Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

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Hey, Hollywood: Pay Attention to Female War Heroes by Christina Paschyn at Feministing

An Interview with “Saturday Night Live” Writer Katie Rich by Anne McCarthy at Bitch Media

Essie Davis: On Playing A Sexually Liberated ‘Superhero’ Without Apology by Linda Holmes at NPR

The Dollar-And-Cents Case Against Hollywood’s Exclusion of Women by Walt Hickey at FiveThirtyEight

Cate Blanchett Was Right: 5 Reasons The Numbers Are on The Side of Women in Film by Alice Lytton at /bent

The Sexual Evolution is Coming, Thanks in Part to TV by Alicia Lutes at Bustle

MMA Fighter and Action Star Gina Carano On In the Blood and What Makes a Good Heroine by Laura Berger at Women and Hollywood

Hillary Clinton: Media ‘double standard’ on women by Maggie Haberman at Politico

A Million Things We Loved About 10 Things I Hate About You by Kate Dries at Jezebel

Still Very, 25 Years Later: The Bleak Genius of Heathers by Alan Zilberman at The Atlantic

Top 10 women-centric films of Bollywood at India Today

Did a Woman Invent Superheroes? by Molly Freeman at Hollywood

Watch Episode 1 (Series Premiere) Of ‘First’ – New Project from the Ever-Expanding Issa Rae Empire by Karen Marie Mason at Shadow and Act

Women and Hollywood Summer 2014 Preview by Inkoo Kang at Women and Hollywood

 

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

 

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

‘The Great Gatsby’ Still Gets Flappers Wrong by Lisa Hix via Collectors Weekly
Geena Davis: Girls Need More Role Models in Media by Erica E. Phillips via The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy
A Dude to Direct Hillary Clinton Biopic by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood 
Rodham Will Put Hillary Clinton’s Backstory on the Big Screen by Alyssa Rosenberg via Slate’s Double X 
Retrolicious — Mad Men 6.5: “The Flood” [on Mad Men and race] by Tami Winfrey Harris, Andrea Plaid, Renee Martin and Joe Lamour via Racialicious
Will Disney’s Live-Action Cinderella Shake Up the Fairy Tale? by Alyssa Rosenberg via Slate’s Double X
The Business of Diversity: Why Hollywood Needs Integration by Zach Stafford and Nico Lang via Racialicious
What Do You Think of Merida’s Redesign? by Rebecca Pahle via The Mary Sue
Seriously, Disney, I’m Trying to Take a Little Break Here — Must You? [on Merida from Brave‘s redesign] via Peggy Orenstein’s Blog
What have you been reading or writing this week?? We want to know…share in the comments!

Women in Politics Week: Quote of the Day: Rebecca Traister

Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women by Rebecca Traister
Rebecca Traister’s Big Girls Don’t Cry looks at the 2008 election through a feminist lens and, (no surprise), focuses most on primary candidate Hillary Clinton, and later Sarah Palin. The book is, however, much more than just an analysis of the sexism these two women endured. Big Girls Don’t Cry looks at the ways in which the media itself was forced to adapt, particularly to Clinton’s historic run at the presidency. This book is an excellent, smartly written look back at gender politics in 2008. For me, it reopened wounds and ignited anger I felt during the election cycle, when I heard, time and again, painful misogynist commentary coming from our so-called liberal media. However, the book provides a kind of catharsis: if we can look back through Traister’s clear eye, maybe we — individuals and the collective — will change.

The book is especially incisive when discussing how the media — the news media and entertainment realm — itself had to change in reaction to the election, and provided several “Ah ha!” moments for me. 
Here’s an excerpt from her chapter “Pop Culture Warriors”:

If Katie Couric was the nail in Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential coffin, the hammer was Tina Fey. Fey’s deadly impression of Palin was played out over half a dozen sketches for which Fey returned to Saturday Night Live, where she had been the first female head writer and where, in February, she made news with her comedic defense of Hillary Clinton, “Bitch is the new black.” 
[…]

Fey’s take on Palin was serendipitous, prompted by the strong resemblance between the two women. But that likeness was part of what made it groundbreaking: a vice-presidential candidate looked like a famous comedian. A female comedian. And on it went. Hillary Clinton had been played by Poehler for several years. The interview that brought Palin low had been administered by Couric, a woman also played by Poehler. The vice-presidential debate had been moderated by Gwen Ifill, prompting a guest appearance by the inimitable Queen Latifah. Inasmuch as each of the impersonations relied on the amplification of feminine traits–Poehler/Couric’s heavily mascara’d and incessant blinking, Poehler/Hillary’s hyenic laugh, Fey/Palin’s sexy librarianism–in ways that might indeed be sexist or reductive, those characteristics were ripe for amplification only because the objects of political and media parody had high-pitched laughs and wore mascara and pencil skirts. The heightened femininity of Palin’s political persona also came in for examination; during the Couric-Palin sketch, Couric pointed out to a stumped Palin, “It seems to me that when cornered you become increasingly adorable.” That little one-liner, accompanied by Fey’s inspired shooting of fake finger guns, distilled a gender dynamic–wherein women infantilize themselves as a defensive strategy–it might otherwise take thousands of words to unspool.

[…]

But in comedy, as in real life, the arrival of Palin on the scene threw Clinton into a new focus. Next to Palin, Clinton’s good qualities–her brains, competence, work ethic, her belief in secular government and reproductive freedoms, her ability to complete sentences–became far more evident than they had been before there was another potential “first woman” to compare her to. Nothing conveyed these haze-clearing realignments of perspective as quickly and as firmly as Fey and Poehler did in five and a half minutes. The parodic depiction of the two women side by side exposed the complex dynamics of Palin’s parasitism, their unwilling symbiosis, and their stark differences.

You can read reviews of the book at Gender Focus and Feministing.

——
Amber Leab is a Co-Founder and Editor of Bitch Flicks and a writer living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a Master’s degree in English & Comparative Literature from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature & Creative Writing from Miami University. Outside of Bitch Flicks, her work has appeared in The Georgetown Review, on the blogs Shakesville, The Opinioness of the World, and I Will Not Diet, and at True Theatre.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Amber‘s Picks:

Hillary’s Hair: More Newsworthy Than the Summit of the Americas? by Jenn Pozner for WIMN’s Voices

People on the Internet Can Be Hella Racist by Issa for xo Jane

We Heart: Funny or Die Counsels Rick Santorum on “Aborting” His Campaign by Lauren Barbato for Ms.

Why Everyone Is Losing Their Shit Over the Magic Mike Trailer by Kelsey Wallace for Bitch Magazine

Kristin Marcon & ‘The Most Fun You Can Have Dying’ by Wellywood Woman

Stephanie‘s Picks:

Pakistani Documentary Makers Nominated in Cannes Film Festival by Areeb Hasni for The News Tribe

Daenerys Targaryen and the Most Powerful Women in Television History by Judy Berman for The Atlantic

Joss Whedon Performs at Women’s Rights Event, Decries Sexism, Praises ‘Hunger Games’ by Jordan Zakarin for The Hollywood Reporter

Condescending Dude Review of Hunger Games by Fannie for Fannie’s Room

HBO’s ‘Girls’ Is All About Spoiled White Girls by Renee Martin for Womanist Musings

Girls That Television Will Never Know by Latoya Peterson for Racialicious

Megan‘s Picks:

When ‘Art’ Goes Wrong: Black Women’s Pain Is Not a Prop by Jamilah Lemieux for Ebony

Why We Need to Keep Talking About the White Girls on Girls by Dodai Stewart for Jezebel

Film Women Shining at Tribeca Fest by Associated Press for My San Antonio

Girls Just Want to Change the Needle On a Tired Media Record: Stop Telling Us We’re Fat by Roth Cornet for Hit Fix

The Other Girls and Diversity Goals for Pop Culture by Alyssa Rosenberg for Think Progress

Yes, I’m Buying the Katniss Everdeen Barbie For My Daughter by Hayley Krischer for Ms. Magazine 

Quote of the Day: Andi Zeisler

Andi Zeisler, Co-Founder of Bitch Magazine
In The B-Word? You Betcha., published in the Washington Post in 2007, Andi Zeisler, co-founder of Bitch Magazine, discussed the choice of title for the magazine and the cultural significance of the word “bitch.” The piece was published during the 2008 Democratic primary, when the term was routinely applied to candidate Hillary Clinton, as a term of derision and as a compliment (Tina Fey’s Saturday Night Live Weekend Update segment comes to mind, in which she declared “bitch is the new black” and “bitches get things done”). Still, the word remains controversial, and one that many people choose not to embrace. With respect to those people, we do embrace the term.

Here’s Zeisler on the word “bitch:”

People want to know whether it is still a bad word. They want to know whether I support its use in public discourse. Or they already think it’s a bad word and want to discuss whether its use has implications for free speech or sexual harassment or political campaigns.

[…]

So here goes: Bitch is a word we use culturally to describe any woman who is strong, angry, uncompromising and, often, uninterested in pleasing men. We use the term for a woman on the street who doesn’t respond to men’s catcalls or smile when they say, “Cheer up, baby, it can’t be that bad.” We use it for the woman who has a better job than a man and doesn’t apologize for it. We use it for the woman who doesn’t back down from a confrontation.

So let’s not be disingenuous. Is it a bad word? Of course it is. As a culture, we’ve done everything possible to make sure of that, starting with a constantly perpetuated mindset that deems powerful women to be scary, angry and, of course, unfeminine — and sees uncompromising speech by women as anathema to a tidy, well-run world.

Quote of the Day: Rebecca Traister

Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women by Rebecca Traister
Rebecca Traister’s Big Girls Don’t Cry looks at the 2008 election through a feminist lens and, (no surprise), focuses most on primary candidate Hillary Clinton, and later Sarah Palin. The book is, however, much more than just an analysis of the sexism these two women endured. Big Girls Don’t Cry looks at the ways in which the media itself was forced to adapt, particularly to Clinton’s historic run at the presidency. This book is an excellent, smartly written look back at gender politics in 2008. For me, it reopened wounds and ignited anger I felt during the election cycle, when I heard, time and again, painful misogynist commentary coming from our so-called liberal media. However, the book provides a kind of catharsis: if we can look back through Traister’s clear eye, maybe we–individuals and the collective–will change.

The book is especially incisive when discussing how the media–the news media and entertainment realm–itself had to change in reaction to the election, and provided several “Ah ha!” moments for me. 
Here’s an excerpt from her chapter “Pop Culture Warriors.”
If Katie Couric was the nail in Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential coffin, the hammer was Tina Fey. Fey’s deadly impression of Palin was played out over half a dozen sketches for which Fey returned to Saturday Night Live, where she had been the first female head writer and where, in February, she made news with her comedic defense of Hillary Clinton, “Bitch is the new black.” 
[…]
Fey’s take on Palin was serendipitous, prompted by the strong resemblance between the two women. But that likeness was part of what made it groundbreaking: a vice-presidential candidate looked like a famous comedian. A female comedian. And on it went. Hillary Clinton had been played by Poehler for several years. The interview that brought Palin low had been administered by Couric, a woman also played by Poehler. The vice-presidential debate had been moderated by Gwen Ifill, prompting a guest appearance by the inimitable Queen Latifah. Inasmuch as each of the impersonations relied on the amplification of feminine traits–Poehler/Couric’s heavily mascara’d and incessant blinking, Poehler/Hillary’s hyenic laugh, Fey/Palin’s sexy librarianism–in ways that might indeed be sexist or reductive, those characteristics were ripe for amplification only because the objects of political and media parody had high-pitched laughs and wore mascara and pencil skirts. The heightened femininity of Palin’s political persona also came in for examination; during the Couric-Palin sketch, Couric pointed out to a stumped Palin, “It seems to me that when cornered you become increasingly adorable.” That little one-liner, accompanied by Fey’s inspired shooting of fake finger guns, distilled a gender dynamic–wherein women infantilize themselves as a defensive strategy–it might otherwise take thousands of words to unspool.

[…]

But in comedy, as in real life, the arrival of Palin on the scene threw Clinton into a new focus. Next to Palin, Clinton’s good qualities–her brains, competence, work ethic, her belief in secular government and reproductive freedoms, her ability to complete sentences–became far more evident than they had been before there was another potential “first woman” to compare her to. Nothing conveyed these haze-clearing realignments of perspective as quickly and as firmly as Fey and Poehler did in five and a half minutes. The parodic depiction of the two women side by side exposed the complex dynamics of Palin’s parasitism, their unwilling symbiosis, and their stark differences.

You can read reviews of the book at Gender Focus and Feministing.