Geena Davis: Gender Stereotypes Remain Deeply Entrenched in Today’s Entertainment…
February 27, 2011
by Melissa Silverstein
|The following article is cross-posted with permission from Women and Hollywood. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
This past week, The United Nations celebrated the launch of a new agency—UN Women—which combines all the different women’s organizations under one leader, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. The agency has a $500 million yearly budget and the goal is to press governments around the world for a “new era of gender equality.”
Hollywood stars Geena Davis and Nicole Kidman both celebrated the agency’s launch (albeit Kidman was there by video link). These two women are the most active and consistent voices for feminist concerns.
Davis reiterated her pressure on Hollywood to get its house in order:
Gender stereotypes remain deeply entrenched in today’s entertainment and there has been no significant progress over the last 20 years…What message are we sending to girls if there are so few female characters. If the characters are devalued, stereotyped, sidelined or simply not there at all…and what message are boys taking in about the importance, value and worth of girls.
Here’s a historical perspective on the fight for global women’s rights:
Geena Davis has got guts and she is tenacious. You don’t see a lot of women in Hollywood who have integrity and actually you don’t see much of Geena these days so I guess her integrity has cost her her career.
I am no fan of Hollywood and I would like to see them subjected to a free market which means and end to their gatekeeping and an end to their one size fits all men cable package scams. But I don’t believe the people who are currently in Hollywood have the capacity to make good movies about women or content that women and girls actually want to watch. It doesn’t matter what story you try to tell once you run it through the minds of male script writers, male directors, male casting couch jockeys, male camera men, male costumers, and male film editors you wind up with the same old $h!t which is not anything women will pay to consume so it can’t be considered “women’s content” regardless of how many awards the men give them selves. Seriously these hosers have a monopoly, they are dug in deep, and they are not capable of expanding their view or representation of women. They don’t even care about expanding their profits from serving a female audience.
Agree Bes – I wish we had 100 Geena Davis’!
Love this video too!
Agreed, Bes!
The answer, IMO, is to stop waiting for the men or trying to convince the few who might listen, and just create our own parallel universe where women, like Geena Davis, create a different kind of “Hollywood” run by women, for women.
How can we expect men who enmasse still refuse to go see a “chick flick” to understand who women really are, what we really think and what we are really capable of, if they aren’t in the least bit interested in finding out? Men are very satisfied withh “their” definition of women AND their monopoly on Hollywood and everything else in society.
It is this narcisstic behavior that will continue to blind them to anyone else’s needs, except their own. The only way to break through this hard shell of indifference is to defy them by “doing it for ourselves.”
If women don’t do it, it won’t happen.
Leave your Response Want an avatar? Get a gravatar!
Community Room
February 22, 2012 at 11:22 am
February 17, 2012 at 2:39 pm
February 6, 2012 at 4:25 pm
January 30, 2012 at 2:36 pm
January 26, 2012 at 4:38 pm
January 23, 2012 at 1:04 pm
January 15, 2012 at 11:37 am
January 9, 2012 at 6:36 pm
BUILD your NETWORK
Our Network of College Women
Protecting our Teenage Girls
We’re in the Media »
Click to see our latest stories in the media
More Stories »Recent Comments
The Latest from our Blog
Archives
Pioneer Mentors
Blogroll
Find us Online