Dear Academy, I love the Academy Awards. Along with millions of other people, I wait for the annual ceremony, yell at the screen when I disagree with winners, pick my favorite dresses and cheer for people whose work I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying. Like my parents before me, I fight with my kids about [...]
Tag Archives: film
‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Raises Questions On Gender and Torture, Gives No Easy Answers
Originally published at Bitch Flicks. Cross-posted with permission.| Warning: Spoilers ahead! Driven, relentless, bad-ass women in film always hold a special place in my heart. Ripley from Alien and Aliens, Patty Hewes from Damages, Carrie Mathison from Homeland. Maya, the female protagonist of Zero Dark Thirty, is no exception. But can a film be feminist [...]
‘Les Miserables,’ Sex Trafficking & Fantine as a Symbol for Women’s Oppression
Some writers, like professor Stacy Wolf, have enjoyed yet criticized the film adaptation of Les Miserables for not being feminist enough and turning the female characters into “bit players.” Whileothers have lauded its feminism. Sure it irks me yet another film focuses on the journey, salvation and redemption of a man. We clearly have enough of those. But that ignores [...]
Will Brave’s Warrior Princess Merida Usher In a New Kind of Role Model for Girls?
I loved Brave. I literally did a happy dance the moment I heard Pixar would feature a female-centric film. Out of their 13 movies, Brave marks their first female protagonist. Pretty shameful. But hey, they finally got their act together and created a kick-ass heroine. But will Merida spark a new kind of role model? [...]
The Hunger Games’ Katniss Everdeen: More, Please
I often lament the lack of gender equity in film. Would The Hunger Games’ female warrior Katniss Everdeen quench my thirst for strong, complicated female protagonists? I devoured the trilogy. The female-centric series’ haunting themes – war, sacrifice, love, starvation, media’s influence, government control and economic inequity – riveted me. The books’ memorable characters lingered [...]
Feminists, Film and Women in Power
I wrote a while back about secretly liking things that you know are not feminist – in that case, Eminem. But what do you do when you find out something you thought you liked is sexist? What if you’re not sure? I’ve been a fan of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest since an English [...]
Bridesmaids: 3D Women, 2D Men, and The Scene That Made Women Cringe
Much has been made already of the idea that Bridesmaids is breaking boundaries by proving that women can, in fact, be funny. That we don’t always have a big stick up our behinds, whining about patriarchal hegemony while burning our bras. This is true. But Bridesmaids goes even deeper than that. Any woman who has [...]
does abortion belong in popular films? a response
Recently, Jaime Keiles (of the Seventeen Magazine Project) asked some great questions about films and abortion: why do so few films depict abortions? Should we see them in films more often? Jaime had just finished watching Enter the Void, which includes a pretty realistic abortion scene. She noted that the scene made her uncomfortable, but [...]