Tag Archives: movies

‘The Avengers,’ Strong Female Characters and Failing the Bechdel Test

Smashing box office records, audiences have been swept up in The Avengers hullabaloo. Interesting and compelling, the epic superhero film based on the Marvel comics unites Black Widow, Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, the Hulk and Thor “to form a team that must stop Thor’s brother Loki from enslaving the human race.” It was good. [...]

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Holiday Film Ratings – Are We Judging Sex or Sexuality?

The Holiday movie season is here! And, true to form, as revealed in USC’s Annenberg School’s most recent study of gender in the 100 top grossing films of 2009, we will blithely consume great movies that consistently marginalize and sexualize girls and women. The male to female ratio in film hasn’t changed since 1946. In [...]

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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 [...]

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