Tag: Women in Politics

We Interrupt This Broadcast … for an Occupy Wall Street Update

Yesterday, I participated in my first Occupy Wall Street march. I’ve followed the movement—through blogs, twitter, and the live video stream—since it began three weeks ago, so when I left my apartment yesterday, I certainly had a shit-ton of information about the protest. I didn’t, however, really know what the hell to expect (aside from the beatings, gratuitous use of mace by the NYPD, and mass arrests of people exercising their constitutional right to protest, I mean). I kept hearing stuff, like how the protesters aren’t united over a single issue; that they don’t have concrete demands; that they’re leaderless and unorganized; that they’re a bunch of bored college kids who got sick of hanging out in their parents’ basements; that they’re just ungrateful vegan hippies who don’t understand how the world works; that they’re radical anarchists socialists atheists communists artists humanists and—to top it all off—that they’re engaging in all this unacceptable class warfare.

Well.

First, these amazing protesters seriously have it together. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so … opposite of unorganized. We knew exactly what was happening at all times, including where we were marching, what we were yelling, when we needed to stop, and when we needed to speed up. This group may officially be leaderless, but it certainly knows how to coordinate, plan, and carry out tasks. At one point, a man handed me a piece of paper with a list of my rights as a protester, and it included a protocol to follow if an officer attempted to question or arrest me. Helpful! A woman walked by and insisted I take a bottle of water to keep with me while I marched. Thank you! And any time I bumped into someone, whether attempting to take a picture or just, you know, tripping for no reason (as I’m wont to do), my fellow protesters steadied me or laughed with me or apologized profusely even if it clearly wasn’t their fault. It was fun. We were peaceful and chill. It kind of felt like … solidarity.

I mean, sure, people carried different signs for and against various issues. I saw signs about protecting the homeless from police brutality; signs directed at corporations; signs for going green and protecting the environment; signs for abolishing the death penalty; signs for animal rights; some anti-Obama stuff; some anti-Bush stuff; and many signs representing protestors’ specific unions. I didn’t have a sign—I just yelled with the rest of them, my favorite slogan being, “Banks got bailed out. We got sold out.” Truth! Having said all that, I would hardly call this movement divided or unclear in its goals. All these concerns fall under the umbrella of a much larger issue—the fact that 99% of the population is at the mercy of that tiny little 1% at the top of The Money Pile.

I took an Introduction to Political Science course when I was about eighteen and an idiot. I remember my teacher asking us, “Is money speech?” We were all, like, “Um, like, I don’t get it.” The class that day was focused on the concept of free speech in our country, which we all agreed was a constitutional right. But our teacher had to go and make it all complicated. “Is money speech?” he asked again. Our class ultimately decided it was the most ridiculous thing we’d ever heard. I wish I could go back to that classroom, knowing what I know now. One finds out fairly early in her adult life that when she graduates from college, and the bills start rolling in, and the bills start eating up the paycheck, and that emergency room visit happens for that fucking hive outbreak, and wait—how is this visit a thousand dollars when I have health insurance?!—and the bank wants her student loan repaid at this new interest rate, right when her brakes go out, and every broke neo-con in her family is somehow still convinced this whole bootstrap thing is real (and possible)—yeah, she learns that money is, in fact, speech. But how is it speech, you ask?

Well.

In a capitalist society, money matters; but in an unregulated capitalist society, the only thing that matters is money. The people’s right to free speech; our right to democratically elect our government officials; our right to affordable healthcare; our right to breathe clean air; our right to have access to pesticide-free foods; and our right to peacefully protest against, you know, all of our rights being violated; well—you can throw that garbage out the window.

Because, in an unregulated capitalist society, the 1% at the Top of the Money Pile gets to exercise its right to free speech, too, which its elite members happily and unapologetically do in the form of: donating millions of dollars to campaigns, ensuring that when their candidate is elected, they have effectively bought a politician who will work tirelessly to keep them comfy on the Money Pile (in exchange for those pesky campaign contributions again next year, score!); profiting, literally profiting financially, off people who have chronic illnesses, people who become sick and don’t have access to healthcare, people who become sick and have access to healthcare, people who don’t have health insurance, people who do have health insurance, and people who die (pretty good deal for you, insurance companies, amirite?!!); and basically doing whatever the hell they want with our environment and our food supply—the welfare of the people be damned—as long as they make a profit.

The problem with that “I’m using my billions of dollars as speech” thing is that we don’t all have billions of dollars. The 99%, in fact, certainly doesn’t have billions of dollars to throw at politicians as some kind of motivational force to get them to act on our behalf; all we have is our lousy vote. That issue—and this is why the 1% is quaking in its collective [insert expensive brand of shoe here]—transcends political parties and affiliations. My conservative uncle and I can’t post a link on Facebook without each of us having partisan cyber-feuds on each other’s walls. But this issue? It ain’t like that. We’re both pissed that we, the 99%, bailed out The Economy Tankers with our tax dollars, only to stand back helplessly and watch them dole out bonuses and other unaccounted for luxuries to themselves. I mean, are ya serious, assholes?

Now that the mainstream media finally wants to pretend-acknowledge the Occupy Wall Street movement, and its global impact (wait, are they pretend-acknowledging that yet?), I’m not surprised that much of its “coverage” centers around how the protesters aren’t united over a single issue, that they don’t have concrete demands, that they’re leaderless and unorganized. The reality is that the 1% owns the media too, and it’s in the best interest of the 1% to keep this movement from gaining momentum, lest its constituents suffer actual tangible consequences for their thievery. So, they get their media to make Occupy Wall Street about how young liberals are just pissy that Obama isn’t as hopey-changey as they’d hoped; or they get their media to say that those clueless Wall Street kids don’t have any real goals so this can’t be a real thing that we need to pay real attention to; or—their most effective tactic—they get their media to start comparing and contrasting Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party as if this movement is just the eruption of another political fringe group with an exclusively left-wing agenda, rather than what it is: A Call to Action for those of us who don’t get to throw down a cool million here and there and call it “speech.”

But they forgot that we do have ways of speaking up. And that the whole world is watching.

Preview: Miss Representation

Miss Representation (2011)
Back in February of this year, we were fortunate to attend the Athena Film Festival and see the documentary Miss Representation. Since then, the film has traveled to different festivals and been shown at numerous screenings around the country. If you haven’t been able to attend one of these showings, however, you have the opportunity to watch the film on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), as part of the OWN Documentary Club, on Thursday, October 20th at 9 PM EST.

I love the tagline for this movie: “You can’t be what you can’t see.” That idea is very similar to the driving force for this site–the way women are represented in film, television, and media in general has a dramatic effect on how women are actually perceived in our culture. The (mis)representation of women directly contributes to the inequality of women and to violence against women. It’s no coincidence that in a culture where women are systematically devalued in media, we have abysmally low numbers of women in positions of power (women represent only 17% of Congress, making the U.S. “90th in the world in terms of women in the national legislature”).

Here are some stats from the movie worth considering:

  • At age 7, and equal number of boys and girls state that they want to be President of the United States. At age 15, this is no longer the case.
  • The 2010 mid-term election is the first time since 1979 that women haven’t made gains.
  • Women comprise only 16% of all writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, and editors.
  • Teenagers in the U.S. consume 10 hours and 45 minutes of media (television, Internet, music, movies, magazines) every day.
I can’t recommend Miss Representation highly enough. If you have cable (and get OWN), I encourage you to watch–and to watch with others, especially teenagers. Here’s an extended preview, for those of you not familiar with the movie.

Miss Representation 8 min. Trailer 8/23/11 from Miss Representation on Vimeo.
 
 
 

Best Picture Nominee Review Series: Milk

 
I Need a Hero: Gus Van Sant’s Milk (2008)

“My name is Harvey Milk, and I’m here to recruit you,” yells a nearly unrecognizable Sean Penn in a pivotal scene in Gus Van Sant’s biopic Milk (2008). Wearing a tight red and white shirt and form-fitting slacks highlighting a noticeable bulge, Penn unnervingly inhabits the body of a man who was never handsome, never pretty, but who exuded an eye-twinkling sexiness which led numbers of attractive young men into his bed. It’s a transformation that is not merely surface, not merely costume and hairstyle and what appears to be a slight prosthesis on the nose: like Nicole Kidman’s portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours, this is a full-bodied immersion in a character. Penn, always something of a chameleon in recent years, loses all traces of his own physicality, and portrays Harvey Milk with a buoyancy, a loose-limbed lightness that I’ve never seen in him before. The process seems to have liberated him as an actor—he’s behaving with an unbridled exuberance. His co-star, James Franco, reported that after their first kissing scene, Penn called up ex-wife Madonna and said, “I’ve just kissed my first man,” to which Madonna replied, “Honey, I’m so proud of you.” So are we.
In a recent piece on the Criterion Collection edition of the Oscar-winning 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk (directed by Rob Epstein, later to direct The Celluloid Closet and Paragraph 175), photographer Daniel Nicoletta calls the documentary “Harvey Milk 101.” It would be fair to call Van Sant’s Milk “Harvey Milk 102”—the two films, viewed in order, represent a progression in the course sequence, but they’re primers, neither qualifying you for an advanced degree in the subject. For that, one must turn to the late Randy Shilts’s book The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1983), which, to my mind, remains the definitive work on the man’s life and legacy. The Epstein documentary is primarily concerned with Milk’s political career; the Van Sant biopic fills in many of the biographical holes in the documentary and concentrates more on Milk’s personal life and relationships. My suggestion is that viewers watch both films—Times first, Milk second—and, if they yearn for more, to then turn to the Shilts book.
Milk begins with archival footage of police raids on gay bars in the 1950s and 60s, and is followed by Milk in 1977 reading his will into a tape recorder: he was convinced that he would soon be assassinated, a prediction that would shortly come true. Flash back to 1970, and Milk’s meeting with Scott Smith (Franco) in a New York subway, and the beginning of an on-again, off-again romance that would last the rest of Milk’s life. Dissatisfied with his grinding corporate-America job in New York, Milk moves with Smith to San Francisco in search of liberation and meaning. He opens a camera shop, becomes an exceedingly groovy bohemian, and ultimately becomes involved with gay rights and local politics, culminating in his election as a city supervisor—the first openly gay elected official in the United States. He is helped along the way by Smith and a band of friends and lovers who operate out of his camera store: Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), Jack Lira (Diego Luna), Anne Kronenberg (Alison Pill), and Dick Pabich (Joseph Cross). Once elected, he finds a staunch ally in Mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber) and a nemesis in Supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin). White, after a series of public humiliations, assassinates Milk and Moscone in City Hall (Dianne Feinstein’s famous announcement of the event appears in the film), and later pleads insanity by using the notorious “Twinkie defense.”
More than a mere summary of events, Milk seeks to illuminate some of the depths of Milk’s character, which are left mostly untouched by The Times of Harvey Milk. And Penn’s performance is a marvel. But I’m left at the end of the film still not entirely knowing what made this man tick. I’m slightly in awe of him, I’m humbled by his passion, I’m drawn to his politics, I’m certainly attracted to him and can easily see myself getting talked into bed by him without much effort, but I still feel separate from him, as though his core has not been exposed. Perhaps this is more than a biopic can do, but my sense is that this is the film’s goal, and on that count it doesn’t quite deliver. The fault is neither Penn’s nor Van Sant’s nor the script’s—my guess is that capturing someone as mercurial as Harvey Milk on film is an impossibility.
Lest this sound as though I didn’t enjoy the film, let me hasten to add that Milk brilliantly recreates a period when gay sex was fun and free and easy and the specter of AIDS was a few years in the future. The cast looks resplendent in its period costumes; it’s alarming that clothes I once wore as a child now constitute “period attire.” And, apart from Penn, the cast is uniformly superb, as we might expect from Van Sant, who, after all, delivered amazing performances from the non-acting teens in 2003’s Elephant. James Franco demonstrates the fearlessness that led him shortly thereafter to take on the role of poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl, and proves why he’s one of his generation’s most interesting actors; his Scott Smith is sweet, sexy, charming, and loyal. Josh Brolin has the incredibly tough job of making Dan White a human being rather than the boogeyman of the piece. He looks uncannily like the real man, and he manages to imbue White with enough pathos that I was unable to hate him, or not entirely. Victor Garber is reliable as always as Moscone, and Diego Luna and Joseph Cross (the little boy from Northern Lights, with Diane Keaton) excel as bits of eye candy on the fringes of Milk’s world. Emile Hirsch has the gravitas to play the great Cleve Jones, whose activism continues to inspire today, and Alison Pill holds her own as the sole woman in this sea of gay men.
What struck me most about Milk at the time of its release was its celebration of the writer. The trailer proudly announced “Written by Dustin Lance Black” in huge blue letters, and the very fetching Mr. Black won a well-deserved Oscar for his efforts. His Academy Award speech, in which he pleaded for the acceptance of young gay men like himself, is already legendary, and in interviews with magazines like The Advocate, he chronicled his difficulties in getting the script written and his exhaustive research. Perhaps the best thing about his script is that it doesn’t venerate its subject: it would have been all too easy to turn Harvey Milk into a saintly angel in America, but he is instead presented by turns as charming and irritating, pleasant and cantankerous, open-minded and bull-headed. And despite the opening which announces his death, the film doesn’t belabor this inevitable trajectory: the focus of both the film and the characters is on the moment, or on a rosy future. Again, the film’s only flaw, to my mind, is that Milk still seems at arm’s length from me, and I craved a more intimate relationship with him. But perhaps this is the point.
I’m bothered by one last thing, completely apart from the film itself. In his bravura acceptance speech for Best Actor at the Oscars, Sean Penn drolly called the audience “You Commie, homo-loving sons of guns.” Perhaps, but we’re still dealing here with a film with a gay hero who dies. Is it significant that two other actors to have won Best Actor Oscars for playing gay men—William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Tom Hanks in Philadelphia (1993)—were killed off by gunfire and AIDS? As producer Jan Oxenberg remarks in Rob Epstein’s The Celluloid Closet, it remains to be seen whether or not Hollywood will embrace—and indeed, deem worthy of an Oscar—a gay character who lives.
Drew Patrick Shannon received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Cincinnati, and currently teaches 19th and 20th century British literature at the College of Mount St. Joseph. He is at work on a novel and on a non-fiction book examining the diary of Virginia Woolf. He contributed a review of the 1986 film, Working Girls, to Bitch Flicks, which appeared in a previous version on his blog, atleswoolf. 

From the Archive: The Power of Representation

Given the Obama administration’s embarrassing failure to discuss—hell, even mention—the War on Women, I thought Amber’s following post, which was first published here on February 16, 2009, would warrant rereading.  

This Is What a Feminist Looks Like?
Representing President Obama as a “Super-feminist” has ignited a debate over who the savior of feminism ought to be (see here for a good overview), and likely sold a lot of copies of Ms. magazine’s January edition. Praise for the new president’s political aspirations regarding women’s rights isn’t contended; it’s how the feminist magazine chose to portray Obama: tearing open his Clark Kent clothes to swoop in and rescue us. It’s the representation that has people peeved.

For our purposes here at BF, two articles were published last month—the weekend before the inauguration—about the impact the movies had on Obama’s election. Not that the movies got him elected, but how roles black American men play in the movies have a real effect on the people who see them, and how we can see, through the movies, our own cultural values reflected back on us.

If you ever question how important representation in film really is, I think these articles make the point well. While they specifically focus on male presidential aspirations (and on the unique history of black Americans), they also remind us how pop culture permeates our society and informs opinions and values.

The New York Times published “How the Movies Made a President,” written by A.O. Scott and Manhola Dargis, in their Film section. The article provides an overview of black male roles, from the “Black Everyman” of the ’60s to the “Black Messiah,” currently played and re-played by Will Smith.

Make no mistake: Hollywood’s historic refusal to embrace black artists and its insistence on racist caricatures and stereotypes linger to this day. Yet in the past 50 years — or, to be precise, in the 47 years since Mr. Obama was born — black men in the movies have traveled from the ghetto to the boardroom, from supporting roles in kitchens, liveries and social-problem movies to the rarefied summit of the Hollywood A-list. In those years the movies have helped images of black popular life emerge from behind what W. E. B. Du Bois called “a vast veil,” creating public spaces in which we could glimpse who we are and what we might become.

We hear from the likes of Elizabeth Banks and Katherine Heigl that the only roles really open to them—genuinely talented, lovely young actresses—are that of sidekick, buddy, and romantic object. It’s not that there haven’t been good, meaty roles for women; there have, for sure. But what movie roles do young girls imitate? What fictional figures can women look up to?

The Root’s “Hollywood’s Leading Man: From Sammy Davis Jr. to Dave Chappelle’s Black Bush, how pop culture tested the waters for a black president” offers a more nuanced and contrarian view of the power of pop culture (and reminds us of the egos of those who really believe their art makes a difference). The article surveys the satirical representations of a black president as representative of the racial divide in America, but cites the series 24 as a shift—although one not without its problems—and questions how television and cinema will change.

So now that we have a black president, how will we react to media portrayals? Will there be pressure among writers and producers to create black leaders who feel real and black-led administrations that feel plausible? Will we, as viewers, be able to enjoy over-the-top portrayals of black presidents, such as Terry Crews’ wig-wearing wrestler in Idiocracy, as merely fun entertainment, devoid of racial and social commentary?

Might we perhaps see a black actor playing the lead in a complex drama like The West Wing, or a romantic comedy along An American President, where the president gets to be a fully fleshed out human, and not a cardboard icon? And isn’t it about time that we saw a portrayal of an African-American president who just happens to be a woman, too?

I, too, would like to see that woman. And I think we’d all like to see her on the cover of Ms., wearing a t-shirt that reads “This is what a feminist looks like.” 

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

The Best Black Comedy You’re Not Watching from Colorlines

Hasidic newspaper erases the women from that iconic Situation Room photo from Feministing

Why Bridesmaids Matters from Women and Hollywood

1 in 6 women would rather be blind than fat — so? from The F Word

Eagerly anticipating the Freedom Riders documentary … from AngryBlackBitch

“Bridesmaids”: A triumph for vomit, and feminism from Salon

The Fall of the Female Protagonist in Kids’ Movies from Persephone Magazine

Palme pioneers: women directors at Cannes from The Guardian

Preview: !Women Art Revolution

!Women Art Revolution

From the official movie website:

!Women Art Revolution elaborates the relationship of the Feminist Art Movement to the 1960s anti-war and civil rights movements and explains how historical events, such as the all-male protest exhibition against the invasion of Cambodia, sparked the first of many feminist actions against major cultural institutions. The film details major developments in women’s art of the 1970s, including the first feminist art education programs, political organizations and protests, alternative art spaces such as the A.I.R. Gallery and Franklin Furnace in New York and the Los Angeles Women’s Building, publications such as Chrysalis and Heresies, and landmark exhibitions, performances, and installations of public art that changed the entire direction of art.

Director Lynn Hershman Leeson claims to have worked on this project for 40 years, and the film has been picked up for distribution by Zeitgeist. It is currently playing at the San Francisco International Film Festival. I know very little about the Feminist Art Movement, aside from some of the Guerrilla Girls‘ work, and can’t wait to see this film.

Watch the trailer:

Just for fun, here’s the other poster:

Let us know if you have seen or plan to see this film!

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.

Athena Film Festival in Photos

Athena Film Festival @ Barnard College in New York, February 10-13, 2011

Festival Co-founder Kathryn Kolbert introduces a panel on The Bechdel Test: Where Are the Women? Director of the films Hounddog and Virgin, Deborah Kampmeier, also pictured.
Bechdel Panel moderator Dodai Stewart, Deputy Editor of Jezebel, and Margaret Nagle, Emmy-winning writer of HBO’s Warm Springs and supervising producer of season one of Boardwalk Empire.

Delia Ephron (writer of seven films, including You’ve Got Mail and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) discusses the state of women in film on the Bechdel Panel.

Mighty Macs post-film discussion. L to R: Kathryn Kolbert, Director of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies @ Barnard College; Kathryn Olson, CEO of the Women’s Sports Foundation; Kym Hampton, former WNBA all-star; and Tim Chambers, director of Mighty Macs

Alumni of Immaculata College, the setting for Mighty Macs

Actresses from Mighty Macs, who were screening the film for the first time. L to R: Kate Nowlin, Margaret Anne Florence, Taylor Steel, and Jodie Lynne McClintock

Melissa Silverstein of Women and Hollywood–and Co-founder of the Athena Film Festival–interviews Carol Jenkins, former President of the Women’s Media Center, and Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Director of Miss Representation

Shola Lynch, Director of Chisholm ’72 – Unbought and Unbossed in a post-film discussion

Stephanie and Amber, your faithful Bitch Flicks team.

Athena Film Festival Preview

This weekend we’re attending the Athena Film Festival in New York City, billed as a “celebration of women and leadership.” Why a festival dedicated to women and film? 
From the official website:
In 2010, for the first time in history, a woman won the Oscar for best director. Directing is the most visible leadership position in film yet, in 82 years, only 4 women have been nominated for best director, and only a single woman has won. In 2009, in the 250 top-grossing domestic films, women made up only 7% of directors, 8% of writers, and 17% of executive producers. 98% of these films had no female cinematographers. And, in front of the camera, as of 2007, women had less than 30% of the speaking roles.

In addition to feature films, documentaries, and short films, there will be events such as “A Hollywood Conversation with actress Greta Gerwig” and a panel on “The Bechdel Test – Where Are the Women Onscreen?” among others.

Here are previews of some of the films we’re planning to see. You can purchase tickets for individual films or a pass for the entire weekend. If you’re in the area, you won’t want to miss this festival!

Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbiased
Synopsis from the official site:

Unbought & Unbossed is the first historical documentary on Brooklyn Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and her campaign to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in 1972. Following Chisholm from the announcement of her candidacy in January to the Democratic National Convention in Miami, Florida in July, the story is like her- fabulous, fierce, and fundamentally “right on.” Chisholm’s fight is for inclusion, as she writes in her book The Good Fight (1973), and encompasses all Americans “who agree that the institutions of this country belong to all of the people who inhabit it.”


The Mighty Macs
Synopsis from the Athena site:
In the early 70s, Cathy Rush becomes the head basketball coach at a tiny, all-girls Catholic college. Though her team has no gym and no uniforms — and the school itself is in danger of being sold — Coach Rush looks to steer her girls to their first national championship.


Miss Representation
Description from the official film website:
Writer/Director Jennifer Siebel Newsom brings together some of America’s most influential women in politics, news, and entertainment to give us an inside look at the media’s message. Miss Representation explores women’s under-representation in positions of power by challenging the limited and often disparaging portrayal of women in the media. As one of the most persuasive and pervasive forces in our culture, media is educating yet another generation that women’s primary value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality—not in their capacity as leaders. Through the riveting perspectives of youth and the critical analysis of top scholars, Miss Representation will change the way you see media.


There are plenty more films being shown at the festival–be sure to check them out!

Ripley’s Pick: Parks and Recreation Seasons 1 & 2

Two seasons of the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation have already aired, and it returns for a third season on NBC next Thursday, January 20th. If you haven’t yet watched Parks and Recreation, you should really consider it–because it’s the best comedy on network television. (Both seasons are available for streaming on Netflix, all episodes are available on hulu, and you can watch the final episodes from season two on nbc.com. See how much I want you to watch?)

A small-town political satire, shot in the same documentary style as The Office, the show is laugh-out-loud funny, smart, and cuttingly feminist (and we know how rare it is for network TV to even pass the Bechdel Test). To compare it to The Office doesn’t really do it justice, however, as The Office really depends on its one-bit-gag of inept office manager Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) and other caricatures working together.  

Parks and Recreation centers around Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), who is smart and capable, yet who sometimes suffers from grandiose delusions and tragically funny missteps in her position of Deputy Director of the Parks and Recreation Department in Pawnee, Indiana. With her friend Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones), boss Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), intern April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza), and rest of the crew, Leslie sets out to build a new park in the small town and climb the political ladder.

Leslie Knope is openly feminist and politically ambitious. Her office is decorated with framed photos of female politicos, including Madeleine Albright, Condoleeza Rice, Hillary Clinton, and Janet Reno–along with her mother, who holds a higher political office than she. She struggles to accomplish anything in her bureaucratic position, fit in with the boys’ club of government, and navigate the social world of her small town. The supporting cast is equally good, with nearly all characters fully formed and three-dimensional. One of several great performances is Offerman’s anti-government Ron Swanson, the head of the Parks & Rec department, whose primary goal in his position seems to be the complete privatization and elimination of the department. Equally funny is April the intern, an ironically detached hipster who gradually grows annoyed with her gay boyfriend and comes around to sincerely connecting with her coworkers.

Season One was a short six episodes, while Season Two had twenty-four. At the end of the second season, the government was facing a shutdown due to budget concerns. Season Three (again, premiering next week) begins with the re-opening of the Parks and Recreation department. Here’s a sneak peak at Season Three, featuring guest stars Rob Lowe and Ben Scott. The preview relies heavily on these and other guest stars, and I hope they don’t dominate the series this season, superseding Poehler’s excellent comedic performance.

And here’s a clip from one of my favorite episodes, “Hunting Trip.”

The Power of Representation

Representing President Obama as a “Super-feminist” has ignited a debate over who the savior of feminism ought to be (see here for a good overview), and likely sold a lot of copies of Ms. magazine’s January edition. Praise for the new president’s political aspirations regarding women’s rights isn’t contended; it’s how the feminist magazine chose to portray Obama: tearing open his Clark Kent clothes to swoop in and rescue us. It’s the representation that has people peeved.

For our purposes here at BF, two articles were published last month–the weekend before the inauguration–about the impact the movies had on Obama’s election. Not that the movies got him elected, but how roles black American men play in the movies have a real effect on the people who see them, and how we can see, through the movies, our own cultural values reflected back on us.

If you ever question how important representation in film really is, I think these articles make the point well. While they specifically focus on male presidential aspirations (and on the unique history of black Americans), they also remind us how pop culture permeates our society and informs opinions and values.

The New York Times published “How the Movies Made a President,”written by A.O. Scott and Manhola Dargis, in their Film section. The article provides an overview of black male roles, from the “Black Everyman” of the ’60s to the “Black Messiah,” currently played and re-played by Will Smith.

Make no mistake: Hollywood’s historic refusal to embrace black artists and its insistence on racist caricatures and stereotypes linger to this day. Yet in the past 50 years — or, to be precise, in the 47 years since Mr. Obama was born — black men in the movies have traveled from the ghetto to the boardroom, from supporting roles in kitchens, liveries and social-problem movies to the rarefied summit of the Hollywood A-list. In those years the movies have helped images of black popular life emerge from behind what W. E. B. Du Bois called “a vast veil,” creating public spaces in which we could glimpse who we are and what we might become.

We hear from the likes of Elizabeth Banks and Katherine Heigl that the only roles really open to them—genuinely talented, lovely young actresses—are that of sidekick, buddy, and romantic object. It’s not that there haven’t been good, meaty roles for women; there have, for sure. But what movie roles do young girls imitate? What fictional figures can women look up to?

The Root’s “Hollywood’s Leading Man: From Sammy Davis Jr. to Dave Chappelle’s Black Bush, how pop culture tested the waters for a black president” offers a more nuanced and contrarian view of the power of pop culture (and reminds us of the egos of those who really believe their art makes a difference). The article surveys the satirical representations of a black president as representative of the racial divide in America, but cites the series 24 as a shift–although one not without its problems–and questions how television and cinema will change.

So now that we have a black president, how will we react to media portrayals? Will there be pressure among writers and producers to create black leaders who feel real and black-led administrations that feel plausible? Will we, as viewers, be able to enjoy over-the-top portrayals of black presidents, such as Terry Crews’ wig-wearing wrestler in Idiocracy, as merely fun entertainment, devoid of racial and social commentary?

Might we perhaps see a black actor playing the lead in a complex drama like The West Wing, or a romantic comedy along An American President, where the president gets to be a fully fleshed out human, and not a cardboard icon? And isn’t it about time that we saw a portrayal of an African-American president who just happens to be a woman, too?

I, too, would like to see that woman. And I think we’d all like to see her on the cover of Ms., wearing a t-shirt that reads “This is what a feminist looks like.”