Call for Writers – Page 3

Call For Writers: Demon/Spirit Possession

Our theme week for October 2014 will be Demon/Spirit Possession.

Halloween is upon us, so it’s time to contemplate the prolific theme of demon/spirit possession in film and on TV. Why is this such a prevalent theme? In many ways, possession explains evil as something separate from ourselves, something that infects us, which dichotomizes good and evil. An example of this is the separation between Angel and Angelus in both the shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. In this case, vampirism is used as a metaphor for addiction; it is something that happens to Angel, taking away his subjectivity and rendering him choiceless. Another prime example is Bob from Twin Peaks, an evil spirit who possesses victims, compelling them to perform depraved acts of violence, sexual deviance, and destruction.

Does separating evil from the person who performs the act actually explain the “evil” itself, or does it simply make excuses for bad and, sometimes, inexplicably cruel behavior?

Another permutation of possession creates a binary between innocence and evil, which we see in films focusing on child possession (The Exorcist, The Children, and Village of the Damned). These types of films articulate discomfort surrounding the loss of innocence as well as a generalized fear of children, representing them as unknowable and even alien. The question sometimes arises, “Are they even possessed, or are children by nature this wicked and amoral?”

In possession themed media, we also see a binary between innocence and sexuality. This example occurs particularly when young women are the victims of possession. Such films allow forbidden sexual desires to be acted out on film giving the audience voyeuristic indulgence like in the case of Jennifer’s Body or Witchboard while iterating a cultural fear of female sexuality in young women. In these cases, female sexuality is seen as dangerous and uncontrollable, powerful, and without boundaries.

In any of these types of possession film, punishment is very often an underlying theme. The possessed person punishes those around them and is simultaneously punished as a consequence of the spirit or demon’s disregard for its host’s health, relationships, or life. It’s worthwhile to consider why these narratives single out certain people or groups for punishment.

Feel free to use the examples below to inspire your writing on this subject, or choose your own source material.

We’d like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know which film you’d like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece as a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. We encourage writers to use our search function to see if your topic has been written about before, and link when appropriate (hyperlinks to sources are welcome, as well).

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, October 24 by midnight.

The Exorcist

Witchboard

The Evil Dead

Evil Dead II

Army of Darkness

Game of Thrones

The Children

Child’s Play

Christine

The Prophecy

Ghost

The Lovely Bones

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

All of Me

Jennifer’s Body

The Possession

American Horror Story

Fallen

Satan’s Baby Doll

Supernatural

House

Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare

Constantine

The Shining

Twin Peaks

The Amityville Horror

Paranormal Activity

This is The End

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Angel

Ghostbusters II

Call for Writers: Female Friendships

Female friendships are the bedrock of feminism. The ideal of a community of women who support, understand, and love each other is a source of succor for sisters in need and a dream towards which the feminist movement strives. There are endless power and agency in female friendships. There is purpose in those bonds, a purpose outside the pursuit of men, even if Hollywood doesn’t see it.

Our theme week for September 2014 will be Female Friendships.

The notorious Bechdel Test judges films based on three simple criteria: 1.) More than one woman must appear in the film 2.) They must talk to each other 3.) Their conversation must be about something other than men. The Bechdel Test has become a yardstick for measuring the most basic feminist standards for filmmaking because very few movies actually manage to pass the test’s very simple criteria. This means that female friendships, nevermind female-centric or matriarchal communities, are all but erased from cinema.

Classic films like the entire Star Wars franchise present women as anomalous, isolated Others who are likely love interests. If women happen to appear together in films, they usually don’t even rate love interest status; instead they’re decorative, sexualized objects without meaningful lines or personalities. On the rare occasion that we see women interacting on screen together, they are all too often in competition for male attention, which sets up female relationships as necessarily adversarial. This erasure of women from entertainment media along with their sexual exploitation and the stereotype of “catfighting” girl vs. girl are extremely damaging representations. If these examples are all young women see reflected around them, how will they know there are other ways of being?

There are endless power and agency in female friendships. There is purpose in those bonds, a purpose outside the pursuit of men, even if Hollywood doesn’t see it. Tell us about your favorite female friendships on screen or skewer a depiction that fails to show us meaningful female relationships.

Feel free to use the examples below to inspire your writing on this subject, or choose your own source material.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, September 19 by midnight.

The Runaways

The Women

Sucker Punch

Girl, Interrupted

Heathers

Xena Warrior Princess

Thelma & Louise

Now and Then

Pretty Little Liars

Foxfire

Voilet & Daisy

The First Wives Club

Beaches

The Little Princess

Steel Magnolias

Waiting to Exhale

Boys on the Side

Frozen

Call For Writers: The Brat Pack

The infamous Brat Pack of the 80s was and remains a huge cultural phenomenon. A term inspired by the Rat Pack of the 5os and 60s, the Brat Pack immortalized a group of young actors whose films had a tendency to overlap. Though the actors themselves disliked the moniker and some complained it hurt their careers, the term stuck.

Our theme week for August 2014 will be The Brat Pack.

The infamous Brat Pack of the 80s was and still remains a huge cultural phenomenon. A term inspired by the Rat Pack of the 5os and 60s (which included iconic names like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, etc), the Brat Pack immortalized a group of young actors whose films had a tendency to overlap. David Blum coined the term in his New York article: “Hollywood’s Brat Pack.” Though the actors themselves disliked the moniker and some complained it hurt their careers, the term stuck.

Scholar Michael J. Palmer scathingly describes the Brat Pack as “the socially apathetic, cynical, money-possessed and ideologically barren eighties generation.” On the other hand, film critic James Thorburn claims that “Eighties teens drew instruction and inspiration” from Brat Pack films and “had their faith in society reinforced, and their moral fabric strengthened.” Author Susannah Gora weighs in, stating that Brat Pack films “changed the way many young people looked at everything from class distinction to friendship, from love to sex and fashion to music.” Whether identified as a positive or negative contribution to film, the Brat Pack is universally considered “among the most influential pop cultural contributions of their time.”

We’d like you to write about the Brat Pack. Examine a single film, a series of films, the actors’ careers or the effects that the Brat Pack had on an era. Some questions worth considering are:

Who constitutes the Brat Pack?
Did the grouping of these actors under the blanket term Brat Pack help or hinder their careers?
What did/do they stand for?
Was the Brat Pack influence good or bad?
How do these young actors and their works compare to the Rat Pack?

Feel free to use the examples below to inspire your writing on this subject, or choose your own source material.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, Aug. 22 by midnight.

The Breakfast Club

St. Elmo’s Fire

Oxford Blues

Fresh Horses

The Outsiders

Hail Caesar

Less Than Zero

Blue City

One Crazy Summer

Weird Science

War Games

Mannequin

Young Guns

About Last Night…

Sixteen Candles

Class

Betsy’s Wedding

Johnny Be Good

The Pick-up Artist

Pretty in Pink

Taps

Call For Writers: Movie Soundtracks

Music is a powerful tool for the expression of emotions like anger, heartbreak, and lust, but it can also be used to bolster a movement, capture the feeling of a cultural milieu, expose injustices or give marginalized groups an earthshaking voice. Combining quality films with compelling soundtracks is a recipe for the creation of important works of art that speak to more than just our aesthetic.

Our theme week for July 2014 will be Movie Soundtracks.

Music is a powerful tool for the expression of emotions like anger, heartbreak and lust, but it can also be used to bolster a movement, capture the feeling of a cultural milieu, expose injustices or give marginalized groups an earthshaking voice. Combining quality films with compelling soundtracks is a recipe for the creation of important works of art that speak to more than just our aesthetic.

For example, 80s teen films were often concerned with disenfranchised youth. David Bowie’s “Changes” is famously used and quoted in the classic John Hughes film, The Breakfast Club:

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through.

The Breakfast Club is so memorable because, through both its scenes and its songs, it examines social hierarchy, gender roles, adult abuse of authority and dysfunctional homes. The Legend of Billie Jean is another 80s teen film that exposes the systemic lack of agency that youth is afforded while electing a moral-minded, charismatic young woman as the spokesperson for a movement (“fair is fair”). With Pat Benatar’s rock anthem “Invincible,” young people, especially young women, rallied around the idea of carving out spaces of power for themselves.

Waiting to Exhale uses its soundtrack with hits like “Count on Me” to emphasize the importance of female friendship, while it relies on tracks like “Exhale (Shoop, Shoop)” to express the wisdom and rich sexuality of the middle-aged women the film depicts. On the other hand, The Runaways employs “Cherry Bomb” to reveal the explosiveness of budding female sexuality.

Use of The Doors’ “The End” in Apocalypse Now encapsulates the madness of war, while The Matrix‘s use of Rage Against the Machine’s “Wake Up” is a battle cry against the invisible system that either keeps us complacent or destroys us. The Jamaican film The Harder They Come was not only famous for the way in which “Black people seeing themselves on the screen for the first time created an unbelievable audience reaction,” but for its diffusion of reggae to the world outside the Caribbean. With Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come,” the film was able to show how the oppressive forces in Jamaica could be combated with fierce individualism and tenacity.

We’d like you to write about the movie soundtracks that changed you or changed the world. Feel free to use the examples below to inspire your writing on this subject, or choose your own source material.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, July 18 by midnight.

South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut

Reality Bites

Apocalypse Now

Garden State

Pump Up the Volume

South Pacific

The Runaways

The Legend of Billie Jean

Superfly

The Harder They Come

Mary Poppins

Pulp Fiction

The Sound of Music

Rocky Horror Picture Show

The Breakfast Club

Waiting to Exhale

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

The Matrix

Fantasia

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Call For Writers: Children’s Television

In our culture, where children now watch an average of 35 hours of television per week, much of that formative information that children are rapidly absorbing and storing comes from TV. We must, therefore, consider what kind of programming we’re offering to these hugely malleable young people. What kind of messages are we sharing with our children? Are we giving them lessons of acceptance, diversity, and cooperation? Are we teaching them vital critical thinking skills? Or are we, instead, feeding them gender roles, racial hierarchy, and the centrality of the nuclear family?

Our theme week for June 2014 will be Children’s Television

They say children are like sponges for a reason. It turns out that a “child has already developed half of his total adult intellectual capacity by the time he is four years old and 80 percent of it by age eight.” This fact lays bare how critical it is for children to be exposed to expansive, quality learning experiences. In fact, neurobiologist at Baylor College of Medicine Dr. Martha Pierson says, “Children need a flood of information, a banquet, a feast.” In our culture, where children now watch an average of 35 hours of television per week, much of the formative information that children are rapidly absorbing and storing comes from TV.

In our capitalist society, many corporations see children as just another demographic with the power to influence their parents to buy toys. Around the 70s, many children’s TV shows became little more than advertisements for products, such that the FCC mandated children’s programming contain some educational content, which inspired the oft derided, tacked-on PSA (public service announcement) at the end of episodes to meet that regulation. This ruling was struck down in the 90s, so now we must rely on the questionable intentions of the corporations who produce children’s media to provide programming that enriches the lives and expands the brains of children.

Ultimately, we must consider what kind of programming we’re offering to these hugely malleable young people. What kind of messages are we sharing with our children? Are we giving them lessons of acceptance, diversity, and cooperation? Are we teaching them vital critical thinking skills? Or are we, instead, feeding them gender roles, racial hierarchy, and the centrality of the nuclear family? What kind of people, what kind of citizens will these children grow up to be?

We’d like you to examine children’s television shows, analyzing what role they play in the feminist movement as well as the general upbringing of children. Feel free to use the examples below to inspire your writing on this subject, or choose your own source material.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, June 20 by midnight.

Barney & Friends

Teletubbies

Kim Possible

Hannah Montana

Jem & the Holograms

G.I. Joe

He-Man

She-Ra

Adventure Time

Dora the Explorer

Blue’s Clues

My Little Pony

Pokémon

Sponge Bob

Power Rangers

Reading Rainbow

Powerpuff Girls

Scooby-D00

Fraggle Rock

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

Sesame Street

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Call for Writers: Rape Revenge Fantasies

Our April Theme Week for 2014 will be Rape Revenge Fantasies.

Rape revenge fantasies form a niche that has the ability to empower rape survivors by giving the story a twist that is rarely enacted in the real world. In these films, those who are made helpless, their humanity called into question, take control, fight back, and make their abusers pay for their crimes. For survivors, these kinds of fantasies can be an invaluable tool in overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder to rewrite a bleak story and imbue it with meaning that gives strength and autonomy.

However, there are infamous reports of theater audience members cheering during the heroine’s gang rape in 1978’s classic rape revenge horror film I Spit on Your Grave. Decades later, audience members were caught laughing as (seemingly) unconscious heroine, The Bride, is prostituted out by one of her caregivers in an allusion to countless rapes perpetrated against her comatose form in 2003’s Kill Bill. Has the rape and degradation of human beings become a form of entertainment, a plot device, a technique to put women back in their place?

Who does the rape revenge fantasy serve? Does it threaten rape culture with its promise of punishment for perpetrators? Or is it part of rape culture itself, by creating harmless catharsis that doesn’t enact or enable real change? If the rape revenge fantasy is, indeed, a subversive tactic designed to give power back to “victims,” is it really enough? Is anything really enough to avenge or ameliorate that kind of wrong?

Kristal Cooper asks a similar question in her piece called, “Woman Seeks Revenge: What’s the Purpose of the Rape/Revenge Horror Film?”:

The main source of conflict about these and other films like them is whether or not they actually do the job that many cinephiles and film scholars claim they’re meant to. That is, to highlight the ugliness of sexual violence and give women an outlet to vent their rage at a sexist society via the revenge doled out by the films’ protagonists. But is this actually the intent or just a positive spin on yet another way that cinema exploits women and their sexuality?

Think about that for a while, and send us an analysis of a specific film in the rape revenge genre–you can find a list of possibilities below.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, April 18 by midnight.

Hard Candy

I Spit on Your Grave

American Mary

Foxfire

Death and the Maiden

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Legend of Billie Jean

Teeth

Lipstick

Dexter

Kill Bill

Veronica Mars

Deliverance

American Horror Story: Coven

Pulp Fiction

Ms. 45 / Angel of Vengeance

Thelma and Louise

The Virgin Spring

Eye for an Eye

Sleepers

Call for Writers: The Great Actresses

Great actresses have been gracing the silver and small screens since the birth of moving pictures. Though even today there are still far fewer defining roles out there for women than there are for men, some actresses continue to stand out for the magnificence of their performances, for their commanding onscreen presence, and for their ability to navigate a life in the limelight while still digging up those elusive roles that allow them to shine.

Our March Theme Week for 2014 will be The Great Actresses.

Though many “greatest actresses” lists are primarily comprised of white, classically beautiful women, we know that great actresses come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages. Write about an aging Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, or Susan Sarandon who have all consistently been powerhouses, drawing out a connection between themselves, the material, and their audiences for decades. Or tell us about Australian Nicole Kidman who proves again and again that she is an imposing force with her ability to authentically inhabit any role. There are also amazing women of color who have been pouring genius and energy into their work for generations: Oprah Winfrey, Lucy Liu, Angela Bassett, Michelle Rodriguez, Halle Berry, Rinko Kikuchi, Natalie Portman, Lauren Velez, and Nazanin Boniadi, for example. Let’s also consider up-and-coming stars who are establishing themselves: Laverne Cox from Orange is the New Black, Quvenzhané Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild, Kerry Washington from Scandal, and Lupita Nyong’o from 12 Years a Slave. We would also love for writers to examine the actresses who paved the way for today’s leading women:

We will be spending a week celebrating these great actresses–actresses who are talented, break barriers, and inspire audiences, and have been doing so for over a hundred years.

We’d like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know who or what you would like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, March 21 by midnight.

Evelyn Preer

Marilyn Monroe

Bette Davis

Katharine Hepburn

Madame Sul-Te-Wan

Ingrid Bergman

Vivien Leigh

Meryl Streep

Audrey Hepburn

Barbara Stanwyck

Elizabeth Taylor

Joan Crawford

Rita Hayworth

Judy Garland

Dorothy Dandridge

Lena Horne

Alfre Woodard

Ruby Dee

Natalie Wood

Judi Dench

Grace Kelly

Lauren Bacall

Sophia Loren

Marlene Dietrich

Ginger Rogers

Doris Day

Mae West

Halle Berry

Hattie McDaniel

Angela Bassett

Greta Garbo

Lillian Gish

Louise Brooks

Mary Pickford

Lois Weber

Call for Writers: Women and Work/Labor Issues

On screen, we often see the demonization of women with professional power and/or ambition. These women are usually portrayed as callous, frigid (or conversely hyper-sexual), masculine, and even unnatural. These women tend to be fiercely competitive with other women in their field. All this tells viewers that women don’t belong in high-power positions.

Our February Theme Week for 2014 will be Women and Work/Labor Issues.

Women in the workplace has continued to be an incendiary topic in the U.S since WWII. Before that, Marxist thinker Frederich Engels formed the basis of Marxist Feminism when he wrote about gender oppression in 1884, insisting that class is the basis for the oppression of women. Wikipedia describes Engels theories from his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State:

Women’s subordination is a function of class oppression, maintained (like racism) because it serves the interests of capital and the ruling class; it divides men against women, privileges working class men relatively within the capitalist system in order to secure their support; and legitimates the capitalist class’s refusal to pay for the domestic labor assigned, unpaid, to women (childrearing, cleaning, etc.). Working class men are encouraged by a sexist capitalist media to exploit the dominant social position afforded to them by existing conditions to reinforce that position and to maintain the conditions underlying it.

We see this even now, 130 years later, with the limited opportunities that women have within the work force, the lack of value placed on the labor of women as evinced by the continuation of the unpaid child-rearing system, and the fact that women consistently earn less than men for performance of the same job (and that positions typically held by women tend to be compensated at a lesser wage).

Conversely, there are a lot of stories about working class women who are filled with gumption and fortitude (if not a lot of education), which lionize the women who scrape to get by, keep their family fed, and struggle to improve their working conditions.

This month, we’d like to explore representations of women in the work force. Some questions you may want to think about are: How does being a woman affect the character(s)’ relationship with work? How does class intersect with gender oppression (or other kinds of oppression)? What does her job (skilled or unskilled labor) say about her? How does she relate to other women in her field? How does her job affect her interactions with men?

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, Feb. 21 by midnight.

A sampling of films/shows that highlight women & work/labor issues:

Working Girl

Nine to Five

Commander in Chief

Gravity

Roseanne

Grey’s Anatomy

I Love Lucy

Laverne & Shirley

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Murphy Brown

Who’s the Boss

Mr. Mom

Parenthood

Miss Representation

Baby Boom

An Officer & a Gentleman

Waitress

The Passion/Crime d’amour (Love Crime)

The Devil Wears Prada

Scandal

Judging Amy

The Good Girl

Battlestar Galactica

Ally McBeal

Call for Writers: Representations of Sex Workers

Too often, sex work and sex workers on screen aren’t represented three-dimensionally. Media representation is a mirror to our own cultural attitudes and norms, and we’d like to use this theme week to explore and analyze the good, the bad, and the dangerous of representations of sex workers in film and television.

Our first Theme Week for 2014 will be Representations of Sex Workers.

Feminism has a complicated relationship with sex work. Even the most sex-positive sometimes stop short at embracing voluntary sex work as a (potentially) sex-positive, feminist venture. Subjectifying female sexuality–from recent SlutWalks through generations of fighting for reproductive choice–is a cornerstone of feminist activism, but how do we respond to sex work, which is maligned and complicated? How can we draw clear lines between voluntary and involuntary sex work, and listen to and hear stories from sex workers themselves? And how do film and television represent sex workers?

In a recent Salon article (which is an excerpt from the author’s book), “Ethical sluts and ‘dirty whores’: Straight talk about sex work,” Melinda Chateauvert says that even though feminists have reclaimed “sluttiness,” we still struggle with sex work:

Whorephobia remains pervasive in the social psyche, showing its ugliness even in sex-positive communities. The positive emphasis on sex work confuses “straights” into thinking that sex work is about sex, not work. That cognitive dissonance — the deep chasm filled with stereotypes and prejudices — interferes with the capacity of civilians to hear sex workers speak about their experiences. Stories that don’t conform to the “superhappyfunsexysexwork!” narrative tend to flummox pro-sex feminists; they can identify with privileged exotic dancers, porn performers and professional dominants (even fantasize about being one), but think “junkie whores” need to be rescued and should be prevented from working in their gentrifying neighborhoods. Such disrespectful treatment leads to silencing, ignoring, or rewriting what sex workers have to say.

(For more reading on the topic, see this Ms. article and this wonderful round-up of articles at POSTWHOREAMERICA and check out the conversation on Twitter at #notyourrescueproject. For commentary/ideas about sex work on film, see this Alternet article and links from the London Sex Worker Film Festival.)

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, Jan. 24 by midnight.

A sampling of films/shows that highlight sex workers:

Pretty Baby

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

Working Girls

Mighty Aphrodite

Showgirls

Sweet Charity

Klute

Gunsmoke

Taxi Driver

Leaving Las Vegas

Midnight Cowboy

The Owl and the Pussycat

My Own Private Idaho

Risky Business

Moulin Rouge

Mysterious Skin

Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo

Reno 911

The Girlfriend Experience

Hung

Butterfield 8

Kansas City

Last Exit to Brooklyn

Irma La Douce

Claire Dolan

Elmer Gantry

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

Nathalie

Priceless (Hors de prix)

Pretty Woman

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

The Center of the World

Lost Highway

Inland Empire

Profane

A Kiss for Gabriela

The Client List

American Gigolo

The Man from Elysian Fields

Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss

Boogie Nights

Magic Mike

Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy

Vidiyum Munn

Call for Writers: Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists

We thought it might be a fun note to end the year on, with the exploration of films like Harry Potter and Matilda, while also taking a closer, more serious look at portrayals of adolescence and girlhood in films and TV. Some questions to think about include, what are Hollywood’s expectations of girls and teenage girls in films and TV? And how do those expectations feed into the public’s acceptance of a teenage girl’s sexuality, for instance. Further, how might a girl character impact a young girl who’s viewing her on screen?

Our final theme month for 2013? Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

We thought it might be a fun note to end the year on, with the exploration of films like Harry Potter and Matilda, while also taking a closer, more serious look at portrayals of adolescence and girlhood in films and TV. Some questions to think about include, what are Hollywood’s expectations of girls and teenage girls in films and TV? And how do those expectations feed into the public’s acceptance of a teenage girl’s sexuality, for instance. Further, how might a girl character impact a young girl who’s viewing her on screen?

We’ve seen very recently how difficult it is for girls to make their transition from young girl star to teenage sex symbol—see Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus for one example. (And why is that always the trajectory for girls and young women, anyway?) We’ve also seen the media’s abhorrent reaction to girl child stars, Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis, for one, who got called the C word in a “hilarious” and “satirical” tweet by The Onion.

We’d also like writers to explore how expectations differ for boy childhood stars versus girl childhood stars and the significance of those differences. And lately, it seems that our childhood girl stars get to grow up and play Pick Your Own Princess Movie … why is that?

There’s so much to explore with this month’s theme, and those are just a few ideas to get you started. We’ll also include a list of films below that are worth analyzing, but this certainly isn’t an exhaustive list. Please propose your own ideas as well. Animated heroines count, too!

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. The final due date for these submissions is Friday, Dec. 20 by midnight.

Catching Fire

Pieces of April

Napoleon Dynamite

True Grit

Love & Basketball

Modern Family

Felicity

Veronica Mars

Friday Night Lights

Pan’s Labyrinth

The Wizard of Oz

Glee

Harry Potter

Carrie

Whale Rider

Matilda

Hannah Montana

My Sister’s Keeper

My Girl

Juno

The Exorcist

Beasts of the Southern Wild

White Oleander

Girl, Interrupted

Winter’s Bone

An Education

Jennifer’s Body

Anywhere But Here

The Golden Compass

Sucker Punch

Center Stage

Teeth

Sense & Sensibility

Precious

The Man in the Moon

Pretty in Pink

The Breakfast Club

American Pie

Monster

Taxi Driver

Ponette

To Kill a Mockingbird

Paper Moon

Firestarter

Akeelah and the Bee

Princess and the Frog

Twilight

The Parent Trap

Call for Writers: Male Feminists/Allies

When we talk about feminism and action for gender equality, we often focus on women–those who fight and create and push against patriarchal forces. For our November Theme Week here at Bitch Flicks, we are focusing on the male feminists and allies who are fighting and creating and pushing against patriarchal forces. We want writers to consider fictional male characters (from film and television), men who are activists and allies in and out of media, and the importance of men in the fight for equality–both on screen and off.

In the article, “I’m a male feminist. No, seriously,” John Brougher says,

“Sexism doesn’t just hurt women, it breaks our very humanity. And ultimately, that’s why I’m a feminist. Because women deserve to be treated as equal human beings, and it hurts every single one of us when that’s not the case.”

Many men get this. We love those men. This month, we want to give a week of Bitch Flicks to these male feminists and allies who get it.

We would like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know who or what you would like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece in the text of an e-mail to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

Call for Writers: Women & Gender in Cult Films & B-Movies

For this theme week at Bitch Flicks, we want to read about your favorite Cult Classics and B-Movies. These are usually our most popular theme weeks—people love any iteration of the horror genre, especially with a little comedy thrown in—so I won’t spend time defining Cult Films and B-Movies. You know what they are. Instead, I’ll leave you with lists of some of the most popular Cult Films and B-Movies, according to all those other lists out there.

My mom tells this story sometimes about how I—when I was five years old—snuck out of my bedroom in the middle of the night because I heard Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” playing on the TV. I remember my simultaneous fascination with and terror of that video, with its dancing zombies and decrepit dead people digging their way out of graves. My mother remembers me crouched down in the corner where she saw me through a reflection in the mirror, scaring the shit out of her while she wrapped Christmas presents and watched Michael Jackson change into a werewolf. For me, that “Thriller” video, performed and parodied in prisons, on film—in 13 Going on 30 (led by Jennifer Garner)—and by me and my younger siblings, remains one of my all-time favorite Cult Classic moments in popular culture.

That said, we want to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know which film you’d like to review. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece in the text of an e-mail, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

Your Not-At-All-Definitive-List of Cult Films and B-Movies

The Big Lebowski
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Evil Dead
Quadrophenia
The Toxic Avenger
Fight Club
Withnail & I
It Came from Outer Space
This Is Spinal Tap
Freaks
Them!
Harold and Maude
Pink Flamingos
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
The Room
Office Space
Eight Legged Freaks
The Warriors
Dazed and Confused
The Class of Nuke ‘Em High
Rushmore
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
C.H.U.D.
Badlands
Night of the Living Dead
Zombie Strippers
Yellow Submarine
Night of the Comet
Sleuth
Repo Man
Wet Hot American Summer
Eraserhead
Heathers
The Stuff
The Harder They Come
Bladerunner
Dr. Giggles
Clerks
Barbarella
A Clockwork Orange
The House on Sorority Row