Notes on Pop Culture: Women Marginalized at the Oscars and in Book Reviews

It wasn't a stellar few days for women in the arts last week. Let me be more specific: It's been a lousy week for female writers and women in the film industry.

Notwithstanding the Oscar that Meryl Streep earned for her depiction of England's first female prime minister -- a standout, bravura performance from the gold standard of acting, as I was bemoaning on Twitter (@MeredithOBrien) the dismally boring Oscar show, I was also keeping tabs on Tweets from the Women's Media Center. Their stream of Tweets reminded me, as I admired the beautiful gowns the women were wearing, of just how cruddy the state of the film industry is for women right now.

When the organization looked at the list of Oscar nominees in non-gender specific categories they discovered:

• There were six categories in which not a single woman was nominated (directing, cinematography, documentary feature, original score, sound editing and visual effects).
• There were five categories with only ONE female nominee (adapted screenplay, sound mixing, animated feature film, foreign language film and original song).
• There were three categories where women outnumbered men (costume design, short subject documentary and art direction).

As each category was featured on the Oscar broadcast, the Women's Media Center published a Tweet reporting the grim Academy Awards stats. By the time The Artist was named best picture at the end of the show, a total of only three women had walked away with Oscars in non-gender specific categories (for art direction, documentary short and live action short film).

I suppose this shouldn't have been surprising in light of the expose that the Los Angeles Times published just before the Oscars in which they uncovered some interesting demographic info about the 5,765 "voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences," a voter list that's, apparently, kept secret. The Times discovered that the voters are 94 percent white, 77 percent male and have an average age of 62. "People younger than 50 constitute just 14 percent of hte membership," the paper said. Men control "90 percent of five branches [of the organization's total 15]" and "women make up 19 percent of the academy's screenwriting branch," 18 percent of the producers and 9 percent of the directors.

A couple of days later, I read a Tweet from bestselling author Jennifer Weiner responding to a new study by a group called Vida, which promotes women in literature. Vida learned that when it comes to women of letters, they're just as overlooked as women in the film industry. Vida examined several marquee publications which review books and broke down what those organizations published in 2011 by way of reviews and author/book mentions. The gender disparity, particularly in publications well known for their political liberalism, was astonishing.

A Streep Fan? Do Yourself a Favor & Check Out Her '60 Minutes' Interview

In anticipation for Meryl Streep’s depiction of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, the much acclaimed actress sat down with 60 Minutes for a down-to-earth interview that made me admire and respect her even more than I already did.

I haven’t always been a Streep fan. For a while, I felt similarly to the same way Jerry Seinfeld did when, in Seinfeld, he maligned Streep for over-acting when he likened Elaine to the actress, at least when it came to Elaine's behavior in the bedroom. But I’ve done a 180 since those dark, anti-Streep days and now see almost everything she’s in, from Mama Mia, The Devil Wears Prada, Prime and It’s Complicated, to Julie & Julia, The Hours, Adaptation and Doubt. (Other older Streep films I've seen include the classic Kramer vs Kramer, The River Wild, The Bridges of Madison County, Death Becomes Her, Defending Your Life, Postcards from the Edge and Heartburn.)

My favorite bit of commentary that she provided in her 60 Minutes interview was her discussion about playing “strong women” in film:

“No one has ever asked an actor, ‘You’re playing a strong-minded man.’ . . . We assume that men are strong-minded or have opinions, but a strong-minded woman is a different animal.”

She also had intriguing things to say about some of the men with whom she’s shared leading roles including Clint Eastwood, Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson.

Meanwhile, I’m antsy to see her take on the powerful Thatcher. I’m even thinking about taking my 13-year-old daughter to see it with me as she's fascinated with the notion of female political power. The movie sounds promising, particularly after reading The Hollywood Reporter's review of the film:

"Playing both the staunch human battleship and the diminished old woman sifting through her past, Meryl Streep is riveting in The Iron Lady. Her physical and verbal mimicry are uncanny, but her embodiment of an indomitable, uniquely British spirit perhaps even more so. The performance provides this engrossing if somewhat deferential biopic of Margaret Thatcher with a richly conflicted center that befits one of the most divisive figures in 20th century politics."

A reviewer from the U.K.'s The Guardian also heaped praised upon Streep -- though he didn't seem as enamoured of the film, writing:

"Yet Streep, it transpires, is the one great weapon of this often silly and suspect picture. Her performance is astonishing and all but flawless; a masterpiece of mimicry which re-imagines Thatcher in all her half-forgotten glory. Streep has the basilisk stare; the tilted, faintly predatory posture. Her delivery, too, is eerily good – a show of demure solicitude, invariably overtaken by steely, wild-eyed stridency."

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Miss Representation' Broke My Heart

Newest Miss Representation Trailer (2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection) from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

I recently saw a screener of the documentary Miss Representation – slated to air on the OWN (Oprah) Network in October and currently being shown in limited screenings around the country -- and it reminded a great deal of a documentary I saw way back in the Stone Ages when I was sitting in a university sociology class as a student watching Dr. Jean Kilbourne’s Still Killing Us Softly documentary (there have since been more versions made) about how advertising depicts women as things, as sexual objects and creates a feeling among women that they can never, ever be good enough to compete with the phony, inhuman versions of femininity peddled by the advertising world that commodifies them and their bodies and debases their intelligence. Later, a UMass-Amherst Communications professor, Sut Jhally produced the first of many documentaries about how music videos transformed women into purely sexual, mindless objects for men to possess, consume and master.

Now, two decades later, these problems that I first pondered as a university student have only worsened.

And along came Miss Representation, the documentary which demonstrates how the degrading, oversexualized, trivializing depiction of women in the media and pop culture affects women and girls, as well as what negative impact the media’s messages have on women’s attempts to climb into the upper echelons of political and business power. From contemporary advertising and reality TV shows making women look like sex on two legs, to the news media’s treatment of women politicians and business leaders, Miss Representation piles example after example on top of each other, creating layers of angst, hatred and marginalization which, when consumed by the female half of the species, does tremendous damage.

An assortment of some of horrifying bits from this documentary:

• 53 percent of 13-year-old girls say they are unhappy with their bodies. When those girls reach age 17, 78 percent are unhappy with them.
• “Girls seen as objects by other people, they learn to see themselves as objects.”
• Seven-year-olds say they want to become president in roughly the same numbers among boys and girls. But by the time they reach age 15, the number of girls who wants to be president drops off precipitously. “Women are discouraged from pursuing ambitious positions.”
• In pop culture, these messages are driven home. Hard. Only 16 percent of protagonists are female. “Mainstream movies are mostly stories about men’s lives.” Of the so-called “chick flicks,” the documentary filmmaker said that many of those movies revolve around a woman getting a man or being taken down a peg, or humiliated in some way.
• On TV and in film, if a woman is depicted as powerful, she’s typically a “bitch” or has sacrificed love and family for her career. One Oscar winning male screenwriter said that woman are portrayed by Hollywood as “cartoons, not complex human beings.”
• When women are “empowered” in pop culture, that generally translates into them flaunting ample skin and body parts, being thoroughly sexed up, in other words, objectified, existing, as one commentator said, “for the male viewer.”
• The people who call the shots in Hollywood in terms of TV and movies are nearly all male, with women comprising a paltry 16 percent of all writers, directors, producers, cinematographers and editors.
• Female TV journalists face pressure to get Botox, wear sexy clothing, lots of makeup and act in a sexual manner, while female politicians face demeaning insults and inquiries about their looks, sexuality, clothing, sexual proclivities, voices, maternity and their hormones. “A woman in power is often seen as a negative thing,” one commentator said.
• While Condoleezza Rice said when she heard people questioning if Hillary Clinton was tough enough to be president in 2008, she thought, “I’ve known plenty of men who weren’t tough enough to be commander in chief, but they weren’t asked that question.” Meanwhile Sarah Palin was “pornified” by the national media in 2008 with some calling her a ditz and one man on a TV talk show saying she’s “masturbation material.” News photographers took photos of members of the audience at Palin’s events as seen through Palin’s legs.
• The average number of news stories about women and girls is less than 20 percent.

This doesn’t seem to end. Just this past week I eviscerated JCPenney’s ill-fated, ragingly sexist T-shirt, aimed at elementary school girls which said, “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.” Though the retailer pulled the shirt off their web site after people protested, in my Mommy Tracked column this week I made the point that things like this only reinforce the assertions made in Miss Representation.

Throw in the fact that I’d recently read an article in the New York Times telling women like me that I should start worrying about getting “cleavage wrinkles,” to my observation that after the Women’s Pro Soccer league had its final in New York and there wasn’t a full news story about the championship in the New York Times Sports section, and to seeing GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann mocked for wearing what one web site felt was “ugly shoes” and it’s enough to really, really make me steamed, frustrated and ready for a change, ready to say, “No mas.”

Meryl Streep as Thatcher in 'Iron Lady' Trailer

Given my previous blog entry about the documentary Miss Representation, which examines how women are depicted in the media and the impact of seeing very few women in leadership positions on the gender composition of our elected leadership, this new "teaser" trailer for the film The Iron Lady, starring the fantastic Meryl Streep is right on the money.

In this short peek, Streep's Margaret Thatcher is being told that her hat, her pearls and her voice are all strikes against her if she were going to seriously run for office. Love her push-back.

‘Miss Representation’ Documentary: I Want to See This Really Badly

Newest Miss Representation Trailer (a 2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection) from on Vimeo.

Not only do I want to see this film, Miss Representation – a 2011 Sundance official film festival selection – because I write and am interested in the intersection of pop culture and politics, but because I’m the mother of an impressionable 12, almost 13-year-old girl who’s soaking all of this in and trying to figure out where she fits in in the world of today’s girls.

As the mother of two boys – one age 12, almost 13, and another almost 10 – I wonder about the messages that they receive about girls’ and women’s roles in the world.

For example, after the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup and there was a celebratory parade in Boston – which my 9-year-old son and my husband attended – my daughter asked me whether there’ve been any parades for female athletes and if not, why not. She’s lived through Boston parades for the Red Sox (twice), the Patriots and the Celtics, all of which we watched on TV or attended.

I had no answer for her, none that would be satisfactory.

Though we’ve all, as a family, been watching the Women’s World Cup games, it’s hard for me to justify or explain to her why the women receive precious little coverage in the sports pages of the newspaper as compared to when the USA men’s team was in contention.

I really want to see this documentary.

'Bridesmaids' -- In Which I Admonish Folks to Go See This Comedy

CliqueClack TV, for which I blog, has launched a new brand, CliqueClack Flicks, featuring commentary about . . . movies.

My first contribution to this new effort was a post in which I make the case that if you’re among those who lament the fact that only 30 percent of speaking roles in movies go to women and that a paltry percentage of films are written by women, then you have no excuse to take a pass on Bridesmaids.

Why should you see it?
1) It’s funny. (I laughed out loud, something I rarely do.)

2) It has Melissa McCarthy (whom I loved as Sookie in the Gilmore Girls).

3) It has heart.

4) It’s smart.

5) Jon Hamm has a small role in it.

So what are you waiting for?