#Geena Davis: Thelma & Louise changed everything for me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

caffeinestudyingg · 4 years

Text

Did an ask thing because I’m bored and using this account again

Name: Maggie

Age: 20

Fears: Feeling alone

3 things I love: Music, My family (both blood and chosen), sunshine

4 turns on: a fun laugh, the kind of passion that pulls you out of reality, someone that knows how to be quiet together, confidence

4 turns off: Being quick to anger, disinterest in growth, uncleanliness, lack of awareness to the world around them

My best friend: Too many to choose from but lets go with Thomas from high school

Sexual orientation: Queer

My best first date: a walk up and down the little hipster-y road by my university. I was nervous, he bought me coffee, held my hand and kissed me while we leaned against his car and talked.

How tall am I: like five foot eight ish

What do I miss: going to school and seeing my friends and professors

Favorite color: Burgundy

Do I have a crush: yes and she is lovely

Favorite quote: “Sur.Vive.” -my piano teacher every week

Favorite place: my piano professors office

Favorite food: pasta

Do I use sarcasm: much too frequently

What am I listening to right now: This Might Get Weird podcast

First thing I notice in new person: their energy (not in a super hippy dippy way but ya girl gets affected by the way people’s energy changes a room)

Shoe size: 9.5 I think

Eye color: blue

Hair color: Red

Favorite style of clothing: super casual but like yarn skein model sheik

Meaning behind my URL: I have a caffein addiction and am trying to study

Favorite movie: Thelma and Louise

How I feel right now: tired, kind of lonely

Someone I love: My dog

My current relationship status: singlesinglesinglesingle

My relationship with my parents: My mom is like my favorite person

Tattoos and piercing I have: cartilage, industrial, lobes, nose twice, wine glass on my ankle, ghost light on my forearm, fortissimo on my wrist, Keith Haring crossed fingers on tricep

Tattoos and piercings I want: nothing picked out I just want more haha

The reason I joined Tumblr: a friend made me in middle school

Do I and my last ex hate each other? Definitely not

How long does it take me to get ready in the morning? 30 minutes give or take

Have You shaved your legs in the past three days? HA no

Where am I right now? sitting in bed

If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me? Thomas probably

Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? Ya girl can’t hear, its gotta be loud

Do I live with my Mom and Dad? yup

Am I excited for anything? learning new music

Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? Thomassss

How often do I wear a fake smile? Not often lately

When was the last time I hugged someone? Maybe last Tuesday in choir?

What is something I disliked about today? only being able to see my friends and profs through a screen

If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? Geena Davis probably

Do I have any strange phobias? Eyes

Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Video

What’s the weather like right now? its been rainy all day

What was the worst injury I’ve ever had? I broke my arm once but I think I’ve hurt my wrist through over use recently and that might be worse

Favorite animal? Brown Bears

What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? Where does the Good Go? by Tegan and Sara

I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power? The ability to pause/alter time

What is my current desktop picture? Mountains

Failed a class? Nope

Kissed a boy? Yeah

Kissed a girl? Yup

Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? I don’t think so

Had job? several

Left the house without my wallet? Too frequently

Played on a sports team? for 9+ years

Smoked weed? nope

Drank alcohol? Yeeeaaaah

Am I a vegetarian/vegan? thought about it but don’t generally like making food rules anymore

Been on the computer for 5 hours straight? Thats school baby

Watched TV for 5 hours straight? When I had the flu earlier this semester

Been outside my home country? Sadly no

Gotten my heart broken? Mildly

Broken a bone? My arm and several fingers

Been to prom? Twice

Been in airplane? Yeah

What concerts have I been to? So so so many

Had a crush on someone of the same sex? oh yeah lol

Learned another language? I’ve kind of tried

Wore make up? only sometimes

Lost my virginity before I was 18? nah

Dyed my hair? more than I should have

Met someone famous? at Broadway stage doors

Been rejected by a crush? you betcha

How many kids do I want? Two maybe

Do I like my handwriting? I think so but its a little messy

Favorite Tv Show? Grey’s Anatomy

Where do I want to live when older? Montana

Play any musical instrument? Piano, French Horn a little, and Learning the upright bass

One of my scars, how did I get it? Ran into school bleachers

Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end: haven’t we all?

What I’m really bad at: time management

What do I like about myself: I have pretty good instincts and my gut is usually right

Something I fantasize about: living successfully and happily working in the arts with people I love

#studyblr #mine #questions #about me #queue

5 notes · View notes

thevalkirias · 7 years

Text

Off the Cliff: Why Thelma & Louise was an out-of-the-ordinary movie

Long before I knew what story was told in Thelma & Louise, I knew it as a cultural reference mentioned in many other movies -- and tv shows, and books --, specially when it came to female characters. It was only last year, with its 25th birthday, that I finally watched it and understood why it is referenced so often. Thelma & Louise seemed to me very different, though at that moment I couldn’t say exactly why. It’s on this why that Becky Aikman’s Off the Cliff focuses. With a subtitle that reads “How the making of Thelma & Louise drove Hollywood to the edge”, the book narrates the movie’s behind-the-scenes, in an attempt to understand why Thelma and Louise represented a small revolution from the moment the movie was released until today.

Off the Cliff feels like a book-length news report telling the story behind the production of Thelma & Louise, a road movie directed by Ridley Scott and starring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon as best friends who go on a fishing trip and end up becoming fugitives after Louise shoots a stranger who had just raped Thelma. The book follows a mostly chronological order to tell us about the making of the movie: from the moment of frustration going on in screenwriter Callie Khouri’s personal and professional life to the 1992 Oscars, when she got the award for best original screenplay. Aikman narrates the different steps in the long process of turning an idea into a movie. There is a world of people involved and not all of them will see the final product the same way, but it’s easy to see that they are all essential for the goal to be achieved. And the goal, in this case, was to make a movie that no one wanted to buy, that couldn’t find the right director, that for many A-list actresses seemed like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and that everyone wanted to change -- especially its striking and unexpected conclusion -- before it became what it is.

When Callie Khouri wrote Thelma & Louise in 1989, she was a newcomer. Callie worked behind the scenes of music videos, and the story she decided to tell, about women who become increasingly free, was in part a response to what she saw every day at work: hypersexualixed women serving as background for men, always men. Because she was a novice, perhaps she didn’t really understand just how much everything she was doing with her script went against Hollywood’s standards at the time.

More than two decades later, Becky Aikman reveals in which context Callie, with a lot of effort, managed to sell her story and see it on the big screen. At the time, action movies were topping the box office; and action, Aikman explains, meant men with guns. Women’s Pictures -- smaller movies focused on the interior lives of the characters -- were left for television. In the movies, more than the majority of speaking roles were male, and female roles were often limiting and archetypical. Women accounted for an average of 20 percent of movie crews. Of the top fifty movies of 1988, only two were written by women without male partners. The last time a woman had won an Oscar for best original screenplay by herself was 1932. The idea of Callie not only writing but also directing a movie as risky as Thelma & Louise -- as she had initially planned -- was absurd.

But why was Thelma and Louise’s story so risky, after all? Aikman chose Off the Cliff as the title of her book in a reference to the final scene of the movie, in which Thelma and Louise find themselves surrounded by police cars and decide to keep on running by literally throwing themselves off a cliff right there in the Grand Canyon. It was too much. It was too much to end in suicide a movie that already strayed so much from the expectations of the audience. An average of five movies, out of the fifty most successful per year, had female leads. Two female leads? Less than two movies per year. As a rule, men acted, women reacted (to them). Aikman reports that Geena Davis, who would be cast as Thelma, used to call many of the roles available for women the “good luck, honey!” characters -- the role left for the woman was, after all, to say goodbye when the man went on to live his adventures. Throughout the entirety of the casting process Geena’s agent would call the people in charge every week to let them know she was interested in playing either Thelma or Louise. Just like several other actresses.

But Thelma & Louise wasn’t simply a movie with female leads. Thelma and Louise were female leads living in a world where every man was nothing more than an archetype. They were women who escaped failed relationships and did things that female characters were never supposed to do: killing (once, a rapist, and feeling as conscious of their mistake as remorseful), stealing, running from the police, having sex with strangers, setting fire to a truck. They were women who became increasingly free and distanced from the standards imposed on female characters -- because of course men could kill, steal, run from the police, have sex with strangers and set fire to whatever they wanted without anyone screaming in horror that they weren’t good role models.

The obligation of being a role model is the burden the female character must carry. Recently, when Gone Girl, a thriller with an extremely cold and calculating female lead, was adapted to the big screen, a similar discussion took place. These characters’ enormous flaws are always pinpointed and their stories’ feminism -- or lack of it -- is always questioned, even if none of them have claimed to be feminist icons. Though for a good while anti-heroes were the norm when we thought about prestige TV, though even our most positive super-heroes now have dark undertones, it’s harder to sell a movie led by women who aren’t good role models. When we defend these stories, we’re not stating that these characters should represent every woman or that their actions inspire us. What we ask is for female characters to be allowed to be as good, or as bad, or as gray, as any male character -- without anyone wanting to ban them from theaters. What we want is to see as many female characters as there are women; back in 2014, though, when Amy Dunne was on the big screen, women comprised 12% of protagonists. In such a context, having a female lead is always a huge responsibility.

Aikman reports that seeing female characters in nontraditional roles was one of the things that pleased preview audiences. Over time, the movie became very meaningful to many women -- not because they closed their eyes to a murder that wasn’t executed in self-defense, but because of what the characters represented beyond their actions:

“But for the women who loved Thelma and Louise, it was not so much about what those characters did as about what they were: women living their lives in the movies for all to see. Women who looked like real women and talked like real women, women who had more on their minds than ‘Good luck, honey!’ Women who could laugh in the open about the at the too-recognizable foibles of men -- and women, too. Who understood what it meant to become that third thing when they were together, making choices -- even bad ones -- on their own.”

Thelma and Louise become so independent and start living so far out of what was socially imposed on them that Callie saw the falling-off-the-cliff ending as their only way out. She didn’t consider it tragic, or even suicide: “Women who are completely free from all the shackles that restrain them have no place in this world. The world is not big enough to support them,” she would state later. It wasn’t tragic because art is able to represent situations that are meaningful in ways that go beyond the literality of life. “They flew away, out of this world”, Callie said, “and into the mass unconscious.”

With many difficulties and some creative differences between Callie Khouri and Ridley Scott, for the most part it was her singular vision that was followed. But Thelma & Louise didn’t change cinema. Aikman quotes Geena Davis discussing the widespread assumption that the film’s success would open new roads for women and their stories. The same happened with the success of A League of their Own, another movie starring Geena which defied conventional gender roles. But they were both isolated phenomena in a deeply sexist industry. After years of being both a witness and a victim of the industry’s sexism, Geena founded her own research institute to discuss the way women are being represented in the media -- and the results are usually not very positive. Aikman explains that the many recent blockbusters with female leads are still seen, again and again, as anomalies by the studios. Men continue to be their safe bet.

For those who follow the discussion about women and the media closely, many of the facts, stories and numbers that Becky Aikman uses to contextualize the story will seem like old acquaintances rather than a novelty. But she makes very good use of them, linking the information with the story she tells, in much detail, about one of these Hollywood “anomalies” that are impossible to ignore. Her writing is accessible and captivating and reading the book, which combines the main storyline with Aikman’s own observations about the bigger issue of women and film and with what the many people involved in the production of Thelma & Louise thought or think about it, is an enjoyable and enriching experience. Above all else, I like that Aikman is not afraid of expressing her opinions and pointing out the double standards for men and women in the industry or the excuses Hollywood uses to keep on treating our stories as a niche interest.

Thelma & Louise didn’t change cinema, but,as Aikman points out, for a moment it drove Hollywood to the edge of a cliff that the industry is still afraid of facing. Beyond it rests a world of stories waiting to be told. Callie Khouri told one of them, and the result was a movie that is now part of the collective unconscious -- exactly what she had envisioned for Thelma and Louise’s final choice.

We received the book from Penguin Press in exchange for a review.

About the author

FERNANDA

Officially a translator and proofreader, Fernanda has a special love for literature and for this writing thing. A loyal follower of the uncool lifestyle, she doesn’t believe in guilty pleasures nor in the concept of liking something ironically.

Art by Carol Nazatto

This piece was originally published in Portuguese on June 27th, 2017, on Valkirias.com.br Translated by the author.

#thelma & louise #off the cliff #feminism #geena davis #susan sarandon #callie khouri #becky aikman #penguin press #category:film #category:literature #author:fernanda #translator:fernanda

5 notes · View notes

merelygifted · 7 years

Photo

... By the time she turned 50, she was fed up. The neglect of women in film and TV was definitely happening – she knew that – but to prove it the Mensa member realised she would have to measure it: “Because people just make assumptions, don’t they? Even when the reality might be completely different. I remember talking to a woman editor of a magazine about all this a while ago, and she said, ‘Oh no, no, no, that’s just not a problem any more.’ I told her it still was. She said,” and Davis begins to laugh again, “‘But it can’t be. Look at Meryl Streep, she works all the time!’ I was like, ‘Er, Meryl’s schedule is the exception.’”

So, 10 years ago, the actor founded the Geena Davis Institute On Gender In Media. “I am completely obsessed with numbers and data. I have become a scientist in later life.” The institute conducts exhaustive research to establish the facts of gender representation in family entertainment, and they are grimly arresting.

Male characters outnumber female in family films by a ratio of three to one, a figure that has remained startlingly consistent since 1946. From 2007 to 2014, women made up less than a third of speaking or named characters in the 100 top-grossing films distributed in the US, of which less than 7% were directed by women. Of the female characters that did make it on to screen, fewer than one in five were aged 40-64. Last autumn, the institute partnered with Google to launch the Geena Davis Inclusion Quotient (the GD-IQ), a software program that measures the amount of screen and speaking time given to male and female characters. The results were even more confronting: in the top 200 grossing films of 2014 and 2015, males, Davis discovered, enjoyed literally twice the screen time of females, and spoke twice as often.

It’s easy to see why this would matter to Davis, or any other female actor, but why should the rest of us care? “This gender bias is so ingrained in us, and stuffed into our DNA from when we’re little, from our first exposure to popular culture. If kids’ movies and TV shows have profoundly fewer female characters than male characters, and there’s nobody saying, ‘By the way, honey, this isn’t real. That’s not how the real world is.’” From 2006 to 2009, not one female character was depicted in a G-rated family film working in the field of medical science, as a business leader, in law or in politics. “Our motto is: if they can see it, they can be it. Completely unconsciously, boys and girls are getting the message that girls are less important and less valuable to our society, because they’re not there. And if they are there, they’re not talking.”. ...

Geena Davis: ‘Thelma & Louise changed everything for me’ | Culture | The Guardian

#Geena Davis #actors #Goddess #you go #sexism #evil #well done

2 notes · View notes

viralhottopics · 7 years

Text

Geena Davis: Thelma & Louise changed everything for me

It was the moment she realised how few inspiring women there are on screen. Now the actor is on a mission to fix that

Somewhere in a parallel universe, Geena Davis is having the time of her life. Yes! Enjoying this new era in American history! As one of the few women to have played a US president on screen, in her parallel universe Davis is having a lovely conversation with me about how fabulous it feels to see a woman finally make it to the White House.

This isnt the first time the actor has found her presidential fantasies preferable to reality. Eleven years ago, she was President Mackenzie Allen on the TV show Commander In Chief. It had been the number one new show, and it was going to run for eight years. I was going to do two terms, Davis grins ruefully. She won a Golden Globe for the role. Then internal studio politics intervened and the show was cancelled after a single season. For a long time after, I felt like, in an alternate universe, I was still on that show. In my mind, she says, laughing, I wanted to set up the Oval Office in my garage and pretend I was still the president.

Davis hoots at her own absurdity, but for the record she did receive a fairly presidential greeting on arrival at the restaurant where we meet. The Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills hotel is a fantastically kitsch extravaganza of salmon-pink table linen and bad taste, but a Hollywood institution nonetheless. While I waited, the lunch tables filled with industry types, and my requests for a quieter corner were defeated by the expert indifference of waiters who understand the rules of Hollywood hierarchy better than I do. But the instant Davis arrived, the matre d descended into an obsequious froth Miss Davis! Welcome back! and whisked us off to a coveted booth.

So good to see you again! he purrs, before blanching in horror. Davis has a white napkin on her lap, but her trousers are black. Quelle horreur! The offending item is whipped away and replaced with a black one, while Davis tries not to giggle.

With Susan Sarandon in 1991s Thelma & Louise. Photograph: Allstar

Davis has no publicist in tow, and nothing about her outfit would suggest celebrity: she is wearing a loose white T-shirt and the sort of plain and comfortable black jacket and trousers one might put on for Sunday lunch in a nice pub. Were she not so tall (6ft), I might easily have missed her when she arrived, full of apologies for being all of 10 minutes late. I take the matre ds instantaneous excitement to mean she must be a regular, but as soon as hes gone, she whispers, No! I cant even remember the last time I was here. Its this very weird phenomenon. If I go to hotels, they always say, Welcome back, even when Ive never been there before. That must be rather disorienting. Yes, weird! She nods cheerfully. You have all these people saying nice things to you, and it can really be like, Wow, Im very fortunate, arent I? Im very, very grateful for it, you know?

When lunch arrives, she gets the giggles again: her salad is a strangely regimented platter that looks like someones idea of gastro-sophistication circa 1974. Its so kitschy! I was going to show your tape recorder my salad, but that wont work, will it? When her phone rings, the mother of three murmurs the universal prayer of working parents everywhere: Please dont be the nanny, please dont be the nanny, please dont be the nanny. It feels like lunching with a gloriously irreverent and relaxed old friend.

Davis has been a Hollywood star for 35 years, but at 61 her status now is a curious hybrid of insider and outsider, a bit like cinemas Ofsted inspector. When starting out, shed have been astonished to know shed devote the later years of her career to exposing her industrys flaws. Back then, she admits, she couldnt see anything to worry about.

With William Hurt in 1988s The Accidental Tourist, for which Davis won an Oscar. Photograph: Ronald Grant

When I was first starting out was also when I first started really paying attention to the Oscars and stuff like that. And I remember thinking, wow, everything is great for women in Hollywood, because Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Jessica Lange, Sally Field: theyre all doing incredible work. Every year, fantastic movies were coming out: The French Lieutenants Woman, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Sophies Choice. I think I did hear that, for women, when you get older it can be a problem, but these actors were already in their 30s, which seemed ancient to me then. So I thought, whats the problem? I started getting really cool parts left and right and centre, and I was like, well, even if it turns out theres a problem, its not going to impact on me.

After making her debut in 1982s classic comedy Tootsie, Davis averaged a movie a year, and could easily have made more had she not been fussy. She did sci-fi horror in The Fly, comic fantasy in Beetlejuice and literary drama in The Accidental Tourist, for which she won a best supporting actress Oscar. She played a baseball star in the sports comedy A League Of Their Own, a bank robber in the crime drama Quick Change and, most memorably, a housewife turned outlaw in the feminist road trip Thelma & Louise. Then she turned 40 and in the entire decade that followed, we saw her face only in Stuart Little.

By the time she turned 50, she was fed up. The neglect of women in film and TV was definitely happening she knew that but to prove it the Mensa member realised she would have to measure it: Because people just make assumptions, dont they? Even when the reality might be completely different. I remember talking to a woman editor of a magazine about all this a while ago, and she said, Oh no, no, no, thats just not a problem any more. I told her it still was. She said, and Davis begins to laugh again, But it cant be. Look at Meryl Streep, she works all the time! I was like, Er, Meryls schedule is the exception.

So, 10 years ago, the actor founded the Geena Davis Institute On Gender In Media. I am completely obsessed with numbers and data. I have become a scientist in later life. The institute conducts exhaustive research to establish the facts of gender representation in family entertainment, and they are grimly arresting.

Its easy to see why this would matter to Davis, or any other female actor, but why should the rest of us care? This gender bias is so ingrained in us, and stuffed into our DNA from when were little, from our first exposure to popular culture. If kids movies and TV shows have profoundly fewer female characters than male characters, and theres nobody saying, By the way, honey, this isnt real. Thats not how the real world is. From 2006 to 2009, not one female character was depicted in a G-rated family film working in the field of medical science, as a business leader, in law or in politics. Our motto is: if they can see it, they can be it. Completely unconsciously, boys and girls are getting the message that girls are less important and less valuable to our society, because theyre not there. And if they are there, theyre not talking.

Playing the first female president in the TV series Commander In Chief. Photograph: ABC

Another way of looking at it, I suggest, would be that what we see on screen is, in fact, uncannily accurate. In a typical crowd scene, female extras account for just 17% of the faces we see a figure close to this crops up across all sorts of sectors in real life in America. Fortune 500 boards are around 20% female, as is Congress. Fewer then 20% of US legal partners, the military and cardiac surgeons are female.

Yes, Davis agrees, but I think the impact of media images is so profound that we actually could make life imitate art. You know, you see a dog or something and you say, Oh, hes cute? The default is always male, and its because weve had such a male-centred culture. And its because its what we see and hear from the very beginning.

I remember I was once with my boys [she has 12-year-old twins, and a 14-year-old daughter] in a park and they saw a squirrel. I consciously decided to say, Look, shes so cute and they both turned to me with surprised expressions and said, How do you know its a girl? I was like, wow, Ive already failed. They were four years old.

Davis takes all the data to Hollywoods decision-makers and creators: heads of studios, production companies, guilds. Does she come in for a bit of oh-no-here-comes-the-feminist eye-rolling? Oh no. No! If I was going in just saying, Youre making fewer movies starring a female character than male characters, theyd say, Yes, we know that. Were fully aware of that. We hope we can do better. We wish we could do better. And they would probably turn to this myth in Hollywood that women will watch men, but men dont want to watch women, so were forced to make all the stories about men.

Instead, Davis shows them the GD-IQs findings on profitability. Films featuring female leads make on average 15% more than those with male leads, while films featuring male and female co-leads earn almost 24% more than those with either a solo male or female lead. Their jaws are on the ground. She grins. Everywhere we go, its the exact same reaction. They are floored.

***

Had anyone told Davis in her youth that she would one day be an activist and advocate, she would have been equally floored. She grew up in a small town in Massachusetts, a bookish child and church organist, and was constantly shy. Just totally shy, especially about men. I had one date in high school, that was it, and he didnt ask me out again, she laughs, because I was taller than everybody. I was very gangly and awkward, and I wore weird clothes that I made. I think my fondest wish as a kid was to take up less space.

My fondest wish as a kid was to take up less space. Photograph: Amanda Friedman for the Guardian

Most peoples childhood self-image can seem surprising by the time theyre in their 60s, but in Daviss case the discrepancy feels comical. She is 6ft and appropriately proportioned, so occupies as much space as you would expect someone with the dimensions of an imposing man to fill. Her voice is gutsy, soaring from throaty depths to gales of laughter, and her beauty is unlike anything Ive observed in an actor. Beautiful women who have lived their life in the public gaze tend to convey an awareness of others admiration that can sometimes seem self-conscious, and sometimes almost pointedly detached. Davis, on the other hand, reminds me more of my cat, a ludicrously gorgeous creature who seems to take as much pleasure from its beauty as any admirer ever could. If I picture Davis looking at herself in the mirror, she isnt frowning anxiously but smiling back at her famous dimples.

And yet she goes on, I think I really wanted to take up less space. It seemed like every time I was exuberant or free, I would get pointed at. Things that really stand out from my childhood were incidents where people told me to tone it down. Like my beloved aunt Gloria, who was a role model and just everything to me, and who adored me, and would say things like, Youre really going to have to learn to laugh more quietly, because boys arent going to like a loud lady.

She knew from the age of three that she wanted to act, and studied drama at Boston University. But the most important thing was that people like me and think Im no trouble. It was as if I lived in some bubble of extreme femininity where you must never say your feelings. I had people who wouldnt date me because I couldnt even decide what restaurant I wanted to go to, literally. I never said my opinion about anything. I was afraid to.

Everything changed in 1990 when she made Thelma & Louise. Davis played Thelma, an unhappy wife who takes off with her friend Louise, played by Susan Sarandon, for a two-day road trip in an old Thunderbird convertible. When a man they meet in a bar tries to rape Thelma, Louise shoots him dead. Convinced the police will never believe their account of events, because Thelma had been drinking and seen dancing with the man before he attacked her, the pair take off. Liberated from the constraints of social convention and the law, they embark on a raucously anarchic adventure from which they will never return.

With then husband Jeff Goldblum in 1989. Photograph: Getty

Davis had her agent call Ridley Scott, the films director, every single week for a year in a concerted campaign to land the part. So it was really, really a passion project for me. And I was aware of womens position in Hollywood by then. But then, when the movie came out and I saw the reaction women had, it was night and day: completely different from anything that had ever happened before, you know? Women wanted to really talk about how it impacted on them. Theyd tell me, This is what I thought, this is who I saw it with, this is how many times Ive seen it, this is how it really changed my marriage. Sometimes Id even hear, My friend and I took a road trip and acted out your trip. Her eyes widen as she laughs. Im like, I hope the good parts? But that really struck me, and it made me realise how few opportunities there are to feel inspired by the female characters we watch. That changed everything for me.

Working with Sarandon changed everything, too. Every day on set, I was just learning how to be more myself, you know? Just because she was such a role model to me. Davis would arrive each morning with her notes tentatively framed in the apologetic, would-you-mind-awfully register of regulation feminine decorum. Sarandon would bustle in, open her mouth and speak her mind. Davis still beams at the memory, and credits it with revolutionising the way she operated.

Her institute is now in its 10th year, but has yet to generate any measurable change in onscreen representation. I feel very confident thats going to happen in the next five to 10 years, though. I know it will. Theres one childrens network that tells us, every time someone pitches a new idea, someone asks, What would Geena say? She roars with laughter. Which is exactly what I want! The parallel between her work and recent increasingly successful campaigns for greater ethnic onscreen diversity in Hollywood speak for themselves, she says. Its exactly the same problem, with exactly the same solution. When a sector of society is left out of the popular culture, its cultural annihilation.

Davis does still act; in recent years, she starred in the TV shows Greys Anatomy and The Exorcist, and appears in the forthcoming sci-fi thriller Marjorie Prime. Shes also in Dont Talk To Irene, an indie film about an overweight cheerleader, which premiered recently in Canada. But its very clear that acting is no longer her driving ambition. She gets much more excited talking about the film festival she co-founded in 2015, the only one in the world to offer its winners the prize of guaranteed distribution, both theatrical and through DVD. The Bentonville festival explicitly exists to champion and promote female and other minority film-makers, and last year became the eighth biggest film festival in the world; this year, it will open in early May in Arkansas and more than 100,000 people are expected to attend.

With husband, Reza Jarrahy, in 2013. Photograph: Getty

The most conventionally starlet thing about Davis these days is probably her marital history: she is now on her fourth marriage. The first, in 1982, lasted less than a year; her second, to the actor and her sometime co-star Jeff Goldblum in 1987, lasted only slightly longer, and was over by 1990. In 1993, she wed the director Renny Harlin, but divorced again in 1998. She has been married to her fourth husband, Reza Jarrahy, the father of her three children, and an Iranian-American plastic surgeon, for 16 years now. Giving birth for the first time at 46, followed by twins at 48, is not an entirely advisable maternal strategy, she laughs. I dont know how I assumed I could wait that long, and I wouldnt recommend it. Id always known I wanted to have kids, but somehow, before then, there wasnt any time I was planning it.

When we part, she gives me a great bear hug and her phone number, and it strikes me that she must be one of the happiest movie stars I can remember meeting. The parallel universe she inhabits appears to have much to recommend it. I had assumed she would put Hillary Clintons defeat down to her motto If she can see it, she can be it so ask if she thinks America would have voted a different way last September had the notion of a woman in charge of the country looked more familiar.

You know, she surprises me, I dont know. I like to just think that she won the popular vote by an enormous amount. She was not this horrifically flawed candidate everyone wants to paint. I mean, OK, she didnt win the electoral college vote. But, in another way, she did win. In Daviss parallel universe, the popular vote determined who would move into the White House, and all is well with the world.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2o3eFff

from Geena Davis: Thelma & Louise changed everything for me

#Geena Davis: Thelma & Louise changed everything for me

0 notes

lindyhunt · 6 years

Text

This Changes Everything Might be the Most Important Film You’ll See at TIFF This Year

I was not expecting to tear up at the press screening of This Changes Everything but I did, and several times at that. Mostly because it brought into relief two key things: i) women have been thwarted time and again, over decades, in their fight for a more equitable space in Hollywood ii) our own complicity in the creation of a misogynist, patriarchal culture runs deep, thanks to the sexist and gender bias-ridden bedtime stories and fairytales we feed our kids right from the age when they first learn to, you know, think.

As a culture, we might be talking about Hollywood’s gender problem a lot more lately but this film helped me fully grasp the scope of the issue in ways I hadn’t before. In 97 minutes, it revealed how deep-rooted and insidious these systemic biases are, how long we’ve been trying to fight them, and just how much we have lost because of them. Executive produced by Geena Davis, whose non-profit The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media (GDIGM) has been charting the gender imbalance in film representation since 2004, the documentary brings together the experiences and voices of some of the leading women in television and Hollywood—from Meryl Streep and Taraji P Henson to Tracee Ellis Ross and Reese Witherspoon —as well as filmmakers and showrunners like Jill Soloway, Shonda Rhimes and Callie Khouri. It also brought to the fore so many women who have been fighting for change behind the scenes, like Susan Lyne, former president of ABC Entertainment; Keri Putnam, executive director of the Sundance Institute; and Sherry Lansing, former CEO of Paramount Pictures.

It’s easy, considering the outpouring of anger in the wake of Donald Trump’s election and the recent exposés on Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men in the industry, to think that this is the watershed moment we’ve been waiting for. The rise of women-helmed production companies is a positive sign, to be sure. But what this film helps drive home is the fact that there have been many “game-changing” moments like this before, such as Thelma & Louise’s resounding box office and critical success in 1991, and Kathryn Bigelow’s big moment in 2010 as the first female director to win a Best Director Oscar in nearly a hundred years (for The Hurt Locker). These were milestones that didn’t change as much as they should have. The documentary also shows that this is hardly a new fight we’re fighting; it’s just the latest in a long line of battles. In fact, back in the 1980s, a group of female directors known as The Original Six even took Hollywood studios to court for discrimination, only to have their lawsuit dismissed. How many of us know the names of those six women?

The film also does a great job of pointing out the many different ways women have been subjugated over the years—women with commercial and critical successes behind them, who should have gone on to become household names like their male peers. Take for example, Kimberly Peirce, who directed and co-wrote Boys Don’t Cry in 1999, for which Hilary Swank won an Oscar. Although widely celebrated for her film, Peirce’s next feature film wouldn’t hit screens until nine years later. For male directors with similar successes—and Oscar recognition—the opportunities would have come in fast and strong. In 2017, Patty Jenkins became the first woman to direct a $100 million dollar film. But think about that for a second—in 2003 she directed Monster, which won Charlize Theron her Oscar, and it took 14 years for her to make her next feature film, Wonder Woman. That is unconscionable.

As I mentioned earlier, the documentary also perfectly encapsulates our own role in creating this imbalanced culture. The fairytales we read our children, the animated films we queue on iPads for our nieces and nephews, they all feed into the problem—if we always show the princesses as waiting to be saved, and the princes as doing the saving, what other worldview can we expect our kids to grow up with? The film revisits scenes from the beloved classics we all grew up on—from Little Mermaid to Cinderella—and their now-glaring sexism made me shudder. This is why Davis’ non-profit was founded: specifically to address the problem of gender imbalance in kids’ movies. Davis reiterated her mission not just in the film but also at the Share Her Journey rally during TIFF last weekend. “Onscreen representation in media made for little kids is the easiest fix, but it’s also the most urgent,” she said. “Why are we training kids to have unconscious gender biases from the very beginning?”

There’s no way to move forward without accepting and understanding the things that got us here—the opportunities missed, the lessons learned, the strides made. And now, at a moment in time when the air seems electric with change, when the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements have given women the strength in numbers we didn’t seem to have before, this film is especially important. I just wish, when the film ended and those credits started rolling, that the first name to appear on the screen had been a woman’s. Ah well, baby steps.

0 notes

ultralifehackerguru-blog · 6 years

Photo

New Post has been published on http://www.lifehacker.guru/golden-globes-2018-15-things-know-oprahs-speech-james-francos-weird-win/

Golden Globes 2018: 15 things to know, from Oprah’s speech to James Franco’s weird win

It was a night of passionate speeches, weird wins and lots of commentary about the current culture of Hollywood. Here are 15 things you need to know about Sunday night’s Golden Globe Awards.

1. Seth Meyers’s monologue

The NBC late-night star had a challenging role as host, balancing comedy with the horrific sexual harassment allegations that have been pouring out of Hollywood. So he went after everyone and everything, from Harvey Weinstein (“Don’t worry, he’ll be back in 20 years when he becomes the first person ever booed during the In Memoriam”) to Woody Allen (“When I first heard about a film where a naive young woman falls in love with a disgusting sea monster, I thought, ‘Oh, man, not another Woody Allen movie’”).

2. Oprah Winfrey’s speech

The talk show queen and business mogul won the Cecil B. DeMille Award — essentially a lifetime achievement prize — and delivered a truly stirring address to the audience. (It immediately kicked off some “Oprah for president” memes.)

“A new day is on the horizon,” she said. “And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, are fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say ‘me too’ again.”

3. Natalie Portman’s introduction

Ron Howard and Portman had the unenviable task of following Oprah’s stirring speech as they announced the best director category. Portman didn’t back down from the challenge.

“Here are the all-male nominees,” she said, before they read the names. Indeed, all five nominees were men (Guillermo del Toro won for “The Shape of Water”) — but it still earned some gasps from the crowd.

Natalie Portman and Ron Howard speak onstage during the Golden Globes. (Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal/Getty Images)

4. The mere presence of Oprah

Oprah had the best seat in the house — the chair at the center table in the front of the room — and some winners became a bit frazzled during their acceptance speeches as she was directly in their line of sight.

“Oprah!” Sterling K. Brown (“This Is Us”) boomed at the top of his speech.

“Thank you to Ken and my entire team, to Carol — hi, Oprah,” said Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), interrupting herself.

Rachel Brosnahan accepts the award for best actress in a comedy series or musical for her role in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” (Paul Drinkwater/NBC/AP)

5. Sterling K. Brown’s speech

Brown has spent a lot of time on award-show stages in the last year, thanks to his emotional role on “This Is Us” as a man bonding with his biological father and for his incredible portrayal of prosecutor Chris Darden on “The People v. O.J. Simpson.” As he picked up the trophy for best actor in a TV drama, he proved he’s one of the most inspiring speakers in the game, as he got personal once again:

“Throughout the majority of my career, I’ve benefited from colorblind casting, which means, you know what, ‘Hey, let’s throw a brother in this role, right?’ . . . then [‘This Is Us’ creator] Dan Fogelman, you wrote a role for a black man. Like, that could only be played by a black man,” Brown said. “And so what I appreciate so much about this thing is that I’ve been seen for who I am and being appreciated for who I am. And it makes it that much more difficult to dismiss me or dismiss anybody who looks like me.”

Sterling K. Brown in the press room. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

6. James Franco invited Tommy Wiseau onstage, then shoved him out of the way

“The Disaster Artist’s” Franco won best actor in a comedy for playing noted weirdo filmmaker Wiseau, the brains behind “The Room,” a film known for being “the best worst movie ever.” When Wiseau arrived onstage, he attempted to take the microphone — but Franco cut him off. Sadly, we’ll never know the strangeness that could have taken place.

7. Nicole Kidman’s speech

Similar to the Emmys, Kidman raised awareness of domestic violence when she accepted her prize for best actress in a limited series or TV movie for HBO’s “Big Little Lies.” Her character, a lawyer-turned-housewife, is in an abusive relationship with her husband, played by Alexander Skarsgard.

“This character that I played represents something that is the center of our conversation right now: abuse. I do believe, and I hope, we can elicit change through the stories we tell and the way we tell them. Let’s keep the conversation alive,” she said.

Nicole Kidman accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a limited series or TV movie. (Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal/Getty Images)

8. Allison Janney wore a parrot

In “I, Tonya,” Janney plays LaVona Golden, Tonya Harding’s abusive, chain-smoking mother who has a bird on her shoulder for much of the film. When she arrived to present a clip of “I, Tonya,” nominated for best drama, Janney channeled her character.

9. Kelly Clarkson and Keith Urban sang

The music stars were a bit too excited to be on stage and decided to sing before they announced the winner for best original song. “And the Golden Globe goes to . . .,” they warbled.

“We’ve now officially sung on the Golden Globes!” Clarkson exclaimed.

10. Roseanne Barr and John Goodman reunited

The “Roseanne” co-stars arrived together on the Globes stage to plug the imminent reboot of the hit 1990s sitcom and present the award for best TV drama series.

“I’m known for creating some great drama,” Barr announced.

“Yeah,” Goodman acknowledged. “Not the kind you get awards for.”

Roseanne Barr and John Goodman, presenters at the 75th Golden Globe Awards. (Paul Drinkwater/NBC/Reuters)

11. Wage-gap jokes

While much of the evening focused on the “Me Too” movement and Time’s Up initiative to prevent harassment, there were a few jokes about the notable Hollywood gender wage gap.

“I’m so happy to announce that the winner of this category will also receive the 23 percent of her salary that went missing in the wage gap,” Jessica Chastain said, before announcing the best actress in a motion picture, musical or comedy. “It’s not a problem as we saved so much money kicking people out of Hollywood this year.”

“Thelma & Louise” stars Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis presented the trophy for best actor in a motion picture, drama, and also made some jokes.

“These five nominees have agreed to give half of their salary back so the women can make more than them,” Davis said.

Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon. (Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal/Getty Images)

12. Frances McDormand’s weirdly bleeped speech

The censors got pretty nervous when McDormand accepted the trophy for best actress in a motion picture, drama, for her role in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” She started to thank Fox Searchlight — and was bleeped. (People on Twitter mused if someone thought she said a different word that started with the letter “f.”) Then she said a modified version of a curse word, and the censor cut off her next sentence. Then, the censor kicked into gear once more when McDormand said the phrase “tectonic shift.” No clue about that one.

Frances McDormand. (Paul Drinkwater/NBC/AP)

13. Barbra Streisand’s speech

Streisand arrived to present the last award of the night (best motion picture, drama) to “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Before she announced the winner, she had some things to say.

“I’m very proud to stand in a room with people who speak out against gender inequality, sexual harassment and the pettiness that has poisoned our politics,” she said. “And I’m proud that our industry faced with uncomfortable truths has vowed to change the way we do business. Truth is powerful. And in a really good film, we recognize the truth about ourselves, about others, and it’s so powerful that it can even change people’s minds, touch people’s hearts and ultimately even change society itself.”

14. “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” won best comedy and comedy actress

The Globes voters love to pick a relatively new show that makes the TV viewing audience go “huh?” Sure enough, this year the honor went to Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” about a housewife in the late 1950s who turns to stand-up comedy after she splits with her husband. It won best TV comedy and its star, Rachel Brosnahan, won best actress in a TV comedy. (Disclosure: Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos also owns The Washington Post.)

From left, Marin Hinkle, Michael Zegen, Rachel Brosnahan, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Daniel Palladino and Tony Shalhoub of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)

15. Laura Dern’s speech

In a night of inspirational speeches, Laura Dern’s also stood out as she won best supporting actress in a limited series or TV movie for “Big Little Lies.”

“Many of us were taught not to tattle. It was a culture of silencing and that was normalized. I urge all of us to not only support survivors and bystanders who are brave enough to tell their truth, but to promote restorative justice,” she said. “May we also please protect and employ them. May we teach our children that speaking out without the fear of retribution is our culture’s new North Star.”

(C)

#2018 #golden globes #Lifestyle

0 notes