Recently in Film Category

This weekend at the National Women's Studies Association conference, I met Angie Young, a filmmaker who created The Coat Hanger Project.

This film feels frighteningly relevant after what happened last weekend with the House's health care reform bill and the Stupak amendment.

Rather than make abortion more accessible since Roe vs. Wade, abortions have become even less accessible. The number of providers has decreased, the number of laws restricting abortion throughout the states has increased, and access to funding for women receiving health care provided by the federal government (women on Medicaid, Medicare or military insurance) has been all but eliminated.

This fight for health care reform, which is absolutely necessary, has the potential to continue rolling back our access to abortion even farther.

The history Young documents in her film is more relevant than I ever assumed it would be in my lifetime. The movie also does a great job of explaining the Reproductive Justice movement through interviews with the leaders of the movement.

Details about how to purchase the film or arrange a screening are here.

And appropriately, you can take action against the Stupak amendment by sending a coat hanger to pro-choice Democrats who supported the Stupak amendment.

I've shared info about this beautiful film previously...as a refresher: it's a documentary film featuring five diverse artists who are also mothers. It explores the question, how do you do what you love, in this case art, and care for who you love? It goes into the economics of art, cultural and historical memory, feminism, family and labor, and so many other key issues of our time.

On Sunday I facilitated a post-screening panel at the Symphony Space in New York, which was streamed online and hosted at seven theaters across the country. You can watch it here.

One of the questions that has often come up in these screenings is the question: is it art if you don't share it? So many women shy away from putting their work out into the public, much less the marketplace, because they fear it's not good enough yet, or they don't want to seem too egocentric, or they just don't want to have to deal with assigning an economic value to what feels like such an organic process. But if art just sits in a drawer, can it really be considered art? Academy Award-winning producer Pamela Tanner-Boll, who put her blood, sweat, and tears into making this film, thinks not. At a recent talk back she talked about being sick of women making their art small or hiding it from the world. "You have a duty to share your art with the world," she advocated.

Both the educational release and the house party kit (which is so beautiful, filled with the art of the women featured in the film) are now available. Get your school library to order one. Give it to your artist mom for a holiday gift.(And please let em' know that you heard about it on Feministing if you decide to order--they'll make a small donation to us.)

Word of two new projects focusing on the stories of transgender individuals hit the Hollywood trades last week. Both have me concerned we will once again see most of the focus on the process of transition, and that once again trans lives might be reduced to transition status.

First comes word of a new HBO series called "T":

HBO is in development on a half-hour drama series that explores the gender transformation of a woman into a man.

Following that story came news that the lead roles have been cast in "The Danish Girl." The film is based on the novel of the same name by David Ebershoff, a fictionalized account of the life of Lili Elbe. Elbe is sometimes called the first transsexual and there are many who believe she was intersex. Her story is certainly one of the earliest accounts of someone going through surgical procedures as part of a gender transition.

I have not read Ebershoff's book, which apparently focuses on the relationship between Elbe and her wife Gerda. but the fact that people are interested in Elbe's story because of the historical nature of her transition process has me worried about a film that will focus on transitioning.

The process of transitioning can certainly be an important part of a transgender person's life experience. But physical and social transitions, those moments in our lives where our bodies and presentations go through the biggest changes, are not our whole experiences. You might not know this from mainstream representations of transgender folks, though, which too often focus on the act of transition and often the status of our genitals to the exclusion of the rest of our life stories. This obsession turns trans folks into objects of fascination whose crotches are more interesting than any other aspect of our lives. It makes the process of transitioning more relevant than the gender we actually identify with. And by always bringing up the gender we were assigned at birth these narratives often delegitimize our gender identities and presentations by showing our "real" or "natural" gender in opposition to a chosen, artificial, and created gender.

Of course I'm curious about both these projects, and I want to give them some benefit of the doubt. But the fact that both "T" and "The Danish Girl" are already being framed as focusing on transitioning instead of other, under-represented aspects of trans life experiences has me worried.

I met super brave and hilariously funny filmmaker Nancy Schwartzman last weekend and wanted to make sure folks were aware of her complex film on sexual assault. It's called The Line and, in it, she reflects on her own rape, interviews sex workers as experts in consent, and even confronts her rapist on camera. It's really powerful and coming to college campuses around the country soon.

As part of the film promotions, she's also asking people to reflect on the question "Where is your line?"--promoting consent and self-reflection. Here's a lil' video she did on that:

Where is your line? from Nancy Schwartzman on Vimeo.

So I ask you, where is your line? Go on over to Nancy's dynamic site and tell her too.

The New York Times Magazine that made Precious actress Gabourey Sidibe a cover girl was almost a too-good-to-be-true moment. All at once, the world was a more inclusive place for people of dark complexions, ample body sizes and for people living in the shadows of the less visible differences her Precious character embodies. It's crazy how powerful representation can be. I am a dark-complected, Harlem girl who has survived violence. And while it's on the self indulgent side, I must admit: seeing that chocolate girl on that measly little cover with her pride held high made all the difference to me.

A few days remain until Precious debuts across the country on Nov. 6th. The story, originally told by Sapphire through the novel Push, is an ode to negotiating inclusion and exclusion in the media. It's about much more than the New York Times' account: a "Harlem girl raped and impregnated by her abusive father." (That's practically all the ink dedicated to Precious the character despite an accompanying a column that extends for 5 pages.) It's about inclusion and what it says about who is valuable in our society. That's best captured in Push, when Precious explores this:

I am comp'tant. I was comp'tant enough for her [Precious' mother] husband to fuck. She ain' come in here and say, Carl Kenwood Jones--thas wrong! Git off Precious like that! Can't you see Precious is a beautiful chile like white chile in magazines or on toilet paper wrappers. Precious is a blue-eye skinny chile whose hair is long braids, long long braids. Git off Precious fool! It time for Precious to go to the gym like Janet Jackson. It time for Precious hair to braided.(64)

But what I love about the book is that Precious is not a defenseless subject. She is a survivor who resists against her exclusion by striving for her own inclusion. She does this by learning how to read. She then uses her literacy to read about the lives of Black women through writers such as Alice Walker, Ann Petry, Ann McGovern and others. The story ends with her literally penning her own story fully epitomizing the agency she had all along despite sexual trauma and despair.

Via Feministe, via Sociological Images. As this commenter notes, where are Mulan, Pocahantas, Giselle and Lauren notes the absence of Tiana, first African American princess who were all also constructed as racist and sexist stereotypes. Disney doesn't discriminate who they create sexist caricatures out of, that is for sure.

I wear a few hats on campus. Along with being a graduate student and a Feministing contributor in constant search of my next post, I am also the President of the Campus Coalition for Sexual Literacy (CCSL). CCSL, an org that is an affiliate to the National Sexuality Resource Center, promotes sexual literacy through community forums and serving as a liaison between students and campus health providers. This past Wednesday, with the help of HBO, film distributor Roadside Attractions, University of Michigan academics and student organizations, we held a private screening of Chris Rock's Good Hair 2 days before the film premiered in Michigan.

While the event, and the conversation that followed with the 300 audience members was powerful and revealing, the film really underwhelmed me. The sexist comments and the framing of black hair issues was striking. In addition, the portrait of Black hair excluded some important voices that were equally vital to the black hair conversation. However, the film did make a contribution by grappling with the relationship that decision-making about hair has with age. Lastly, it educated the masses about the harm involved with relaxers using two methods that are bound to be widely received--humor and famous people.

So let's break this down.

If you have some time today, check out this short film called Obvious Child from Gillian Robespierre about a one night stand that results in pregnancy and abortion, featuring Jenny Slate, of SNL (and f-bomb dropping ) fame.

The film presents a subversive alternative to the Juno model, in which abortion is a quickly glossed over road-sign on the highway from CasualSexville to Babyland.

I had to post a link to the new movie, Precious:

I am halfway through Push, the book by Sapphire that the movie is based on. It is not often that so many issues women face are embodied in one character. From racism, sizism, sexual violence, domestic violence, welfare issues, colorism, ablism, and many, many more -- this is the ultimate feminist primer! I am not quite sure what to make of how Precious' mother's character, played by Mo'Nique, is being framed as the "monstrous matriarch." On one hand, giving her villainous character, it seems fitting. On the other hand, what does it mean that the black single mom has once again gotten this branding? This is especially interesting considering the villainous male characters in the story that seem conspicuously absent from this trailer.

On another note, I posted earlier this week about Tyler Perry. He is serving as an executive producer of this film, alongside Oprah. Again, I think we can log some progress points for Perry on this one. It will be important to see what, if any, the trade offs will be.

But, after all, I'm just a cautious optimist. Preliminary thoughts?

This post contains spoilers for Inglourious Basterds and The Battle of Algiers.

Have you read Amanda Marcotte's fantastic piece on Inglourious Basterds? See the movie if you haven't, then read her review. It's a great feminist perspective on a really complex, tense, and ridiculously fun movie.

Jennifer's Body, the latest from 31-year-old feminist screenwriter Diablo Cody (of Juno fame), is hitting theaters September 18th and already it's causing quite the buzz. The Times ran an interesting story this weekend about how Cody and her crew tried to create a film "with both feminists and 15-year-old boys in mind." Karyn Kusama, of Girlfight, is directing and told the Times: "It may be one of the best ways for a young male audience to experience a female story without feeling like they have been limited by a female perspective."

The trailer, I have to say, is full of annoying cliches--glamorizing bisexuality, seemingly for male-benefit, dumb dudes mesmerized by evil beauty, you know the drill:

The lingering question is, were Cody and Kusama really able to subvert some of these cliches in order to make smart, feminist commentary on them, or will they just play like good ol' fashioned objectification and sexism (think all the homophobes laughing their asses off at Bruno)? Cody, who called the script a "crazy, chaotic homage" to the horror films of her youth, told the Times: "The tricky thing is if you're going to subvert those tropes, they have to be there. We were constantly bobbing and weaving. Karyn and I talk about the film as a kind of Trojan horse. We wanted to package our beliefs in a way that's appealing to a mainstream audience."

I, for one, am fascinated to see Cody and Kusama creation. Will that so-called Trojan horse cross the finish line in covert feminist style or will it resemble all the other horror flicks despite feminist intentions?

Bonus: Check out Jessica Wakeman's interview with Diablo Cody.

There's an article in today's New York Times about Chris Rock's much anticipated new documentary, Good Hair, which explores black women's complex relationship with hair and all the historic, racial, economic, gendered, and of course comedic, connotations. It won the jury prize at Sundance. The trailer:

In the Times article, Ingrid Banks, an associate professor of black studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, breaks it down: "For black women, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you've got straight hair, you're pegged as selling out. If you don't straighten your hair," she said, "you're seen as not practicing appropriate grooming practices."

There is so much at stake here. Not only are black women subjected to and sometimes perpetuate a system that infuses their hair choices with all sorts of social and political implications, but there are major economic implications as well. The Times article reports that "Last year, sales of home relaxers totaled $45.6 million (excluding Wal-Mart), according to Mintel, a market research firm, a figure that has held steady in recent years."

Things aren't getting cheaper, but they may be getting more complicated:

Noliwe M. Rooks, the associate director of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton, had many conversations about what it meant when the hair of Sasha and Malia Obama was pressed straight. "Unlike earlier times," the conclusion wasn't "clearly she had sold out, or she's saying straight hair is better," Professor Rooks said. "There's a complexity to who we are now. There wasn't an easy answer to why."

Thanks to reader Rachel for the reminder.

Did you know that Amy Poehler played Rachel McAdams' mother, even though she's only eight years older? Or that, sigh, she and Sarah Silverman were both tapped to play Jonah Hill's mother? Listen as these great ladies discuss what it means to be over a certain age. (Like magazines that don't feature women over 35 years old. Seriously.)

Via Broadsheet.

Via The Frisky.

I've written about GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services) before. Basically, I think they are the shit. In more official terms, they are "the nation's largest survivor-led organization serving American girls and young women who have experienced sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation." You may remember the amazing documentary on their work called Very Young Girls, which is now available via Netflix.

Well GEMS is at it again. This time they're joining forces with Beyoncé Knowles, Halle Berry, Demi Moore, Sinead O'Connor, Mary J Blige, Katie Ford and women across America for their Girls Are Not for Sale campaign. According to GEMS:

The campaign will use e-activism, live events, all-star artist collaborations and other initiatives to promote girls empowerment and education as critical tools in the fight against child traffickers and pimps who victimize between 100,000 and 300,000 American children and teens each year.

After seeing the film, Beyonce said, "I don't know how anyone could see that documentary and not want to help those young women. I didn't want to just donate money, I wanted them to know that someone really cared about them. My time, my heart, my ears, and my voice are the biggest gifts I could think to give." She hung out with the girls featured in the film and others who are now working with GEMS, and reflected: "I wanted to listen to every girl's story and the stories were all so different. I watched them dance. I heard them sing. I asked lots of questions. They were so open and so brave."

You go Ms. Fierce. Want to get involved? Join the Council of Daughters:

GEMS hopes many more women will join Knowles and other artists in spreading the girls' message. The organization has launched a national social network, The Council of Daughters, to empower women and girls to bring the needs of young survivors into local communities. Through its online hub - http://www.councilofdaughters.ning.com - Council members can meet, share news and ideas, plan campaign events, raise funds and introduce the needs of girls to their friends through a variety of social media tools. Council members across the country, in conjunction with Netflix, the world's largest online movie rental service, will host National Viewing Nights to celebrate the online and DVD premiere of 'Very Young Girls'.

We'd love to hear about your viewing night experience on our community site, so get registered, get watching, get reflecting, and make the world a better place for this country's most vulnerable girls.

If you're a television junkie or history buff, don't miss a new documentary on a too often forgotten pioneer in the industry. According to the film's site, Gertrude Berg, was the creator, principal writer, and star of The Goldbergs, a popular radio show for 17 years, which became television's very first character-driven domestic sitcom in 1949. Berg received the first Best Actress Emmy in history, and paved the way for women in the entertainment industry.

I thought this excerpt from the director's statement was really interesting:

In Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg I'm delighted to document the amazing accomplishments of the talented Gertrude Berg. I am in awe of how this woman would wake up at six in the morning, write her shows, and then go off to the studio to produce. Without missing a beat she seamlessly performed Molly to perfection. Here is a woman who wrote the most positive portrayal of a Jewish mother and her family during the decades that severely threatened American and European Jewry. It is more amazing still that she crafted such a warm maternal figure in spite of her own mother's mental illness. Berg created the "perfect mother" she never experienced in her own life.

Check out Project 1, a new two-part project. The site documents Jamila K. Gaskins' 12, 000 mile bicycle journey across America "facing her physical limitations, desolate stretches of road, miles of mountain climbs, hot asphalt, and cold winds which mirrors the situations in the lives of many HIV+ and HIV- women." She plans to make this journey into a documentary in honor of her uncle Tommy, who is HIV positive (pictured right). More on Jamila's motivation:

I want my actions and this production to engage the hearts and minds of girls and women across the country, and serve as a signal of empowerment, education and hope. I am creating this film and cycling for myself my niece, Kai, my sisters, Sidney, LaShonda, my best girlfriends, Michelle, Erin and Sofia, and the many other women I hold in my heart. We all have women we love; your wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, daughter, and best friend. It is vital that they are confident in their voice, secure with themselves and knowledgeable enough to make informed, healthy decisions in every aspect of their lives.

Hey friends, just had to write a little post about the new Vendela Vida/Dave Eggers movie, Away We Go. Besides featuring the oh-so-goofy-cute John Krasinski and the awesomeawesomeawesome Maya Rudolph, you absolutely cannot miss the amazing parody of hyperconscious feminist parenting played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Everything from militant breastfeeding to "family bed" to the exoticization of women of color is packed into this parody punch that will make feministing readers laugh their asses off.

Beyond that, the movie is satisfying and truly unique. Sometimes the quirky dialogue grated on my nerves a bit, and I absolutely detested one scene involving a woman dealing with a recent miscarriage, but other than that, I thought it was great. And I'm telling you, M.G. does a freakish version of the sanctimonious feminist so well, you will pee your pants.

I listened to a review of this new documentary, Food Inc, on NPR yesterday. Sounds pretty interesting and I'm excited to see Michael Pollan (of The Omnivore's Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (of Fast Food Nation) teaming up on this project.

Frameline, an LGBT film festival in San Francisco, was generous enough to offer a giveaway to Feministing readers.

About Frameline:

Frameline is the world's oldest and largest LGBT media organization. In addition to producing the annual San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival -- which opens this Thursday, June 18th -- Frameline is also the leading educational distributor solely dedicated to LGBT film and video. Among its newest programs are Youth In Motion, which provides free LGBT films and curriculum resources to California middle and high schools, and a new line of Home Videos, including previously unreleased classics like Tongues Untied and Screaming Queens.

We're giving away four prizes in honor of the festival today at Feministing.

First prize: DVD film pack:

* Fun In Girls Shorts 2
* Screaming Queens

Second, third and fourth prizes: Ticket prize packs that include two tickets for each film listed:

Gender Benders:

* Maggots and Men
* Pop Star on Ice
* Prodigal Sons
* My Buddy Claudia

The Stories We Tell - Films By, For, and About Queer Women of Color:

* Blazing Wanderlust
* Mississippi Damned
* El Niño Pez (The Fish Child)
* Ghosted

Frameline33 Sampler:

* Girl Seeks Girl
* Rivers Wash Over Me
* Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement
* Fig Trees

So here's how this is going to work. We're giving away each of these packages of DVDs or tickets to four lucky winners!

In order to win the tickets to the filmfest, you need to be local to the San Francisco area. The festival just started last night, and each of the ticket packages above has two tickets to each film. So if you are local, and want to enter to win one of those ticket packages, leave a comment listing your favorite LGBT film. I'll select three people from comments at random.

Anyone can enter to win the two DVDs, and we'll mail them to you. So, if you want to enter to win the DVDs, leave a comment with your favorite LGBT celebrity.

It's a short contest folks, winners will be posted at 3pm EST today and then will need to email me with some info to redeem their prizes. So comment away!

Thanks to Frameline and Harris for setting this up!

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

Had the end the contest a few minutes early (sorry folks!) but the winners are:

For the DVD set: justadude

For the Gender Benders ticket set: AmandaSea

For the The Stories We Tell ticket set: Wren

For the Frameline33 sampler: Serafina Longarina

If you're a winner, please email me (miriam@feministing.com) with your name, address and phone number so we can hook you up with your prize! Thanks for participating everyone.

When I was a little girl, my mom, along with her friend Donna Guthrie, started the Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival in my culturally-deprived hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado. They had no idea what they were doing. Neither had ever studied film. Neither was a producer by-training. They just knew that my town needed more art and images of women by women, and so they went about making that happen. It's still one of my most inspired models of feminist activism at work. And there's no question that it is a huge part of why I am a feminist and a writer today; after all, I grew up watching diverse stories about women play out on the television in my living room from the time I was a tiny girl.

I thought of my mom and her amazing instincts when I came across an impassioned letter by filmmaker Ela Thier. After detailing the ways in which she's received ample praise for her amazing screenplays over her 20 year career, she then writes:

But the million dollar question remains, as one of my writing students asked after reading two of my scripts: "Why are these scripts not made? What better scripts could people possibly be reading?"

After years of learning, practicing, and teaching, after hundreds of hour devoted to each script, after years of query letters, phone calls, meetings, film markets, panels, classes, LA trips, networking, more networking, even more networking, my scripts - those ones that this reader liked better than the 150 scripts she read that summer - those scripts sit on a shelf. After years of trying and falling and getting up and trying, something finally dawned on me: maybe I'm not the most unlucky bastard that ever lived. Maybe I'm female.

She then goes on to detail some of the little ways in which sexism lives outside herself:
search:

Little hints of this invisible blockade pop up on occasion: a male student of mine with a fraction of my experience gets hired to direct a feature film; the manager who couldn't get my script out of his head tells me that he can't sell the script because the lead is a girl; an executive won't read my road movie because it's an ensemble with three female leads and, according to this executive, "women on the road has already been done." One producer urged me to pass my script to another director since I haven't made a feature before; this conversation took place while her husband was line-producing a $7M movie starring Bruce Willis, directed by a first-time male director.

But then she really blew my mind by writing about the ways in which sexism lives inside of herself:

I teach screenwriting and consistently notice the different regard that I feel for my male and female students. No matter how "enlightened" I think I am, I find myself having higher expectations of the guys. I just assume that they have more experience, more confidence, more intelligence...? I've recently noticed that when I receive quality work from a woman, I feel a sense of surprise. When I see amateur work from a man, I think "hmm... for some reason I had him pegged as an experienced writer." For some reason.

So if I, a woman filmmaker, the liberated one who's not afraid to use the word "feminism" in a sentence, if I myself carry misinformation about women that has me question our competence and intelligence, what thoughts do other people carry? What "feelings", stemming from centuries of fear and prejudice, and mistaken for intuition, dictate their decisions?

It's an incredibly brave and beautiful letter that resonates so much with what I've heard other filmmaker friends say--that being a woman in filmmaking is a constant fight, an unending battle to have your voice heard, your vision respected, your films funded and seen. I'm so grateful to Ela for having the courage to write this letter and make it public, because I think it's going to make a lot of other filmmakers feel seen and maybe even help tip the scales in a more feminist direction in the film world. What's even more amazing is how Ela has looked inward to try to examine her own internal sexism, a practice that is hugely transformative and rarely enacted.

Full, very long, letter after the jump.

Thanks to reader Laura and friend Jennifer Gandin Le for the heads up.

I had an awesome opportunity this week to attend the Association of Women in Radio and Television's (AWRT) annual Gracie Awards. The Gracies are a beloved tradition among broadcast journalists, a time for the women in the industry to bond and celebrate one another for the good work they're doing. I could do a fairly long analysis of the ways in which the award show was totally de-politicized (other than the content of the shows that were awarded), as to make it a little ridiculous, but it's Friday and I'm feeling frivolous. So... the celebs were in full effect. I kid you not, I got butted away from singing Ruby's song with Amy Poehler (swoon!) and Will Arnett by one of the Real Housewives of New York City (don't worry, they weren't getting an award, just presenting one). Suze Orman was there (just as scary in person as I find her on TV), as was Rachel Ray (way more endearing in person than I find her on TV), and Kathy Griffin dropped the f-bomb about 20 times in 3 minutes. Niecy Nash hosted with tons of humor in a fabulous olive green dress.

The next day the regional Gracies were held. Far less fabulous, but very fun. I gave some quick remarks and got to give a scholarship (from AWRT and Dove) to awesome NYU grad Elly Park, who made an amazing film called Sea Woman. It's about a community of women in South Korea who have made their living for generations by diving (no scuba gear!) for precious metals. The fact that they were the breadwinners in their families gave them societal power, but as this area because more touristy, and the men in the families began working in hotels and cafes, the power dynamic shifted. Fascinating stuff. Here's an eight minute excerpt of Elly's movie:

Congrats Elly!

Linda Holmes, over at NPR, writes a moving letter about her fervent hope that Pixar can take it's unparalleled talent and use it to create a true female heroine. An excerpt:

Of the ten movies you've released so far, ten of them have central characters who are boys or men, or who are anthropomorphized animals or robots or bugs who are voiced by and imagined as boys or men. These movies feature women and girls to varying degrees -- The Incredibles, in particular -- but the story is never "a girl and the things that happen to her," the way it's "a boy and what happens to him."

I want so much for girls to have a movie like Up that is about someone they can dress up as for Halloween, as Anika Noni Rose said about starring as the voice in The Frog Princess. Not a girl who's a side dish, but a girl who's the big draw.

And I'd really, really like it not to be a princess.

Holmes references Tiana, the first black princess coming out of the Disney shop. There was an article this weekend in the Times about the whispers of controversy surrounding early viewings of her movie. Some believe that various aspects of the film reinforce racial stereotypes. It's hard to know until the rest of us have had a chance to check it out, but it's easy to imagine Disney screwing this up after their past racial missteps.

If you could sit in a story meeting with Pixar or Disney and pitch a feminist heroine for their next blockbuster film, what would you pitch?

Thanks to ang.halsted for the heads up.

A Powerful Noise is a new documentary about three different women activists around the globe: Hanh, an HIV-positive widow in Vietnam, Nada, a survivor of the Bosnian war and a community organizer, and Jacqueline, who works in the slums of Bamako, Mali to educate young women. Here's the trailer:

It was visually stunning. The shots of all three locations were exquisite, really bringing you into the full sensory experience of these diverse locations. The work these women are doing were also deeply inspiring. These are not superhero stories in the typical conventions of the genre--women who have done more, better, faster than any other activist. Instead, and thankfully, these are stories of fairly ordinary women with tremendous courage. You don't finish watching the film and think, "I could never be like that." You finish and think, "I could do that if I really drew on my inner resources." In other words, the film pushes you to be more courageous without presenting a paralyzing model of activist or feminist perfection.

My only wish was that each story contained more of an arc. As it was, I was always interested in what these women were doing, but I was never pulled in by a really riveting unsolved question or sense of tension. I think it would have gone a long way in getting film seen, not just by people like me who are interested in women's activism around the world, but people who are interested in good stories. They've certainly got the incredible visuals going for them.

You can now order the DVD from their website, and check out all the great resources there as well.

Thanks to Rosario for the heads up.

Check out the trailer for Kirby Dick's (of This Film is Not Yet Rated) new documentary exploring the hypocrisy of closeted politicians in the U.S. who, on the one hand, vote and vocally denounce gay rights, while seeking having gay relationships behind closed doors.

It's been getting unanimously positive critical reviews.

Thanks to Bob Lamm for the heads up.

My friend Emily Abt was at Sundance this year with her own awesome film, Toe to Toe (which just got distribution, yay Emily!). When she returned, she said that THE film to watch in the next year was going to be Precious, based on the incredible novel Push by Sapphire. She wasn't the only one that felt this way. It won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award and is set to storm Cannes soon. The trailer was just released by Lionsgate:

It will hit theaters in November. I can't wait.

For more on the director, Lee Daniels. And yes, that's Mariah Carey as the social worker.

Check out this great new resource for gender studies professors and feminist facilitators, an online journal called Films for the Feminist Classroom. It's being edited and produced by the Rutgers-based editorial offices of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society--a long standing resource for folks interested in intersectional feminism and gender analysis. About Films for the Feminist Classroom:

FFC publishes film reviews that provide a critical assessment of the value of films as pedagogical tools in the feminist classroom. Interviews with directors and producers of feminist film are also included in FFC issues. FFC endeavors to become a dynamic resource for feminist teachers.

Check out this inaugural guest post from Rachel Simmons, author of the bestselling Odd Girl Out, and the upcoming, The Curse of the Good Girl:

Turn the lights down and put on some Ashford and Simpson, because I'm popping my blog cherry today with some guest post access from Courtney. I'm sending out my own personal Thank You Thursday to her for a classy critique of the date rape scene in the Observe and Report trailer. Her speak out hit radars all over the net and has, at this writing, over 30,000 views on YouTube. That's some true blue feminist activism.

Maybe I was staring at Seth Rogen's face one too many times as I watched and rewatched the trailer, but it got me thinking about Hollywood's new comedy Brat Pack, the white-hot crew led by Judd Apatow. Observe and Report may not be Apatow's, but it bears his brand of brothers, to be sure, and has his fans in the crosshairs. Inventor of the "bromance," films which celebrate the male bond, Apatow has been anointed the new king of comedy by a worshipful band of critics.

I'm grateful for the bromance myself. I love using Superbad to talk with teens about masculinity and its suffocating constraints. The bromance portrays a kinder, softer young man who can, as the New Yorker's David Denby wrote, combine "desperately filthy talk with the most tender, even delicate, emotion." As a potty humor-loving girl, I can't complain. These movies slay me.

But the progressive manhood celebrated in Apatow's films frequently brings guys together at women's expense. Women and girls may still be old-fashioned sexual conquests, but in the modern bromance, they're also foils to male friendship. They're nags and nuisances, often one dimensionally so. Somehow, we're expected to swallow the misogyny in these films because they're coated in a syrup of kinder, gentler masculinity. And yeah, they may be obsessed with penis, but these guys love to equate vagina with weakness (as in, "Don't let the door hit you in your vagina on the way out").

I wonder if the bromance is part of a larger trend in guy-centered films where female characters are increasingly becoming objects. Courtney argues that the date-rape scene in Observe and Report blurs the lines of consensual sex. I agree, and I think the blurring on screen reflects a change in the culture of young female sexuality.

The pornification of sex has been defined for young women as a path to personal empowerment. Authentic sexual desire has taken a backseat to the pressure to perform for guys, whether it's through Girls Gone Wild type exhibitionism, sexting, or the straight-girl-on-straight-girl kissing offered up so casually for male audiences. As sexuality increasingly imitates pornography, young women are focusing more on their audience than their authentic experience of desire- and hence we have Anna Faris' character weirdly endorsing her own date rape. Watching the scene feels like that moment in middle school when the nerdy kid laughs at a joke made by the cool kids, but doesn't realize that the joke is about her. Anna Faris' character gets the punch line, sure, but with vomit leaking out of her mouth, the joke is on her.

For the record, I love a great fart joke. I love Seth Rogen. But let's not give movies with guy bonding a free pass just because they challenge some gender constraints. Pardon the pun, but there's some stinky there, too.

The R-rated trailer:

Approximate transcript after the jump.

I just saw this amazing film, Explicit Ills, with my brother and wanted to make sure everyone knew about it. While the narrative structure requires some patience, the payoff is huge--a really complex, beautiful look at gentrification and issues of health and wellness in urban environments (in this case, Philly). And as an added bonus, it's got one of my favorite feminist actors in it: Rosario Dawson. Here's the trailer:

While there were times when I felt like the two white hipster characters got dangerously close to stereotypes, I found the film refreshingly non-cliched otherwise. Mark Webber, the writer/director, writes:

It was my first screenplay, so it was a tremendous challenge with a whole lot of fear involved. Fear of sucking and fear of perfection. I knew what I wanted to write about. I wanted to write about love. I wanted to write about addiction. I wanted to write about poverty and I wanted to write about hope.

"I just write the stories I want to read, with women like the ones that I know. The people who pass for females in traditional comics look like men with watermelons strapped to their chests, carrying big guns and posting like they're in a porno magazine. I've never met any women like that, so I won't put them in my books."
-Coraline creator Neil Gaiman in Bust

The New York Times Sunday Styles lead article was a decent piece on four female screenwriters who are taking Hollywood by storm--Lorene Scafaria, Diablo Cody, Dana Fox, and Liz Meriwether--all the while supporting, inspiring, and boosting one another. An excerpt:

You can find them at work in their Laurel Canyon homes in their pajamas, or sitting next to one another at laptop-friendly restaurants. To see them gathered amid the dinosaur topiary around Ms. Fox's swimming pool with their dogs (they all have dogs) is to see four distinct styles of glamour that bear little resemblance to traditional images of behind-the-scenes talent. Whenever one of them has a movie opening, they all rent a white limousine and go from theater to theater to watch the first audiences react.

"We're usually drunk by the third theater," Ms. Cody said. "It's super porno and tacky, and we love doing it."

It sounds like fun and games -- the boozy, all-woman answer to those close-knit gangs of Hollywood boy-men captured on screen in "Entourage" and embodied by the real-life Apatown, the industry moniker for filmmaker Judd Apatow's coterie of actors and screenwriters including Paul Rudd, Jason Segel and Seth Rogen. But these women also work hard: Ms. Cody, Ms. Fox and Ms. Scafaria can command seven figures to write a movie that makes it into theaters with big stars. Ms. Meriwether (the others call her "the freshman") is on her way to joining them. That's no small achievement when you consider that among the screenwriters who are in steady demand for major projects, only about 20 are women. Don't even try to credit their bankability to their looks.

There are a lot of exciting things about these four women, who have given us solid (though flawed) films and television with a feminist sensibility: Juno, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist,The United States of Tara, and lots of upcoming projects that I look forward to seeing. At a time when it seems like testosterone poisoned action flicks and sticky sweet, unoriginal romcoms are the movies that get the money, it's critical that screenwriters like these get interesting, complex female characters onto the big screen.

But what's even more thrilling is that they're unapologetically supportive of one another and being recognized for it. Young women in their position are often pitted against one another, deluged with a psychology of deprivation by agents, producers, and mentors who urge them to look out for themselves, first and foremost, in the competitive LA landscape where there are very few spots for women writers. These women are bucking the conventional wisdom of dog-eat-dog and banding together to share the wealth, the networks, and yes, the alcohol.

What would make it ever more thrilling would be if they weren't all white and/or if they managed to claim their feminism more openly. It's clear that they're all down for the cause, so it would be even more lovely to hear them assert that far and wide, and make sure its reflected even more resolutely in their work.

Twenty nine year-old Astra Taylor has an amazing new documentary film out called Examined Life, in which she interviews eight philosophers about ethics while they are "in motion"--strolling through a park, navigating the streets of San Francisco, riding escalators in airports, rowing boats, and picking around garbage dumps, among other modes and settings. The concept might sound gimmicky, but it actually builds on a long, beautiful history of folks doing their best thinking while ambling. Who hasn't had the experience of a stagnant brain that is suddenly awakened and let loose by a simple walk in the park?

In any case, the most amazing thing about this film (and trust me, there are many) is the way in which Taylor has successfully taken philosophy out of the Ivory tower and put it in the streets. It's not that the philosophers--K. Anthony Appiah, Judith Butler, Michael Hardt, Martha Nussbaum, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Cornel West, Slavoj Zizek--don't make sophisticated arguments or go off on the occasional tangent that I had no way in hell of understanding. But the act of putting them in motion, removing them from their offices full of papers and the safety of their heavy, bound book, managed to de-stabilize them enough that they really managed to speak more plainly than they might have otherwise. Or as Salon's Andrew O'Hehir wrote, "By conducting her conversations in public spaces, and removing her interlocutors from desks and offices and book-lined studies and other appurtenances of intellectual authority, Taylor introduces a degree of playfulness and unpredictability that becomes the movie's M.O."

My favorite ten minutes (each philosopher was limited to just that much) was actually an exchange between Judith Butler and Taylor's own sister, Sunaura. As they strolled around San Francisco, they had a fascinating exchange about the body, the definition of walking, and our ideas about dependence. Sunaura is in a wheelchair, so her insights about these topics were drawn from lived experience, although she's linked them seamlessly to the larger field of disability rights and theory. Taylor actually made the film, in part, because she watched what a huge impact discovering a philosophy of disability had on her sister and she wanted to provide that experience for other "ordinary" people.

I got all sorts of useful nuggets out of the hour and half that have continued to linger in my non-philosophically trained brain. I've read many of these thinkers' work previously, and often struggled to sink my teeth in. Through Taylor's film, I was finally able to take away something that might just affect my behavior, my own personal ethics, and my life.

Check out this Q&A with the filmmaker for more.

*Um, and can we talk about how awesome it is that there a young woman filmmaker doing such amazing work marrying cinema and philosophy--two male-dominated fields? Huzzah!

Sean Penn won the Oscar for his portrayal of Harvey Milk. Check out his acceptance speech below.

Related:
Milk: I sure didn't learn about this in high school.
Harvey Milk Deserved a Better Film than Van Sant's Low-fat Biopic.

And it took a white director to make sure we got there! OK, OK, I will try to be less cynical. I know, I should be totally psyched that Slumdog Millionare won so many Oscars, including best picture. Any visibility for South Asians is good right?

Right. And wrong. I personally didn't think Slumdog Millionare was an Oscar worthy movie. I thought it was creative, beautiful, interesting and had a great soundtrack, but I didn't understand how it was Oscar worthy. Where was the complexity of the characters? Where was the deep cross-cultural analysis that helps us understand the South Asian condition? Where was there any agency displayed in the character of Latika? How did this story help the plight of the South Asian national citizen outside of reinforcing stereotypes of India?

I guess I have more questions than I have answers. And the questions I ask were certainly not the ones considered by the Academy in choosing this film. To be clear, I loved this movie and I saw it twice. The second time I brought my family, and my father a staunch Indian nationalist, hated it. He didn't like the way it portrayed India. I do not hold the same politics as my father and I felt that it actually held more truth about poverty and corruption in India than we would like to admit. But once you sift through the amazing imagery, adorable kids and soundtrack you are left with a coming of age story, only the story is not really for Indian audiences.

And despite its attempt at a narrative of social progress, Slumdog reinforces that which is hopes to ameliorate. Mitu Sengupta has an excellent piece up at Alternet about the policy implications of films like Slumdog Millionare that lump together the stereotypes of the poor.

It is ironic that "Slumdog", for all its righteousness of tone, shares with many Indian political and social elites a profoundly dehumanizing view of those who live and work within the country's slums. The troubling policy implications of this perspective are unmistakeably mirrored by the film. Since there are no internal resources, and none capable of constructive voice or action, all "solutions" must arrive externally.

After a harrowing life in an anarchic wilderness, salvation finally comes to Jamal, a Christ-like figure, in the form of an imported quiz-show, which he succeeds in thanks to sheer, dumb luck, or rather, because "it is written." Is it also "written," then, that the other children depicted in the film must continue to suffer? Or must they, like the stone-faced Jamal, stoically await their own "destiny" of rescue by a foreign hand?

Go read her whole piece, it gives a vastly different view on the film than what has been discussed in the mainstream media.

Finally, as a feminist, I had a really hard time with the character of Latika. I understand that in Boyle's imagination, Latika was like any third world woman. A helpless victim that can't speak up for herself and stays in an abusive relationship, until she is saved by another man. Outside of oversimplifying the complex ways that women of color experience AND resist violence within their own communities, it reinforces stereotypes of helpless third world women. I must say, I tried to ignore this plotline in the beginning. Perhaps if I thought about it too much, I would come out against a film that is supposed to "help" my people or because I just wanted to enjoy something for once without the nagging reality that this story doesn't make sense without the depiction of a violent patriarchy. But the unfortunate reality is that in order for South Asians to make it into the mainstream, they have to cater to the lowest common denominator of universal experience. And that is of course one where women have no agency, especially in the context of the third world. I mean that is why we are fighting all these wars right? To save women!

So yes, of course I am excited that Slumdog did so well at the Oscars. It makes me happy that all these South Asian actors are in the spotlight along with the genius of AR Rahman and MIA. However, it is only one step and we must resist the desire to homogenize the Indian experience that we know so little of in actuality, based on a fictitious film directed by a white man.

The awesome Melissa Silverstein has an interesting post up about the 2008 box office. Turns out that, in an industry where four out of four of the Academy Award nominated directors are men (again), it was an incredibly lucrative year for women. Silverstein says that the fact that four films in the top 20 have women leads is a "big f**king deal!"

But before you go throwing your overpriced movie tickets up like confetti, be forewarned, the content of said films is not the most exhilarating news. Among the big profit "female-friendly" movies this year: 27 Dresses, Sex and the City, Twilight, and The House Bunny. Now we don't have to get into a big conversation about whether these films have feminist content; I'm sure each of them have some redeemable qualities. But wouldn't it be great if the contemporary equivalent of Boys Don't Cry or The Piano could
make big box office news again?

I want movies about courageous women in everyday circumstances, movies about social issues that affect women's lives everyday, movies that awknowledge the complexity of sexual politics, movies that challenge anxious masculinity and traditional gender norms, movies about real women's lives. Not more movies about weddings, sororities, and celibacy.

Also in interesting movie news, some folks in Mumbai are protesting the name of the movie everyone is talking about: Slumdog Millionaire. The director, who grew up in a slum, told reporters, ""The film is going to be a terrific inspiration to kids around India. It's a feel-good film, a film of hope...Children from the slums are actually called much worse names."

Your thoughts?

I've written about the Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) before, but I really had no idea how moving their work was until I watched the documentary about it, Very Young Girls.

The film weaves together the stories of about half a dozen teenage girls who have been sucked into "the life"--as they call it. "The life," as described through these vibrant, wounded girls is one typified by family insecurity and few resources, leading these girls to be incredibly vulnerable. In most cases, some guy with fast talk and some cash lures the girls in--telling them that he loves them and will take care of them like the father they never had--and before long has asked them to do "their part" by prostituting themselves. It's amazing to hear these young women describe the process of getting into "the life" because it sounds so incredibly cliche. It's stunning that it still goes on just this way, that these preying men (sometimes decades older than the girls) use just these lines, and that it works to systematically dismantle these girls' self esteem and sense of what is right for them.

Some of the most stunning scenes for me were those that involved men. In one, a packed room of men listen to a female police administrator explain the process of arrest for those soliciting prostitution. Presumably all of the men in the room--including young and old, Italian and African-American, Orthodox Jews, and everyone in between--have been arrested for just this crime. One asshole raises his hand and asks, "When do we get a break?" and the room erupts in laughter. I felt such a sense of repulsion, such a wave of anger, come up in me at that scene. I felt, I have to admit it, violent. I wanted to trap these guys in a room and make them watch themselves in the context of the rest of the documentary. I wanted them to have one-tenth of the pain and manipulation and imprisonment that the young girls sucked into "the life" feel.

The film engenders these kinds of feelings because it is just that powerful. The most redemptive part is, first and foremost, the girls. They are incredible, resilient, fighting, inspirational. And they are lead by the center of the film and the Executive Director and Founder of GEMS, Rachel Lloyd, who was once in "the life" herself and now dedicates herself every single day to getting other girls out of it. She is a force, an absolute model of what it means to seize your purpose and live it every day.

When the film was done, I felt such a deep sadness, but also the sort of outrage that is incredibly motivating. I immediately donated online (if the Facebook cause recruits 3,653 members in the next 98 days, there is a $5,000 pledge). I started telling everyone I know about it. I read up on the issue and promised myself that I'd write more about it.

The average age that young women become prostitutes is 13-years-old. You can't not learn more about this issue. Watch the film on demand on Showtime through March 3rd or hold a screening in your home. The GEMS site tells you how.

If you missed journalist June Cross' amazing one hour special on Frontline about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and its affect on one extra/ordinary family's life, never fear. It's online. Out of all of the media that I've seen focused on this issue in the last few years, June's is among the most complex, clear, enraging, and inspiring (along with Trouble the Water). An excerpt of June talking about the women in the film:

I followed the travails of three generations of the Gettridge family for my film "The Old Man and the Storm" on Frontline. The men physically rebuilt their homes, but the actions of women--unseen because their pain was too private--allowed this family to survive. While the Gettridge men set up camp in trailers, their spouses and sisters, often living alone, reared children, fought with insurance adjusters, and in general stayed on top of the myriad shifting bureaucratic battles that have marked the city's first few years of rebuilding.

Go the Women's Media Center for the full text.

This last year was an amazing year in art, music, literature and politics, not to mention some serious personal transitions including a 3000 mile coast to coast move back to my hometown in NY. Here are some of the things I loved this last year.

Favorite movie: Milk. You can read what I wrote about it here. I haven't felt so inspired by a motion picture since Ghandi. Honestly, Slumdog Millionare was a close second, but Milk was my favorite because it combined both great film and a brave and beautiful story.

Favorite Album: Benga, Diary of an African Warrior. For those of you who don't know me personally, you don't know that my other personality is that of an electronic music nerd that goes all over the place to dance to new and interesting forms of electronic music. My most recent favorite being a form of music called dubstep. This album got me up and out of my chair consistently and does what we would call, "bring the noise." Check it out if you dare and remember to keep an open mind.

Favorite art exhibit: Josue Rojas, Deporting the American Dream. Yeah, I know Josue personally, that might be part of it, but his short lived art exhibit in San Francsisco was hands down the best art I saw this year which mixed media, images and one of the most powerful stories, not being told in mainstream media.

Favorite book: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz. Diaz won the Pultizer for this this. I can't speak highly enough of this book, I have sat to write reviews about it time and again and I feel I have to read it again to do it any justice. If you are a fiction fan, it is a must read. You can also listen to an interview with him here. The man is an inspiration to the aspirations of immigrant writers and artists.

Favorite live show: Erykah Badu with the Roots. Do I really need to say more?

Favorite city: New York. After 7 years on the West Coast I made the move back to NY and fell in love with this city all over again. San Francisco will always be in my heart, but right now, New York is who I am dating.

Favorite moment of 2008: When it was announced that Barack Obama is to be the 44th president of the United States of America. Yeah, that is cheesy and everyone else's moment, but damn, it was pretty great.

What were your favorite things of 2008?

Because there aren't enough scare tactics out there about crazy college kids hooking up and having The Sex. Sigh.

The trailer of this film kind of looks like a movie version of the chastity-pushing books that are so popular these days. (Naturally, I could be wrong and the film could be perfectly objective, but the fact that the IWF is endorsing it automatically gives me pause.)

What immediately struck me about this clip, however, is that the film shouldn't be about hooking up - but about booze. Perhaps the real problem on college campuses isn't that kids are having sex, but that they're having it drunk. Just a thought.

There's no question that being an artist in this culture--which does little to support the creative impulse and its contributions to society--just ain't easy. As if it wasn't hard enough just to make art, believe in yourself, and pay your rent, imagine also being a mother.

That's the life that five amazing women lead in Pamela Tanner Boll's new film, Who Does She Think She Is? Pamela, a friend and awesome feminist, also co-produced Born Into Brothels, which won an Academy Award for best documentary in 2005.

This film explores work/family balance, but with a particular lens on mother artists, who struggle to find a balance between what they love and who they love. Full self disclosure: I'm featured as an "expert" in the film. There's even a scene where I'm blogging for feministing! Bonus points for noticing the hilarious title of the post I'm working on if you see the film.

Anyway, check out the blog, watch the trailer below, and, if you're in the New York area, come check out the film at Angelika Film Center starting on Friday, October 17th. On opening night, the 17th, I'll be moderating a post show panel that includes Elizabeth Sackler, Pamela Tanner Boll, and one of the artists from the film.

This award-winning doc on the painful aftermath of Katrina for New Orleans residents is finally hitting theaters. Check out if it's playing near you and support!

I think "We don't want to get your expectations too high," says it all.

I just returned from my annual weekend in Telluride with my family seeing 15 amazing films. My mom started the Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival in my hometown, Colorado Springs, after going to the Telluride Film Festival for the first time. Since then it has become a set-in-stone tradition for us, a little jolt of inspiration and art that we experience every Labor Day.

These were the films that I believe have particular feminist resonance from this year's festival, so keep your eyes peeled for them:

American Violet

So often when you see "civil rights" movies, they are set in the time of Jim Crow, Martin and Malcolm. This amazing film--based on a true story--is set in our very own decade. Dee Roberts, a single mom from a tiny town in Texas, is arrested on bogus drug charges--designed to pad the racist district attorney's arrest record. The ACLU gets involved and the rest is history. Dee Roberts and her four kids were actually in Telluride. It always takes your breath away to see a genuine heroine after watching a film like this.

I was especially excited about this film, because an old friend of mine--Malcolm Barrett--stole the show. He and I used to do spoken word poetry together in college and now he's undoubtedly on his way to being a critically-acclaimed actor. Go Malcolm!

On a less encouraging note, this asshole district attorney is still serving in Texas. When the film has its nationwide release, I'll post again about what we can all do to express our absolute outrage that this jerk is still in office.

Everlasting Moments
This Swedish film is a true epic and a frightening look into just how difficult working class women's lives were at the turn of the century. The main character struggles through years of child birthing and rearing, an abusive, alcoholic husband, and poverty with a sort of gritty grace; her salvation is in her discovery of photography.

I was particularly struck by Maria Heiskanen's--the main actor's--capacity to perform the main character as both tough as nails, and frustratingly stuck and permissive to her husband. It beautifully encapsulated women's complex lives and identities at the time.

We've written about the great film At Your Cervix before, but this time we need your help.

The film's director Amy Jo Goddard has written Feministing to let us know that they're trying to get the word out about the project and, of course, need funds in order to do so. Right now, the film is up for up for a $10,000 award on Idea Blob - they're one of eight finalists. So if you like what At Your Cervix is doing, and you want to support Goddard's work, head on over and vote!

Check out the trailer for this new doc, Seeking Happily Ever After, that a friend of a friend is working on about the 60 million single women over 30 and the ways in which they are remaking the "happily ever after" fairytale.

The filmmakers, Kerry David and Michelle Cove, are throwing a big fundraiser in LA on August 14th, so if you're in the area and all about radical revisioning of love/happiness/partnership, definitely show your support. Details here.

Feministing friend and vicious intellect Alissa Quart has a piece online for Mother Jones about the new trend of “fertility films�—Hollywood heartstringers about super independent women finally coming to terms with their maternal urges (Smart People, Baby Mama, Then She Found Me, Juno, Knocked Up, and Happy Endings). In part, Quart is asking: “Are the new fertility film stars actually feminists?�

The answer is complicated. On the one hand, it’s feminist to see women going after what they want. Despite a lot of frustration with Juno on the part of feminists (especially older, in my experience) regarding the abortion scene, I have to admit that I thought it was, big picture, a wildly feminist film. Since when has a teen girl protagonist done anything in Hollywood other than coo-ing? I know my standards are low, but Juno got it right in a lot of ways. And, what’s more, Ellen Page calls herself a feminist in public.

Tina Fey (public disclosure: I have a major thang for Tina) plays an uptight, but certainly self-actualized gal in Baby Mama (where, let’s face it, the real story is about class). To see two female comedians getting top billing and raking in the box office bucks made me happy as a clam (ah vagina puns).

BUT…as we all know, choice doesn’t equal empowerment. Quart writes: “…these films recast the "pro-choice" narrative of feminists' personal and political past as a different, less politically dangerous sort of pro-choice story—a woman's right to choose from a smorgasbord of late fertility options.�

The films also play into oppressive tropes about successful women who don’t prioritize their fertility and then get punished with shitty partners, expensive interventions, and/or a whole lot of heartache. “Silly women,� the screenwriters seem to be saying, “let’s make fun of their plight.� But as Quart reminds us, these scenarios are real—in the beginning. Then the film plots reduce them to ridiculousness: “these films are rather conservative at heart; their entanglements all end far more neatly than their real life counterparts.�

And finally, why all the frickin’ babies? I was reminded of Bella DePaulo’s great work that I reviewed awhile ago. Quart writes: “…these films' endings can't help but make me wonder: Where are the images of exceptional thirty- and fortysomething women without bassinets?�

Good question Ms. Alissa. Thanks for the analysis.

Martha Ma is a food and media educator and producer, community chef and health counselor. She is the host and producer of "The Tasty Life," a bi-weekly television show on Manhattan Public Access channel 57, and the editor of the e-newsletter, "Eater's Digest."

Martha is also executive producer of the Food for Thought Film Festival. If you're in the NYC area this weekend, check out the last weekend of the festival at Cooper Union's Wollman Auditorium, 51 Astor Place at Third Ave. Feature films include King Corn, Black Gold, and Life and Debt. Shorts include The Meatrix I, II and II 1/2 and The True Cost of Food.

Here's Martha...

Katori Hall is a playwright, performer and journalist from Memphis, Tennessee. Her award-winning play, "Hoodoo Love" received its world-premiere at the Cherry Lane Theatre November 1, 2007. Her other plays include: "Remembrance," "Hurt Village," "Saturday Night/Sunday Morning," "The Mountaintop," and "Freedom Train."

She is a recipient of numerous writing awards including the 2007 Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, 2006 New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting and Screenwriting, 2006 Royal Court Theatre Residency, 2005 Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award. Recently, she was nominated for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize and the Susan Smith Blackburn Award.

As a journalist, her work has been published in The Boston Globe, Essence, Newsweek and The Commercial Appeal.

These are just some of the highlights of Katori's career. Here's Katori...

Sister Outsider is the latest project of novelists, screenwriters, and entrepreneurs Elisha Miranda and Sofia Quintero who have been collaborating since 2000. They co-founded the nonprofit Chica Luna Productions and its project, The F-Word, that is working to train the next generation of women of color filmmakers.

Julia Carias is an actor, educator, filmmaker, and Sister Outsider's Director of Operations and Productions.
Among her list of works and activism, Julia co-wrote, produced and directed her first play in 2002, "Roots," a production by La Casa Latina, an organization dedicated to promoting Latino culture throughout the college community.

Here's Julia...

Anyone who knows me, or my writing, is familiar with how proud I am of my mom. Well, it’s hard to remember a moment when I have ever been more proud than last weekend when I attended the 20th anniversary of the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival—a shindig she started from scratch along with lady friends that is now the longest running film festival in the world.
First a word on its founding, because the story is just so damn cool. Basically my mom and her friend, Donna Guthrie, were headed home to culturally starving Colorado Springs from the Telluride Film Festival one year and said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could bring films made by women, films that showed varied perspective and dealt with all kinds of social justice issues to Colorado Springs?� And then the other was like, “Hey, that would be cool. Let’s do it.� (Or something like that. I’m taking artistic daughter liberty, obviously.) Keep in mind that neither of these women knew a lick about film, film production, festival coordination, or the industry. They were skilled in all kinds of amazing ways—Donna is an award winning author and my mom is a badass clinical psychiatric social worker—but none directly related to film or festivals.
And they just did it.

Filmmaker Tiona. M. has worked in the educational documentary genre and pulled up her sleeves in the non-profit arena. This time, she has two documentary films that she wants to share with the world. One is on a Black women and her two daughters, and their university experience. The other, which I interviewed her on, is black./womyn.: conversations..., which should be out soon.

Here's Tiona...

I know I promised Miranda July, but you'll have to wait another week for her. Instead, I want to talk about movies (incidentally, if you haven't seen MJ's Me and You and Everyone We Know, check it out immediately).

My mom started the longest running women’s film festival in the world when I was just a wee young thing in the otherwise culturally-deprived city of Colorado Springs, Colorado. I grew up, nestled in the crook up her arm, watching the documentaries and feature films—always by and about women—that she would screen each year. It was, as you might imagine, ridiculously influential.

It also led to my family’s annual tradition (our version of a religious holiday) of going to the Telluride Film Festival. (By the by, check out the pic on the homepage...totally NOT Telluride). This year, I decided I’d take notes along the way and do a gender analysis of sorts of the films I saw. (My family is hardcore about movies, by the by; we saw 17 full-length films over the course of a weekend). So here you go…