work or as fundraisers for other women artists in their communities.

Ensler started with only one benefit performance, but after 8 years, there were 2,500 V-Day events all over the world. Our long term goal for SWAN Day is simply to help our constituents to raise as much money as possible for their work and the work of other women artists. Eight years from now, we will be thrilled if we are raising $4 million a year that is distributed to women artists through a global network of individual artists and women-led arts organizations.

Virginia Madsen- Hollywood Feminist

Who would have thunk? Virginia Madsen best known for her Oscar nominated role in Sideways has started her own production company - Title IX Prods with Kelly Meola. Anyone who names their film company after Title IX has got have some serious feminist chops.

The company's name, Title IX, comes from the 1972 U.S. law forbidding discrimination in schools and universities based on gender, but Madsen and Meola said that doesn't mean they will only produce female-driven films.

"We kind of saw it as we want to be able to play on equal ground," Meola said. "Of course, we want to talk about female issues but not just tell stories about women."

Added Madsen, "I like the idea we're leveling the playing field."

First film is I Know a Woman Like That, a documentary directed by Elaine Madsen (Virginia's mother) about women 64-94.

Madsen, Meola Form Title IX Prods (Hollywood Reporter)

Review: La Misma Luna (Under the Same Moon)

La Misma Luna was, suffice it to say, an unexpected pleasure. While I do like my share of foreign films, I sometimes walk into them expecting something overly serious and sometimes difficult to relate to. This film was nothing like that. La Misma Luna (Under the Same Moon) is a beautiful and touching film which tells the incredibly relevant story of a mother and son separated by the US border each trying to survive the best they can without one another.

Rosario (Kate Del Catillo) has crossed the US border from Mexico in order to provide for her son Carlitos (Adrian Alonso) who she left with her mother. She tells him that when he misses her he should look up at the moon because they would both be looking at the same moon (La Misma Luna) and would feel closer together. When Carlitos' grandmother dies unexpectedly, the 9-year-old sets off on the perilous journey to find his mother just as she is struggling with the decision about whether to return to Mexico to be with him.

The film was written by Ligiah Villalobos and was directed and produced by first time feature director Patricia Riggen. Riggen takes the hot political issue of immigration and humanizes it in a profound way. It never gets preachy, is extremely moving, and has an amazingly breathtaking performance from a talented young actor, Adrian Alonso.

La Misma Luna opens today in 250 theatres in over 150 cities across the country.

Go see this film!

La Misma Luna

Interview with Patricia Riggen, director of La Misma Luna

Patricia Riggen's first feature film La Misma Luna opens on 250 screens across the country today. She answered a few questions about the film and being a female director.

Women & Hollywood: The issue of immigration is so highly charged and you were able to humanize it and also to show that it is a women's issue.

Patricia Riggen: Women are now crossing the border. It used to be men. Now, there are 4 million women in this country who have left a child behind. When people ask me if this is a true story, I tell them that it is based on 4 million true stories. These women have no other options and make the most difficult sacrifice of all because no mother would leave her child unless she was desperate. That was something I wanted to explore. Rosario has a huge dilemma having made this decision in order to provide for her child because she loves him, while at the same time feeling like she's sacrificing that love. It's not just a statistic to me. These are human beings and that's what I wanted to show.

W&H: This film feels very female -- it's from a woman's eye. It's no coincidence that both the director and screenwriter are women. These films are few and far between in Hollywood these days.

PR: It's something that I have struggled with in my career. I'm Mexican, and I never could have become a director in Mexico. I moved here and that allowed me to do this work.

W&H: In Mexico, you didn't have an opportunity to work as a director?

PR: In Mexico, I never gave myself the chance to imagine myself in the director's shoes. It took me a while to discover what I wanted to do. I was already working in the business doing different jobs and feeling unhappy. When I was growing up in Mexico there weren't any women directors around for me to see that it was something I could do. Funny enough I wrote my college thesis on women directors in Mexico when I didn't even know I was going to be a director. There were four, and I interviewed them feeling like being a director was equivalent to being an astronaut -- the hardest most strange thing to be. Completely unaccessible, and it shouldn't be like that.

W&H: Women feel that it is so difficult to be a director here.

PR: That's what my friends tell me and I feel it is so easy here.

W&H: Have the Fox Searchlight people (the film distributor) been supporting your vision?

PR: Fox Searchlight has been wonderful and I'll tell you why- they're all women. There's one guy at the top and then it's all women. Their sensibility is very feminine and it makes it really wonderful for a women's movie. They totally get it and care about the film.

W&H: Adrian Alonso performance as Carlitos really astounded me. Talk a little bit about how you directed him and how you were able to elicit his spectacular performance.

PR: Thank you, nobody ever asks me about this. They always say, where did you find him. It's not the finding, it's the directing. It's all about the directing. I think most kids can act and it's a matter of directing them properly. In this case, Adrian is very talented but he's also a child and has no criteria to understand if he is doing something good or not. Older actors know what they are doing, kids don't.

W&H: The whole movie rests of his shoulders -- if he wouldn't have been good, the movie wouldn't have been good.

PR: I basically knew that if I didn't find the right kid I shouldn't even attempt to make this movie. But the truth is that I worked with him very closely and my eyes were always on him to protect and help him.

W&H: How did you get the script?

PR: I made a documentary called Family Portraits and Ligiah saw it and loved it and sent me the screenplay. I immediately connected with it. We started working together , and when we had the script ready to shoot the financing was there. She was great to work with, she's very smart and she always stood by me. When I felt that the movie wasn't going to happen she came and worked for no money. She did all the drafts and revisions and waited and waited for the movie to happen.

W&H: You are also the film's producer.

PR: This is an important aspect. I did have a way to make this at a studio, and I started working with them but felt I was losing creative control and the decisions being made were wrong and it wasn't going to be a good movie. I was thinking that I was a director for hire, but it was a project that I brought and realized this is not a way I wanted to make my first feature. Fortunately, it was a very low budget so I decided to raise the money myself to keep control which enabled me to make every single decision which allowed me to make the best movie I could.

W&H: What do you want the audience to feel after seeing the film?

PR: I want them to have a good time, and to feel engaged and moved. I want people to see the humanity of those who surround us that we don't necessarily notice like the waiter or gardener and think about their lives.

W&H: What's next for you?

PR: I have several offers from Hollywood. I am keeping my feet on the ground knowing that my fellow female directors have taken a long time to shoot again. They have made successful first films and then it has taken them a long time to shoot their second. I don't want to take 10 years to make another film. I am developing some projects for Hollywood including a romantic comedy and a period drama. But I also have a project of my own that I control in case the Hollywood films don't happen.

Leslie Mann Takes the Bait

Leslie Mann is Judd Apatow's wife. She's been in his last several movies and this week opens as the female foil to the Apatow produced Drillbit Taylor starring Owen Wilson (film looks really, really bad.) She had some success early in her career and then after she co-starred with Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy she couldn't get a job. (Funny though that Jim Carrey the actual star of the film still got work.) Lucky for her she hooked up with Apatow and for a while she focused on her family.

This week EW gives her their "spotlight" and she really gives it to Katherine Heigl about her comments regarding Knocked Up.

Having emerged in the last couple of years as a compelling female voice in what's often perceived as the Apatowian boys' club, Mann strongly defends her turf. She says she was surprised when Knocked Up costar Katherine Heigl publicly critiqued the film as being 'a little sexist,' saying it paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight. Mann retorts, I didn't think I was a humorless shrew in Knocked Up. I think the women are just as funny as the men in that movie. 'Humorless shrews'- who even says that? I just think its an odd choice of words.

Here's what I think Leslie, you took the bait. Katherine Heigl told the truth. Knocked Up was more than a little bit sexist. It was very sexist, but it was also funny, that's why we're (OK, me) are so uncomfortable with it.

If Judd Apatow is as close to god as Hollywood thinks he is, he should be able to make films that are less demeaning to women.

I'm standing up for Katherine Heigl all the way.

The Anti-Choicers Are At It Again

Now that abortion issues are pretty much off the the national radar for the moment, leave it to the antis to find another way to get some press. This time they erupted during the premiere of Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who after Horton's most infamous line "a person's a person no matter how small" was uttered.

Guess that they are so desperate for attention that they think that going into a Hollywood premiere will help their cause. Doubt it cause I'm sure that episode pissed off some Hollywood biggies who had brought their kids to the premiere.
Slate- Kim Masters

TV Tonight

Miss Guided starring the always perfect sidekick who finally gets the spotlight to herself Judy Greer premieres tonight at 10:30 on ABC. Premise is that a former geeky girl returns to her high school as the guidance counselor. Show is created by Caroline Williams.
High School Geek to Hollywood Chic (LA Times)

Iron Ladies Of Liberia
Documentary by Siatta Johnson and Daniel Junge on the first year of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first freely elected female head of state in Africa. The resulting film is a joyous, inspirational testimony of the political power of women's leadership and diplomacy.
10pm on PBS

Voice of the Next Generation: The Fusion Film Festival

Women & Hollywood is dedicated to get a diverse group of voices out to the community. Today marks our first guest post by Rebecca Bellotto, who with Grettel Batoon was the co-directors of the Fusion Film Festival, a student-run film festival dedicated to the work of female filmmakers.

The Fusion Film Festival, New York University and Tisch School of the Arts’ only student-run film festival dedicated to the work of women, wrapped its three-day schedule of events on Saturday, March 1 with a retrospective on the work of the late writer, director, and actress Adrienne Shelly. The event was led by Shelly’s husband and Executive Director of the Adrienne Shelly Foundation Andy Ostroy and featured producer Peter Newman and actors Lara Harris, Ally Sheedy, and Paul Rudd as guest speakers – each spoke about Shelly’s life and work before playing a selected clip from one of her shorts or features.

As this year’s Festival’s co-directors, Grettel Batoon and I could not have been more pleased with the Adrienne Shelly Retrospective as Fusion’s closing event. The speakers’ messages were all resoundingly positive, paying loving tribute to the late artist and reminding the packed audience that Ms. Shelly’s example as a woman who gave all of herself in her work and never let the label of gender get in her way is one that should inspire and encourage all other women filmmakers. Fusion’s goals have always been to support aspiring female filmmakers and promote the work of established women – as well as to encourage artistic collaboration between the sexes – so we were incredibly proud that our closing event communicated such a strong message in support of our mission.

The Fusion Film Festival was founded in 2003 by then-students Gina Abatemarco and Emma Mason Heald, women who wanted to create an event that would celebrate the work of female student filmmakers and women in the industry at large. They were also interested in putting together a film festival that would be completely student-run. Fusion has gone through a different set of leaders each year since then, but each program has done a spectacular job of continuing the mission of promoting and encouraging women and collaboration as well as putting together an amazing line-up events through the sheer hard work and determination of undergraduate, graduate, and even some alumni students.

This year's events included a Master Class with uber-producer Denise Di Novi; a sneak preview screening of Kimberly Peirce’s upcoming film Stop-Loss; a day devoted to the winners of our student documentary pitch, screenplay, and short film competitions; panels on Women in Television and How to Get an Agent; and the Adrienne Shelly Retrospective.

In my opinion, Fusion has grown so strongly in the last five years mainly because of its incredible importance and relevance to students - especially the women - at Tisch. Though women have certainly made and will continue to make gains in the film industry especially as producers and executives, there are still far fewer women working as directors, cinematographers, screenwriters, and other on-set positions. It is vital that we spotlight women who are filling these roles as a way to set examples for the many female students who might be anxious about their chances in the industry.

As an aspiring screenwriter, I have found the atmosphere at Tisch to be very supportive, but it can be disheartening at times to see that men write the overwhelming majority of major movies. But as Grettel says, one of the greatest things about Fusion is the fact that so many successful, inspiring women from all fields come to speak and encourage female students at Tisch to keep working towards their dreams.

We are incredibly proud of what we believe was Fusion’s most successful year yet – we can’t wait to see what next year’s co-directors come up with for Fusion’s sixth year!

Rebecca Bellotto and Grettel Batoon, Fusion Film Festival Co-Directors and undergraduate students at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts

More info Fusion Film Festival

(Photo credit: Martin Bentsen)

TV Tonight

In honor of St. Patrick's Day director Dawn Scibilia's (she also co-produced, shot and edited) documentary HOME premieres tonight on PBS at 9pm.

Young Dubliner Alan Cooke reflects on his recent immigration to New York City, contemplating the concept of home and the ever changing cosmopolis in this award winning first feature directed by Dawn Scibilia.

With Liam Neeson, Susan Sarandon, Mike Myers, Alfred Molina, Colin Quinn, Rosie Perez, Pete Hamill, Frank McCourt, Malachy McCourt, Fran Lebowitz, Elaine Kaufman, Drew Nieporent, David Amram and many more.

Home The Movie

The New Adventures of Old Christine
I have been remiss in not pushing this show more. It is one of my favorites and has been on this winter when there has been so little other new shows due to the writers strike. Julia Louis- Dreyfus is so great and funny. Last month they did a show on whether or not Christine was going to get plastic surgery and it was handled so well. I couldn't stop laughing. (They also actually used the word feminist which I don't think I've heard on TV in forever.) Show is created and run by Kari Lizer and also stars Wanda Sykes. Need any more reasons to watch? I don't think so. Tune in.

In fact, here's a question: when was the last time you heard the word feminist on TV (in a scripted show) and in what context?

Don't miss this show- Mondays, 9:30pm CBS

Emma Thompson, Hollywood Feminist

Emma Thompson has a first person essay in Newsweek on standing up against human sex trafficking. She is the chair of the Helen Bamber Foundation which among the other great work it does, created an exhibit called Journey featuring the testimony of the people (mostly young women) who have been trafficked and the impact on their lives.

Read the Newsweek piece: Emma Thompson on Human Trafficking
Learn more about the Helen Bamber Foundation

(photo: John Shearer, Wireimage.com)

Women at the Box Office This Weekend

There are no new women-centric releases this weekend.

Women & Hollywood recommends that you check out Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day which is playing in most communities. Girls Rock! is also rolling out on a limited basis and is fantastic. Here are reviews: Miss Pettigrew Review; Girls Rock Review

Holdovers Remaining in Theatres
The Other Boleyn Girl
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
The Orphanage
Juno
Penelope
Mad Money
Atonement
La Vie en Rose

Opening Next Week
Under the Same Moon - interview with director Patricia Riggen to come next week

TV This Weekend
If you don't want to go to the theatre there are a couple of things on TV worth watching.

The Return of Jezebel James
Feminist Amy Sherman-Palladino's return to scripted TV. Show stars Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose
Friday night, Fox, 8pm.
This commentary from the Huffington Post lays out why we should take a chance on the show and not listen to the reviewers. (I might add that in general I have stopped reading reviews before I watch something, especially on shows related to women. They just don't help and are usually get off on trashing a show) Will Jezebel James Follow in the Footsteps of the Gilmore Girls?

On Deadly Ground: The Women of Iraq
A behind the scenes look at how deadly it has become for women. Another unacceptable tragedy of the US occupation. Weren't we supposed to help women get rights?
CNN, Saturday and Sunday night at 8pm.

John Adams
While this is not about a woman, Laura Linney co-stars as Abigail Adams and gives another one of her fantastic performances. I've seen the first two parts and this is one of the most well done TV films I've seen in a long time. HBO does these types of TV events better than anyone else. It's riveting and Paul Giamatti is beyond good. Don't miss it.
Premieres Sunday night at 9pm on HBO.

Another Woman Joins the Boys Club

The list has grown from one -- Amy Pascal at Sony -- or two -- if you count Stacey Snider at Dreamworks (which is a subsidiary of Paramount)-- to three now that Mary Parent has been named Chairman (can we please make these names gender neutral?) of the MGM Worldwide Motion Picture Group.

She will oversee production, distribution, marketing and business affairs at the studio. Parent is a well liked and respected executive who used to be Vice Chairman of World Wide Production at Universal before her most recent gig as an indie producer with partner Scott Stuber.

The job at MGM has been vacant since 2004.

Parent will report to MGM chairman & CEO Harry Sloan.

Will her appointment lead to more opportunities for women onscreen or behind the scenes? Her most recently produced films The Kingdom, The Breakup and upcoming Wolfman speak for themselves.

News Briefs

• Interview with Helen Hunt from the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin. Her directorial debut, Then She Found Me opens on April 25. Helen Hunt Talks Film Making in Austin

• The Golden Compass is the first film to cross the $300 million mark in international box office without having made $100 million in the US. Maybe the world doesn't have as much trouble with girls as the lead of movies as we think they do. Hopefully this will get sequel talks revived.

• Sarah Polley 's Away from Her picked up seven awards at the Canadian Genie's. The film won best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, best first feature and acting awards for Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent.

• Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical film about her life in Iran has been banned in Lebanon.
  

• ShoWest is the industry event that stokes the fire to get people in the biz (namely the theatre owners and reporters) ready for the summer season. They hand out awards each year that are focused on films that are coming out over the next couple of months. The list this year includes: Helen Hunt as the Breakthrough Director of the Year for Then She Found Me; Anne Hathaway as Female Star of the Year who will be seen as Agent 99 in Get Smart. Also, Sarah Jessica Parker who will try and whip up a female frenzy with Sex and the City, received the Vanguard award and Abigail Breslin who next stars with Jodie Foster in Nim's Island has been named Female Star of Tomorrow (based on her current crop of work, she seems like the female star of today.) This summer she also stars in the big screen version of the American Girl doll phenomenon, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl.

• Interviews from Women Directors with film at South by South West Mary Bronstein, director of Yeast; Caroline Suh, director of FrontRunners (IndieWire)
  

• Baby Mama, the new comedy starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, will open this year's Tribeca Film Festival on April 23rd.

• Judith Thompson has won the 2008 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play Palace of the End, a series of monologues about the Iraq War. This is the most prestigious prize for female playwrights.
  

• Joe Queenan in the Guardian uses the release of 10,000 BC to ponder the changing role of women in the prehistoric films.

In today's postmodern prehistoric film, the women - rather than thundering across the Hyborian savannahs clad only in string bikinis stitched together from the carcasses of very tiny Jurassic marsupials, but doing so in a strong and empowered way - are simply shunted off to the sidelines.

Full piece: The Women the Script Forgot (The Guardian)

Who Says Women Aren't Funny?

Over a year ago, Christopher Hitchens, the misogynistic blowhard had an essay in Vanity Fair entitled Why Women Aren't Funny. The article pissed off a lot of people including me and now a little over a year later, Vanity Fair takes a look at the other side with its April cover story Who Says Women Aren't Funny.


Firstly, it pisses me off that just because Hitchens says women aren't funny that we now have to defend ourselves. It just plays into the bullshit that feminists are humorless. Alessandra Stanley (who writes about TV for the NY Times) goes behind the scenes with some of today's funniest women to look at how comedy has evolved since the days of the big screen screwball comedies which featured some of the highest profile women of the time. As Stanley says, today's comedians are found on TV, not film (because we all know that there are hardly any funny (or even non-funny) women starring on the big screen today.

The leader of today's funny women is feminist Tina Fey who parlayed her role as head writer on Saturday Night Live into the comedy 30 Rock, which she created, writes and stars in. (Shame on you if you don't watch this show, it is fantastic and funny.) She's about launch a new female buddy comedy Baby Mama co-starring Amy Poehler which will open the Tribeca Film Festival in NY on April 23rd.

Here are some quotes from the piece:

It used to be that women were not funny. Then they couldn't be funny if they were pretty. Now a female comedian has to be pretty- even sexy- to get a laugh. At least, that’s one way to view the trajectory from Phyllis Diller and Carol Burnett to Tina Fey. Some say it’s the natural evolution of the women’s movement; others argue it’s a devolution. But the funniest women on television are youthful, good-looking, and even, in a few cases, close to beautiful—the kind of women who in past decades might have been the butt of a stand-up comic’s jokes.

Comedy used to be about women making fun of themselves as well as everyone else, and you couldn't really make fun of yourself if you were too pretty (think of Gilda Radner). The pretty girls get everything. Now, the one place where looks didn't matter as long as you made them laugh, is being taken over by the pretty girls. Come on. What's left for the rest of us?

How this evolution happened is not entirely clear. The backlash school of feminism would argue that it’s the tyranny of a looks-obsessed culture that promotes sex appeal over talent, be it in comedy, pop music, or even sports.

Is there a backlash school of feminism? Are there classes available? Give me a break. It's not the backlash school of feminism that thinks our culture is looks obsessed -- it's the WHOLE CULTURE that KNOWS that we are obsessed with looks.

There has been an epochal change even from 20 years ago, when female stand-up comics mostly complained about the female condition—cellulite and cellophane—and Joan Rivers and Roseanne Barr perfectly represented the two poles of acceptable female humor: feline self-derision or macho-feminist ferocity.

The younger women on TV today owe their careers to Joan Rivers and Roseanne and don't forget Joy Behar and Rosie O'Donnell and the many other women who worked the clubs when it was all guys. They pushed the envelope and made it acceptable for women to be funny. They were funny and feminist. Stanley mentions Wanda Sykes and Maya Rudolph in her piece but hardly any other women of color. And also, where is Julia Louis-Dreyfus? I love The New Adventures of Old Christine that stars Dreyfus and Sykes.

It’s not that these girls are better than the girls who preceded them,” says Fran Lebowitz. “They’re luckier. They came along at a time when the boys allowed them to do this. In comedy, timing is everything.”

So glad to see we still need permission to be allowed to be funny.

At the moment, though, big-budget comedies are still a reach for most women. Comedians such as Steve Carell, Will Ferrell, and Sacha Baron Cohen are major movie stars in a way that their female counterparts are not. Looks, for them, aren’t important: pudgy Jack Black and Seth Rogen are tapped as romantic leads opposite Kate Winslet and Katherine Heigl.

Nobody knew who the hell Sacha Baron Cohen was before Borat. It seems that the films are trying to apply to the lowest common denominator (namely the young boys who are maybe too immature to understand nuanced comedy.) But the real question is, why are women allowed to be funny on TV and have to be the killjoys in films?

Poehler argues that, despite the changes in television and comedy clubs, Hollywood has made it harder than ever for comediennes to play leads in romantic film comedies. “I guess I’m not able to play the girlfriend of guys my own age anymore,” she says. “I play the bitchy older sister. And who doesn’t love the bitchy older sister who gets it in the end?” Poehler speaks wistfully of the days—20 years ago—when “Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler could open a movie, Teri Garr and Diane Keaton were movie stars and they looked like they lived in your building; you felt you could kind of know them.”

Amen, Amy.

It’s oddly cultural but not really much of a mystery: ticket sales are driven by young men (18–24), whereas television, especially network television, is more of a woman’s world. (Female viewers outnumber men by approximately 30 percent during prime time.) So it is something of a milestone that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have teamed up to make Baby Mama, a comedy about a single career woman (Fey) who wants a child and hires a working-class surrogate (Poehler), who moves in; they then clash like The Odd Couple. In a market that favors boy-girl romantic comedies such as 27 Dresses, a female buddy picture is bold. There have not been many successful ones since Bette Midler and Shelley Long starred in Outrageous Fortune in 1987. (Thelma & Louise had its funny moments, but that final pratfall was deadly.)

Fey says she is aware of the risks. “Women drive what’s on television, and husbands and boyfriends decide on movies,” she said. “I’m doing it backwards: I have a TV show for men and a movie coming out for women.”

I am so incredibly sad that the last female buddy comedy that they could think of to mention is 20 years old. somebody please help me understand why we can be funny or star in TV shows but cannot be funny or star in films. Let's all decide to go and see Tina Fey's movie on opening weekend to support her and her work! Anyone want to come with me?

Ladies Take Lead at HBO

I'm usually quite happy to read about women getting leads in TV shows. But I have to take issue with the tone of Lisa de Moraes TV column in today's Washington Post. From her piece today you get the impression that guys do the serious work and, "chicks" do the light stuff. It's just so demeaning. See for yourself:

Chicks are back, accessible is back, fun is back at HBO.

The network, which just wrapped up a wrist-slittingly depressing final season of "The Wire" and is still angsting its way through five nights a week of "In Treatment" (tonight's patient: Alex, the arrogant Navy pilot who insists his recent brush with death and a disastrous mission in have had no effect on him), announced yesterday it has ordered up 13 episodes of a new drama series, "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," based on the international best-selling novels of Alexander McCall Smith.

The news came the same day the trades unveiled HBO's greenlighting of a pilot from "Will & Grace" alum Jhoni Marchinko called "Driving Around With Joni," about a successful 40-year-old woman, suddenly widowed, who spends her days driving around Los Angeles with her French bulldog trying to figure out the meaning of life.

Can I do a show about me walking my dog around Brooklyn all day?

The network also is developing a comedy series with Darren Star and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas called "Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl" -- which, yes, is fun, unless you're the governor of New York, which most of us aren't. It's based on Tracy Quan's book, the Hollywood Reporter reminded.

These projects, and Alan Ball "True Blood," based on Charlaine Harris's best-selling books about a psychic waitress and her vampire boyfriend, mark the first projects in the post-Chris Albrecht era at HBO. (You remember former HBO chairman Albrecht, who entered rehab after allegedly assaulting a female companion in Vegas, only to get the old heave-ho when the L.A. Times reported another allegation of violence, this one against a female HBO staffer.)

HBO co-president Richard Plepler and programming group president Michael Lombardo declined to discuss the recent trend toward female leads and, um, fun, but did tell The TV Column their game plan is to "throw out the rulebook."

"Actually, we said, 'There are no rules -- the only rules are good storytelling,' " Plepler added.

I'm going to be watching this trend. My question is when is HBO going to air the Linda Bloodworth-Thomason Show, 12 Miles of Bad Road starring Lily Tomlin and Mary Kay Place. This sounds like a comedy and doesn't sound as "light" or trashy as some of the shows mentioned above.

This chickification of all things women is driving me nuts.

Tang Wei, Blacklisted in China

Actress Tang Wei who appeared in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution has been blacklisted in China. Her commercials have been pulled and her image has been banned from all newspapers and broadcast media.

Me thinks they doth protest too much.

Full story: Director Lee defends actor banned from Chinese media (The Guardian)

Send Yourself Roses- Biography of Kathleen Turner

I get lots of emails from Kathleen Turner. If you're on progressive and women's list-servs, you probably get them too. It wasn't until I started getting these emails that I realized what an awesome feminist Turner is. But looking back on the roles she played, it makes perfect sense. Now Turner has told her full, honest story Send Yourself Roses, her new memoir done in collaboration with the former leader of Planned Parenthood, Gloria Feldt.

Send Yourself Roses is an easy and interesting read, there are some great tidbits from her film career, but more importantly, Turner takes issue with the culture that dismisses women as they age, and gives us an example of a woman thriving as she moves into a new role in life. Turner has recently taken up directing getting great reviews for her Broadway directing debut, a revival of Crimes of the Heart.

Turner made it big playing smart, sexy, independent women in films in the 1980s and early 1990s. I loved her in Romancing the Stone, its sequel The Jewel of the Nile and especially in Prizzi's Honor. She kicked ass with that sexy voice and her awesome hair and she was a great role model. There was never any doubt that her characters were equal to her male co-stars. Sadly, nowadays, those types of female characters are gone. (Does anyone get the impression from watching Keira Knightley in the Pirates movies that she is equal to her male co-stars? I don't.)

Turner's memoir illuminates just how bad it has gotten for women in Hollywood, but it also talks about issues related to women and aging from a broader perspective. She is strong woman who has survived Hollywood (probably because she never moved there), and a debilitating bout with rheumatoid arthritis (when we all thought she had just gotten fat thanks to the tabloids). I was really impressed with her honestly and guts. Suffice it to say that it's a good thing she's done with Hollywood, cause after this book, she probably won't be getting her any more calls from the guys running the town.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

I am seriously unhappy about the way women are "sold" today, through film and media. I don't think women want to be anorexic. I don't think the way, as they do in Charlie's Angels, to strip and lap dance- how humiliating.

I choose my roles for film and stage the same way I choose my roles in life. The woman I play must be integral to the script. If the film or play will be just as good without her, then I will not play that part.

About LA and Hollywood:

It is anti-women out there, altogether. Women are, without a doubt, second-class citizens. There is almost a palpable contempt.

Our culture is still afraid of strong women and tends to demonize them.

But the facts are facts and the truth is that in Hollywood, as a woman ages she's not likely to be the romantic interest. She gets stereotyped, often as bitter and angry or just silly. Men, on the other hand, continue to get roles as the romantic lead in films well into their sixties. We often see a visibly older man with a younger leading lady..."

How our society views women will have to change, because today's women are changing how we feel about our own age and aging.

As women get more economic power, we also become more respected for who we are...

These are just a few choice tidbits, but you get the drift. Kathleen Turner rules! Book is available everywhere now.

Review- Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is the story of Guinevere Pettigrew (the amazing Frances McDormand), a down on her luck governess who spends one spectacular life changing day in the company of an American singer and actress Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams) on the eve of the of World War II in London.

Miss Pettigrew gets dropped into Delysia's crazy high-society life as her new "social secretary", and helps her negotiates not one, but three men and her own desire to remake herself from her humble coal mining roots. Both women wind up transforming each other and each finds what she needs at the end of their exciting 24 hours together.

Adams plays the same type of effusive character that we grew accustomed to with last year's Enchanted. She just pops off the screen. I'm ready to see her play a different role and that's clearly coming later this year in Doubt and Sunshine Cleaning. She's a really talented young actress and is able to hold her own against one of the best in the business, Frances McDormand. What I love about McDormand is that every character she plays seems so incredibly different from the previous one.

The film is based on the 1938 novel by Winifred Watson, who, according to producers was a woman ahead of her time. "Her books were about women changing their lives, flouting convention, and addressing class tensions and extramarital sex." Gotta add her to my reading list.

I walked out of the film with a goofy little smile on my face liking it way much more than I expected to. Hope you enjoy.

Review: Girls Rock

I loved everything about Girls Rock! I loved that the movie told the story of girls who come together to embrace (or discover) their musical and creative sides. I loved that these girls found a place where they could truly be themselves with no consequences. I loved that women rockers who had been through what these girls are experiencing -- feeling like a freak and unsure of yourself and your place in the world -- were able to show them the light at the end of the tunnel. And, I especially liked that this was a film about something important and it was still fabulously fun and entertaining.

I remember how much it sucks being a girl who is not exactly made from the cookie cutter mold, and watching these girls struggle with identity made me so glad to be done with that. While many things have changed for the better since I was a girl (like the very fact that there is a rock and roll camp for girls) some things have gotten a lot worse namely the pressure to be thin and to conform. Rock camp is a space for girls to be themselves, to embrace their voices and to roar. (They actually make them yell as loud as they can.) It also helps them to develop communication and team type skills as their bands work together to write music and lyrics for the concert that happens at the end of the week. The camp also teaches self-defense and gives girls other tools to survive the boxes that girls get put in by our culture.

The statistics strewn the film just make you want to cry including the fact that women are only 22% of musical performers in music videos (but are a majority of the scantily dressed fans); and that teen girls spend $43 billion on fashion and beauty products.

Directors Shane King and Arne Johnson are incredibly respectful about their portraits of the four girls highlighted in the film. It's not often that I say this, but these guys really get it, and people who work with girls can take some important lessons from this film on how men and women can work together to help improve the lives of girls.

Here's what the directors had to say:

The persistence of the questions [about why men would be interested in making a movie about girls] has brought another issue to mind, and that is the embarrassment we have had to confront about the idea that a man would care about women's issues. It's perfectly acceptable for a straight white man to publicly protest the mistreatment of homeless people or a racist miscarriage of justice. But if a man speaks passionately about the mistreatment of half of the world's population- their lovers, daughters, nieces, mother, grandmothers, aunts, sisters- there seems to be some kind of shame attached. Like you're somehow "going to the other side" or being a weak man.

We care what happens to women...we want them to be full participants in our culture, not just because of fairness and equality, but also because life is richer when their voices are heard.

And so we embrace these questions about being men making this movie, because it gives us an excuse to talk in ways that men don't usually.

AMEN- Go see this film!

Film opens today in NY, LA, Seattle, Portland, SF and Chicago and will roll out in other cities this spring. For info on the film and where it is showing: Girls Rock!

DVD Review- I Could Never Be Your Woman

This should have been a review of an upcoming theatrical release, but sadly that didn't happen. (read some of the insanity here: I Could Never be Your Women Goes Straight to DVD) The good news is that the actual film is not the reason why I Could Never Be Your Woman didn't make it to your local cinema. The film is a fun, funny film from one of the best practitioners of her craft, writer/director Amy Heckerling. Heckerling uses this film to make fun of how fake Hollywood is (a hysterical plastic surgery montage opens the film) and what happens to women as they age in the business (not only onscreen, but also to people working behind the scenes)

The film stars Michelle Pfeiffer (looking fantastic) as the 40-year-old showrunner of an aging teen comedy show You Go Girl. The show within the movie stars Stacey Dash (one of Heckerling's favorites - remember her in Clueless?) as a 20-something trying to stretch out her career playing a teenager. Paul Rudd gets cast in a bit part (he's also part of the Heckerling posse) and he and Pfeiffer hit it off and start dating. Pfeiffer is mortified to discover their age difference and breaks it off, but after some funny back and forths (without making it too much of a drama) they wind up staying together.

More than anything this film deals with the challenges a woman faces as she ages all the while trying to raise an independent, strong daughter. This film was shot in Britain (for financing reasons) in 2005, so it's populated by funny (but mostly unknown) British comedic actors. The amazing revelation of the film is the performance of Saoirse Ronan who burst onto the scene this year in Atonement (she also plays the lead in the highly anticipated The Lovely Bones). This film was her first. Ronan is so funny, so smart and is able to play a pre-teen American kid to perfection. (I still can't believe how good her accent is.) The chemistry between her and Michelle Pfeiffer is fantastic and they even kind of look alike. What's also great, and has always been a hallmark of Amy Heckerling's work, is that does not write down to kids. She writes them as real, smart little people and that's what makes her adolescent characters so special. She gets it, especially when she is writing about young women.

One of my favorite scenes is when Pfeiffer meets her daughter's teacher armed with statistics about how boys and girls learn differently. She stands up for her daughter and tells the teacher that it is his job to make girls feel good about math and science, not scared of it. Another fantastic scene is when Pfeiffer is waiting to head into the network executive's office and there are two drones sitting next to her trying to think of a woman (over 30) they could cast in something. Every woman mentioned is dismissed as too old. After a minute
Pfeiffer can't take it and just lets them have it. It's a precious moment and one only a woman like Heckerling who has worked in the business for such a long time could get way with.

While I can't say it's perfect (I still don't understand the point of Tracey Ullman playing Mother Nature), it is so much better than some of the other films about women that recently made it into the theatres. I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

Reese Witherspoon: Hollywood Feminist of the Day

Reese Witherspoon celebrated Women's Month at the UN yesterday and helped launch an international campaign to end violence against women. She teamed up with Avon (she's their global ambassador) and UNIFEM and showed off the new "women's empowerment bracelet." (Will it have the same powers as Wonder Woman's bracelets?) 100% of the profits will go towards ending violence against women. Why can't we just give our money, why do we need jewelry to make us feel good about giving to such an important cause?

Full story: Witherspoon pitches fund to combat violence against women (AFP)

Bird's Eye View Women's Film Festival Kicks Off in London

The Bird's Eye View Film Festival, which celebrates women filmmakers, launches its fourth festival tomorrow night (March 6) in London. The program includes shorts, documentaries and features, and this year has a special feature that looks at the women focused comedies of earlier Hollywood. These smart women also conduct education programs and take some of the films on the road to other festivals and events to spread the word of the importance of including female voices and perspectives as part of the cultural discussion.

More information: Bird's Eye View

Festival director Rachel Millward answered some questions as she prepared for this year's festival.

Women & Hollywood: Why did you name the festival Bird's Eye View?

Rachel Millward: In the UK the term ‘bird’ is a derogatory term for women. It can be affectionate, like chick, but it doesn’t tend to be particularly respectful. So, this is all about seeing the world from the perspective of women – so it is, literally, a bird’s eye view. I think it works because it’s pretty tongue in cheek and shows that we’re fun and not precious or ranty.

This is massively serious to us, but to get our message across and to be true to who we are, we’re going to have a giggle while we get on with it… So it’s somehow disarming for a lot of people who would be put off by a ‘women’s/feminist film festival’ type title.

W&H: How do you pick the films to be included?

RM: We have about 600 shorts submitted from around the world and whittle that down to 20 – 6 for opening night. We get docs and features submitted too, but most of these we request from around the world. Researching other film festivals, putting word out etc. It’s a massive job but it’s a joy when you find such amazing talents!

W&H: What premieres are you particularly excited about?

RM: Hotel Very Welcome is our closing night – it’s a lovely, funny, laid back and painfully accurate movie about travelers in the East. Makes you cringe it’s so familiar! Expired has Sam Morton being her usual brilliant self. Sleepwalking Land is from Mozambique – a really beautiful and heart-rending tale based on Mia Couta’s magical realism novel. We always try to have a chunk of our programme showcasing women from developing countries.

The docs are amazing this year – Her Name is Sabine is a fascinating and frankly quite upsetting doc from the famous French actress Sandrine Bonnaire about her autistic sister going through various stages of treatment and care. All these are UK premieres.

W&H: I noticed that you have a focus on the early comedies of Hollywood. The recent trend in Hollywood has been away from comedies including romantic comedies that feature a female perspective. Do British comedies have more of a female perspective? And what message are you trying to send by showing these films that star strong women?

RM: No, there are hardly any British comedies with strong female leads. The stats here are just as bad as Hollywood. (6.5% films produced in the UK last year were directed by women, 11% were written by women – and if women aren’t writing, the likelihood of having real, complex, multi-dimensional and fabulous female characters is very very slim!). We’ve got a bit more women’s perspective in TV comedy now, since Smack the Pony did their TV sketch show which was encouraged by the Spice Girls success in music (our first girl band). But really, comedy is very much a boys game.

The comedy retrospective idea came about because last year our programme was full of these incredible dramas by women – really stunning and wonderful films – but all tended towards the harrowing/weepy/emotional. It made me think, and wonder why we didn’t get more comedies. So I thought it was a good plan to look back and see what women’s involvement in comedy film over the last century has been. We started with the pre-1930s silent films (in our ‘clowning glories’ retrospective) – there is some fantastically refreshing zaniness – really bonkers and ridiculous humour – all slapstick and physical. Then it moves into the era of classical Hollywood comediennes – the Screwball Women – who are far more glamorous and men-obsessed, but are also feisty, quick, intelligent, strong – they run the show! We just don’t see that anymore. I think Hollywood made films more for a middle aged female audience in those days. Now it’s all about the teen boy market – hence this kind of character just isn’t seen as relevant, I guess.

Looking back highlights what we don’t have now. We’re also using this retrospective to launch a new initiative for women writing comedy feature films – we’ll be bringing together female comic talent from tv, radio, theatre and standup and running an intensive ‘lab’ to generate feature film ideas, which will then get taken into development with a partner production company.

W&H: In the US less that 6% of the top 250 grossing films were directed by women, yet most people don't know about this issue. Is the situation as bad in Britain, and in general why do you think that it's important to focus on female directed movies?

RM: It’s the same situation here. Bad. As to why it’s important to focus on female directed movies (and I’d extend that to female-written too) well, I really believe that film has an enormous influence on our culture. More than that, it can actually affect the way in which we see each other and ourselves. So it’s absolutely crucial to get a balanced perspective on screen. If all I see are one-dimensional female characters, I’m missing the chance to explore life’s dilemmas and imaginative possibilities through the films I watch, because I can’t relate to the characters I see. And film is hardly offering men more insight into womanhood – but it can and should!

If you're anywhere near London this weekend, support the great work of this Festival!

Gender Imbalance in Best Picture Nominated Films from 1977 to 2006

Now that this year's Oscars are over and the critics agree that the ceremony and the awards themselves are out of date (the ratings this year were lower than the first night of American Idol), the Academy will have to struggle to figure out how to make the Oscars, and the movies more relevant.

Here's my answer: Make more movies about women. Not just crappy reductive chick flicks (I'm not saying all chick flicks are crappy), but movies about real women.

In this year's lead up to the Oscars there were several stories written (mostly in the British press) about how the Oscars had gotten so dark, and so male. (Imagine the conversation if Juno hadn't been included as a nominee.)

But is this year any worse than previous years, or did it just actually get some press this time around?

A new study by Stacy L. Smith and her colleagues at the Annenberg School of Communication at USC took a look at all the speaking parts in films nominated for the Best Picture award over the last 30 years (not including this past year) to see what the gender balance looks like. (This research is part of a larger research program on looking at gender roles in the media that is funded by actress/activist Geena Davis.)

The news is not good.

"Of the 6,833 single speaking characters only 27.3% were females." (The data set included anyone who spoke a line onscreen no matter how big or small their part was. The leading character counted just as much as the person who said one line.)

"Very simply, there has been no change in the frequency of roles for females in best picture nominated films in the last 30 years."

Smith spoke with Women & Hollywood about the research.

Women & Hollywood: How did this research come about?

Stacy Smith: We had been doing some other work on films and were curious about how these prestigious films might do in terms of gender balance. They often tackle controversial issues of historical import. We were looking to see where people are doing a good job and where there is room for improvement.

W&H: What did you learn?

SS: The previous 30 years don't look so great. Are things getting better? No, they're not. Now we have hard evidence to show that there is lots of room for improvement. Without the data it's hard to know. Any way you slice it up this representational portrait is out of balance.

W&H: Why did you decide to track the data this way?

SS: This is the whole bandwidth of characters from the most prominent to the least prominent not the amount of words they say. If we think about representation and that females should represent half the characters or half the space we want to make sure that it is across all characters not just the ones that have compelling lead roles.

Of the 150 films nominated for best picture from 1977-2006. Only 5 and a half of the films are directed by women.

These films are:
1986- Children of a Lesser God, directed by Randa Haines
1990- Awakenings, directed by Penny Marshall
1991- The Prince of Tides, directed by Barbra Streisand
1993- The Piano, directed by Jane Campion
2003- Lost in Translation, directed by Sophia Coppola
2006- Little Miss Sunshine, co-directed by Valerie Faris

"An analysis revealed a significant difference in the percentage of females depicted on screen by director sex. The proportion of females on the silver screen is significantly higher when a female is directing a motion picture than when a man is at the helm."

W&H: The data clearly shows that when a woman directs, the number of female speaking parts is higher.

SS: We just know that the numbers make a significant jump when the female is a director and that's a positive. It would suggest that maybe we need more female directors.

W&H: What are your hopes for this research?

SS: I spend a lot of time educating my students and sending them into the film industry informed is really important. It's about empowering them and giving them the courage to tell stories that are rich and multi-dimensional. This data suggests that there is a lot of room for improvement and it's important to educate the next generation of filmmakers about these issues so they remember issues of representation and diversity when they are creating their scripts and pitching their stories. The goal is not to deal with this on the back end in the research, but that the next generation of content creators are thinking about these issues when they tell the stories.

Amy Sherman-Palladino Makes Her TV Comeback

The NY Times ran a piece on Amy Sherman-Palladino the writer/creator of The Gilmore Girls on her return to TV with The Return of Jezebel James starring Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose. The fact that she was called an auteur in headline is progress itself. Auteur is usually associated with male directors especially in the film business. It's much harder for a woman to be called an auteur in the movies (probably because there are so few female film directors.)

But on TV there has been a strong history of female auteurs including Diane English (remember Murphy Brown? I still miss it), Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (Designing Women), Susan Harris (The Golden Girls), Roseanne, and now Shonda Rhimes. One of the things I've always noticed about strong women (you know those pesky women with opinions and thoughts) in any business that we (I am one!) are quickly put into the bitch box. It's thanks to Tina Fey (on SNL last week) that we can all now embrace our inner bitch because "bitch is the new black."

Sherman-Palladino has one of those legendary stories that only happen in showbiz about being kicked off her own show in a contract dispute. She left the Gilmore Girls the season before its last, and those who loved the show know full well that her departure was the cause of its demise. Some shows just cannot survive without the "birth parent" on set. (Case in point- The West Wing. Show was just not as good after Aaron Sorkin left.) Btw she seems to get along fine with her creative partner and husband Daniel (but she is clearly the visionary getting the lion's share of publicity and the lion's share of the crap that goes with that.)

Some quotes from the piece:

Within the television industry Ms. Sherman-Palladino, a spunky, sarcastic writer with a penchant for gothic top hats and fishnet stockings, is recognized as a unique talent, but also a challenging one.

Ms. Sherman-Palladino said that she always provided pitches and outlines well in advance, and that the industry’s most esteemed show runners of that era were not expected to submit finished scripts. Joss Whedon never gave anyone a script,” she said. Aaron Sorkin never gave anyone a script.”

Could it be that there is a double standard between female and male showrunners? Really, that would mean we live in a sexist world and we all know that everything's equal now, right?

“It’s hopefully funny in a way that only girls can be funny,” Ms. Ambrose said. When an actor works in television, she said, “they own you, but when somebody like Amy’s in charge, who’s passionate and very determined, you go, ‘O.K., I’ll put my life for the next thousand years in her hands.’ ”

“The first few years at ‘Gilmore,’ ” Ms. Sherman-Palladino said, “I really spent way too much time talking to person after person after person, about marketing and support, and how we’re not just a chick show, we can do more than sell tampons. It never got us anything. It came down to when the audience discovered it, they watched it, and then all of a sudden everybody liked it.”

Hopefully now that it's almost a decade later and that women are appear and are leads in many hit shows, this new show will not get pegged as the TV equivalent of the chick flick.

Check out the full piece: Auteur Writes Herself Another Chance

Show premieres on Fox on March 14th.