Trailblazer Appreciation: Amy Schumer

Ever hear that women can't be funny? Ever hear that women can't be on late night TV? Ever hear that only certain kinds of women can be sexy?

Amy Schumer doesn't give a fuck.

This week the third season of Amy Schumer's sketch-comedy show called Inside Amy Schumer premiered on Comedy Central. Lets be honest, that in itself is an achievement worth celebrating, since the prevailing theory is that women aren't funny. Amy's comedy is provocative and pushes the limit's of what can be shown on TV.

The Inside Amy Schumer premiere included the viral sensation "Milk, Milk, Lemonade" and the epic collaboration of Julia Louie-Dreyfus, Patricia Arquette, and Tina Fey celebrating their "Last Fuckable Day." Her show takes a massive undeniable stand against the physical standards that Hollywood has set for women. A fantastic season opener to a show that often takes a critical eye to the way women are treated in society.

Amy's hilarious comedy also lead her to this year's MTV Movie Awards as the host. Between Shailene Woodley winning literally every award, and buff action movie stars standing in front of pyrotechnics instead of speaking, Amy stood out for her hysterical monologue.

Amy also wrote her first feature film called Trainwreck,  a romantic comedy that she is starring in along with SNL alum Bill Hader. The movie was directed and produced by star maker Judd Apatow. The trailer is up, and with such a funny, talented cast, it looks like it will be a hit this summer.

Are you exhausted yet? You should be. Amy Schumer has been paving the way for women in comedy, and isn't slowing down now. She's been able to take the stereotypes that hold back women, and use them to push herself forward. For her inspiring perseverance and fearless comedy, we are grateful to have such outstanding idol carving her own path. 

In 2014 Women kept disappearing.

If you're not already familiar with the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film from San Diego State University you should be. They do annual reports of the representation of women in front of and behind the camera.

In 2014 among the top 100 grossing movies 
Women represent 12% of the protagonists. The number of women who were represented as major characters and speaking characters were the same as last year,  both figures were about 30%. A staggering 74% of all women characters were white. 

If you further read the study there are interesting statistics regarding the decrease of female characters from their 30's to 40's compared to the increase of male characters in the same age range. There are also statistics regarding the role of women in leadership positions, whether their marital status is known, and whether they were identified via a work related role (ie, doctor, lawyer) vs a personal role (ie, mother, sister.) It's a pretty clear analysis of the ways in which women are marginalized on film.

Their study for the role of women behind the camera looked at the top 250 domestic grossing films in 2014. 
Specifically they looked at the roles of directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers.

"38% of films employed 0 or 1 woman in the roles considered. 23% of films employed 2 women, 29% employed 3 to 5 women, 7% employed 6 to 9 women, and 3% employed 10 to 14 women. In contrast, no films employed 0 or 1 man in the roles considered, and 69% employed 10 to 27 men."

A whopping 93% of films had no female director, and 79% of the films had no female writer.

The figures for women working as cinematographers or composers? Even more depressing.

Women looking to work in these industries should see these figures as empowering. Awareness can change views. These are opportunities for women to break into these new markets. It might be a challenge to find someone out of the ordinary for roles in front of and behind the camera, but we need unique voices to keep movies alive.

Some fantastic films came out this year that told the stories of women, and by women including The Hunger Games, Wild, Maleficent, Selma, Cake, Gone Girl, Camp X Ray, Obvious Child, and more. If you want more films like those, get out there and make those movies.

• It's a Man's (Celluloid) World: On-Screen Representation of Female Characters in 2014
• Celluloid Ceiling: Behind the Scenes Employment in 2014
• The Hollywood Reporter - Major Film Roles for Women drop in 2014

87th Annual Academy Awards - The One Where They Forgot about Women

This week the prestigious annual Oscar nominations were revealed for the 2014 year in film.

In the past, there has been commentary about the quality of roles for women, and the lack of representation for women in the writing and directing categories. The awards have always been drama-heavy, almost creating it's own genre of Christmas released biopics. If we are being honest about what happens behind the curtain, then we can be honest about the way studios intentionally create "Oscar-dramas" then campaign to leverage wins. Thank Harvey Weinstein for that.

Last year was fortunate to have women nominated for writing, and Jennifer Lee won for her role writing and directing the animated feature Frozen. Several of the Best Picture nominees, like Her and Gravity actively featured women. A few years ago Katheryn Bigelow even won for Best Director. Against men! I know, pick your jaw up off the floor.

Unfortunately this year's crop are some of the least diverse awards in years. The writing categories snubbed some of this years talent, like Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, and Ava DuVernay and Paul Webb for Selma. Ava DuVernay was also ignored in the Best Director category. This Martin Luther King Jr. Biopic should be the kind of film the Academy falls in love with, like last year's 12 Years a Slave (Best Picture Winner). Instead the general notion is that Selma was snubbed, only being nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Song. Although not as favorited as Selma, some felt Angelina Jolie was deserving of a Best Director nomination for Unbroken. 

Best Picture

American Sniper

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Boyhood

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Selma

The Theory of Everything

Whiplash

Achievement in Directing

Alejandro G. Inarritu - Birdman

Bennett Miller - Foxcatcher

Morten Tyldum - The Imitation Game

Richard Linklater - Boyhood

Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel

In the Acting categories we saw Jennifer Aniston get overlooked for her groundbreaking role in Cake. She's an actress I often dismiss for the "Rachel" typecast, but Cake turns her into a broken down, suicidal woman dealing with chronic pain. Both Amy Adams for Big Eyes and Emily Blunt for Into The Woods were considered front runners early on that got overlooked. While Julianne Moore and Marion Cotillard gave excellent performances, to be blunt, no one saw them. It's hard to get excited about a movie that didn't even make it to theaters. For a comparison, 4/5 of the Best Actor nominees were from Best Picture nominated movies. 1/5 of the Best Actress nominees were. 

Actress in a leading Role

Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything)

Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night)

Reese Witherspoon (Wild)

Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)

Actress in a Supporting Role

Emma Stone (Birdman)

Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game)

Laura Dern (Wild)

Meryl Streep (Into the Woods)

Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

While Rosamund Pike picked up a Best Actress nom for Gone Girl the film was snubbed in all other categories. Similarly, Wild picked up acting nominations for Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern, but nothing else. Both films should have been contenders for Best Picture. Interestingly, both films were produced by Witherspoon's newly founded production company Pacific Standard. Perhaps the takaway for her is that good movies aren't enough, political lobbying is needed for the win.

Adapted Screenplay

American Sniper (Jason Hall)

The Imitation Game (Graham Moore)

Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)

The Theory of Everything (Anthony McCarten)

Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)

Original Screenplay

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo)

Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

Foxcatcher (E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)

Fempire Movies in 2015

As 2014 comes to a close, we here at Fempire Movie Club have loved seeing the diverse films that have been written and directed by women. Before the New Year hits, we wanted to give you all a sneak peek of what's being released, besides the film we can't get away from, 50 Shades of Grey. Here's a preview of some of the Fempire movies to come in 2015.

Spare Parts 

The real life story of how underprivileged Hispanic students took on a challenging national robotics competition with no experience, and almost no money. George Lopez stars as Fredi Cameron in this heartwarming underdog story. Based on an article first published in Wired Magazine by Joshua Davis, this film is directed by Sean McNamara (Soul Surfer) and was adapted by screenwriter Elissa Matsueda. This is Matsueda's first screenwriting credit, although she first became noticed on the scene for winning screenwriting competitions with her spec script Happy for You.

Release date: January 16th, 2015

The Boy Next Door

 A psychological thriller starring Jennifer Lopez and Ryan Guzman as neighbors who become entangled in a dangerous and sinister relationship. After taking a bit of a break from the big screen, 2015 seems to be the year JLo wants to return in full force, with 3 pictures due to come out. This film was directed by Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious, Alex Cross) 

The Boy Next Door was written by Barbara Curry, one of the most fascinating screenwriters you've never heard of. Although this is her first production credit, her scripts have won many major screenwriting competitions, this script being part of the 2011 Bloodlist. She has a MFA in screenwriting from UCLA, and that's only half her career. For almost 10 years she worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, in the major violent crimes unit. Curry also taught at the U.S. Department of Justice, and at the FBI Headquarters. Needless to say, she's one to watch out for. 

Release Date: January 23rd, 2015

Jupiter Ascending

For some fans, The Wachowski's is enough to put this atop the "Must-See" list for 2015. For others it's Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum. As a self-described "Space Opera" this film is about a young, ordinary girl who's intergalactic fate lies beyond her own planet. The Wachowski's had been on a streak of adaptations, and this marks a return to creating original content with their sci-fi screenplay. 

During the release of 2012's Cloud Atlas, Lana Wachowski made her first press appearance as a transgender woman. This isn't something to be glossed over because as it stands, Lana is the first, and perhaps only, transgender director working in Hollywood. I stand to be corrected, but I believe Jupiter Ascending is the biggest budgeted film ever to be directed by a woman. It's certain to be a big blockbuster for 2015, and is being met with some of the highest expectations for the duo since The Matrix. 

Release Date: February 6th, 2015

Kingsman: The Secret Service 

It's not possible to end a list of films in 2015 without at least one comic book adaptation, and that's what Kingsman: The Secret Service brings to the table. Starring Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, and newcomer Taron Egerton, this British film is being marked as an "action/adventure comedy". If stylistically it looks familiar that's because it's written and directed by long time collaborators Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn. Together they've worked on films like Stardust, Kick Ass, and X-Men First Class. Although it looks a bit like a violent version of Spy-Kids from the trailer, I don't think this is going to be as goofy as it reads on paper. In fact, this is one of my most anticipated films. 

Release Date: February 12th, 2015

Trailblazer Appreciation: Alison Bechdel

We know the name, Bechdel. A word that has taken on so much meaning beyond the surname of an individual. In the media, the word is thrown around with frustration, venom and occasionally as an accusation. In  our blog, The Bechdel test is noted in the sidebar and noted in all our movie reviews.

But who is the Bechdel Test named after?

Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist, originally hailing from Pennsylvania. In her early 20's, Bechdel illustrated a panel comic titled Dykes to Watch Out For. It chronicled characters that reflected on contemporary events and day to day living as a lesbian in the North East. In 2006 she released the graphic Fun Home: a Family Tragicomic. It was received with acclaim and awards, and was adapted into a 2013 off-Broadway musical.

Her claim to fame in the movie industry involves a comic she wrote comic with a cynical commentary about the state of mainstream movies. The two girls go to a movie theater, passing posters for violent action movies featuring buff male stars. One girl says she won't see any film that doesn't pass what becomes known as the Bechdel Test: Having two women in it, who talk to each other, about something besides a man. They leave the theater empty handed.

Despite fighting criticism her whole career, Bechdel created work featuring American counter culture and made smart social commentary. Her works are considered some of the best in gay literature.

In 2014, Alison Bechdel was granted the MacArthur Fellowship Award, otherwise known as the Genius Grant providing her funding to continue her work, no strings attached, for the next 5 years.

For more information on Alison Bechdel, visit her website DykesToWatchOutFor or her Twitter account, found here. A website dedicated to finding movies that pass the Bechdel test can be found here.

What to see this weekend

Do you want to see:

 A female lead or co-lead?
-Very Good Girls (iTunes)
-Begin Again
-They Came Together

-The Fault in Our Stars

-Obvious Child (Limited)

Directed by a woman?
-Very Good Girls (iTunes)
-Obvious Child (Limited)

Written or co-written by a woman?
-Very Good Girls (iTunes)
-Obvious Child (Limited)

What to see this weekend

Do you want to see:

 A female lead?

-The Fault in Our Stars

-Obvious Child (Limited)
-Maleficent

Directed by a woman?
-Obvious Child (Limited)

Written or co-written by a woman?
-Obvious Child (Limited)
-Maleficent

BBC panel shows, no longer a boys club

Many TV watchers might be familiar with panel shows like QI and Have I Got News For You hailing from the BBC. They are monstrously popular shows that appeal to the casual viewer with smart improvised comedy. Hailing from the Great White North, us Canadians get a variety of influences in our media. Hollywood has a powerful influence in representing North America, but we are still under the Queens thumb.

BBC show QI

During one episode of QI the panel was asked "Why aren't there more women on QI?" The answers ranged from the assumption that men are inherently funnier, or the perception that there simply aren't as many female comedians. The answer provided was based on a study that said women laugh more than men, but laugh less at other women.

As Sandy Toksvig noted in that segment, it's rare for a women on a panel show to be sat next to another women. In fact, statically women rarely if ever turn up. One Buzzfeed article that attempted to suss out how many women were in fact represent on panel shows, and the results were quite shocking. Ranging from the least diverse Mock the Week coming in with 87% male panelists, and ranging all the way up to the best show for female representation, 8 Out Of Ten Cats where 66% of the guest panelists were male. At best you could hope to see two men for every woman.

Comedian Jo Brand

But does that mean that setting a requirement for these television programs is the best course of action? For Danny Cohen, the Director of Television at the BBC, he thinks it is. An interview with The Guardian quoted him as saying "We're not going to have panel shows on any more with no women on them. You can't do that. It's not acceptable." a sentiment that stirred a surprising amount of controversy. Television media shapes a great deal of the public's perception on many social issues, and accepting the responsibility of acknowledging gender inequality and taking steps to rectify that is a surprising and encouraging move for the public broadcaster.

The question now is, was that in the best interest for women. Sandy Toksvig suggested that this sort of public outing is not going to help with the marginalization of women's representation on television. She herself is a frequent panelist on many shows including QI as shown earlier. Toksvig argued that there are still issues with the representation of women even if they appear, citing the example that older women are almost never shown on television unlike their male counterparts. Others argue that ensuring women are on panels shows would have been better received more naturally had this new rule from the BBC not been publicly announced.

2013's Whose Line is it Anyway?

Although this news came down back in February, the issue has been discussed for many years. Back in 2009 comedian and frequent panel show guest Jo Brand wrote a scathing column about panel shows and how harsh of a culture it is for women to work in. One common element of all panel shows on BBC is that they feature a comedian host, and in many cases a permanent panel guest. In every case, they are men. Perhaps the place to start featuring more females on panel shows isn't bringing in guests for individual episodes but including women in the cast. Perhaps a female cast member would be an encouraging sign to other women who would otherwise be intimidated by the current male dominated editing.

@Midnight Panelists

This is all British television, so how does this stack up to American television. In the Season 9 revival of Whose Line is it Anyways on The CW, 3 out of the 4 permanent panelists were men, and 2 women appeared as guests 2 times each. Along with the new host Aisha Tyler that brings the representation of women to a round 25%. Comedy Central panel show @Midnight hosted by Chris Hardwick features low occurrences of women. In the 7 seasons of Last Comic Standing there has been 1 female winner, and it happened to be the year the show adopted co-host Fearne Cotton who was the show's only female host in 8 seasons, and the only time the series featured a co-host. Season 8 is currently in it's semi-finals round, and men outnumber women 2-1. That may not be a panel show, but it is a national representation of comedians.

BBC Confirms Plans to Ban All Male Panel Show Line-Ups

BBC Chief: No More Comedy Shows With All Male Panels

Even Less Women Working on Indie Films

Even though Fempire Movie Club has been promoting women's roles behind the camera for a whole 4 months now, it seems we still have an uphill battle.

The biggest and best source of accurate information regarding women in the film and television workplace is The Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film from San Diego State University. For over a decade they have been tracking the jobs women have in the industry. Almost every time you hear about statistics regarding the jobs women get it's usually citing one of their annual reports. In fact, you'll probably read another dozen or so articles using their statistics from us. We think they do fantastic work.

As reported by several media outlets including The Wrap (link below) The Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film released their annual report titled Independent Women: Behind-the-Scenes Employment on Festival Films in 2013-14. The report looks at the representation of women working in key roles in the top 23 film festivals in the USA.

Things are doing ok over all this year (2013-14) with the percentage of women working behind the scenes remaining at 26%, the same as last year. This number has slowly been rising from the 24% in 2008-09, but let's be honest, hovering around the 1/4 mark isn't exactly stellar to begin with.

Since our focus on this blog is particularly on writers and directors, lets analyze those roles.

The overall number of women directors is down from 29%  in 2011-12 to 23% this past year. It's interesting to note that this is a combination of narrative film and documentary film. Women directors have had much more success in documentaries accounting for 39% of docu directors in 2011-12. Shockingly, this year women account for only 28% of docu directors - a major backslide. In narrative film, women directors hold steady at an 18% representation, the same as two years ago. In 2008-09, that figure was 15%. Perhaps this is a slow climb, but it would be nice to see representation of female directors in narrative films push beyond 20%.

As for women writers, this year saw 22% overall, up 3% from 5 years ago but still a small backslide from the 2011-12 figures that showed women writers at 24% overall. Similar to the statistics of women directors, women have typically had better showing in documentaries. Two years ago, women made up 32% of docu writers, this year they only accounted for 23%

Again, similar to women directors, the number of women writers in narrative film has been slowly climbing. This year, women writers held steady at 21%, a slight rise from the 15% that was reported in 2008-09.

It might be worth noting that in all areas, women producers gained a lot of ground. Producers and executive producers are the only areas where women maintained their presence in the indie film industry. Across the board, cinematographers and editors lost ground in representation.

At the end of the day, perhaps a micro view of the film industry year to year isn't a significant source of information. Nit picking year to year may or may not reveal trends. However, it's important to realize that this is 2014 and these are pathetic numbers. Women have been involved in these very key roles behind the scenes in the film industry since the inception of cinema.

This article doesn't examine the top big budget movies, these are the indies. Certainly some of these festivals will host films made and sold to major production companies, but in general, this is where small time movie makers prove their worth. If women aren't picking up jobs here, they aren't going to get them in bigger budget productions down the line. These numbers might be small, but they are huge compared to the number of women doing these jobs for studio productions.

Whatever the barriers are that prevent women from picking up that camera and making their own movies, we need to get past it. If you have a story to tell, tell it. You may never see another women doing the job you do behind the scenes but that's no reason not to do it. Push through and inspire someone else.

The Wrap: Women Directors and Writers Lose Ground in Indie Films as Numbers Decline

Review #20: Divergent

Release Date: March 21, 2014
Writer: Evan Daugherty, Vanessa Taylor, Veronica Roth (novel)
Director: Neil Burger

Logline: In a world divided by factions based on virtues, Tris learns she's Divergent and won't fit in. When she discovers a plot to destroy Divergents, Tris and the mysterious Four must find out what makes Divergents dangerous before it's too late. (Source IMDb)
Action Adventure, 139 min.
Bechdel Test: Passed all three tests.

Review

Remember when Sarah reviewed Frozen and she mentioned that I hate cartoons? I also hate anything set before 1920 or in some kind of utopian futuristic society.  That being said, I surprisingly enjoyed Divergent.

Is it the best movie I've seen this year? No. Would I watch it again? Probably not. But it was good for a it's-Saturday-night-and-I-feel-like-I-should-leave-the-house viewing.  Plus, the main guy is super good looking and there's a multitude of female characters.

The one thing I felt this movie lacked was a genuine development of relationships.  Because it was more plot driven than character driven, I never felt any empathy for the characters.  I didn't feel like rejoicing in the celebrations or crying in the devastations, I just accepted it as it came and that was that.

The characters themselves even seemed to have this same borderline apathetic response to their surrounding situations.  Deaths were barely mourned and friendships were hardly formed. I understand that delving deeper into the emotions of the these relationships and situations would have slowed down the plot but it still means I'll rate this a bit lower than I might have otherwise.

Final thoughts: This isn't the best movie but it's fun and you should probably see it if you want to stay culturally relevant.

PS. I wish more than anything that I had Shailene's hair.

Portrayal of Women: Tris, played by Shailene Woodley, is our heroine who must save herself and her fellow Divergents from being killed. She's brave, confident and kind, but she is also sometimes unsure of herself.  What  I appreciated about her is that she was able to push past her uncertainty due to her own determination to succeed.

She definitely had support from others, but ultimately, she was saving herself instead of waiting for someone else to come to her rescue.  This is especially apparent in her relationship with Four.  They develop more of a partnership as opposed to the classic "guy saves girl" dynamic.

The supporting cast is a good balance of male and female characters.  A woman even gets to be the villain!

Sisterhood Moment: The sisterhood moment I chose is actually the absence of a classic trope. When Tris stays over at Four's and returns the next day wearing his sweater, there is absolutely no teasing or jealousy from the other girls.

I expected the other girls to slut shame her but there was absolutely none of that.  That was an unexpected but welcome surprise.

Rating: 2 pregnant Kate Winslets and a life sized poster of Theo James for my wall

IMDb - Divergent (7.6)
Wikipedia - Divergent
Rotten Tomatoes - Divergent (40%)

Review #18: Somewhere

Somewhere

Release Date: September 3, 2010
Writer: Sofia Coppola
Director: Sofia Coppola

Logline: After withdrawing to the Chateau Marmont, a passionless Hollywood actor reexamines his life when his eleven-year-old daughter surprises him with a visit. (Source IMDB) Drama. 97 min.
Bechdel Test: Passed all three tests. Barely.

Review

I’m generally pretty on board with slow movies where not a lot happens - that’s not the case with Somewhere. It was so slow and so boring that I spent the entire film asking stupid questions to try and distract myself from how much I hated the movie.  Questions such as:

• Why are the synchronized pole dancers not doing a better job at being synchronized
• Why is Johnny Marco obsessed with white Tshirts
• How does this 11 year old kid know how to make eggs benedict??
• Should I be embarrassed that I can’t make eggs benedict?
• Is she ice skating to Gwen Stefani’s “Cool” because the ice rink is cold and she’s trying to be clever - or does she just love this song? 
• Should I pause this movie to youtube that song and also google Gwen Stefani’s life history? That seems like a better way to spend this hour and a half.
• But seriously, how do you make eggs benedict?

Every scene seemed to drag on and on until it was so uncomfortable that I was praying for the next scene to start. Some might say this was brilliantly intentional - it's supposed to show how terrible it is for Johnny to be stuck in the monotony of his awful life.  Others might suggest that since I was bored, I'm not smart enough to really get what Coppola was going for. To those people I would say: #1 I once won a Sudoku solving contest so I'm pretty smart. #2 I don't care if there is insight to be found in each painfully drawn out moment, I hated it anyway.

To be fair, I enjoyed both Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning and their performances were great. There were even some scenes that were funny and others that were perfectly sweet. Unfortunately, the performances and handful of okay scenes were drowned out by the slow pace of the film.

There should’ve been a lot more father/daughter bonding and whole lot less of Johnny silently waiting for his plaster mask mold to set. I loved seeing the two of them watch an old Friends episode while sampling a plethora of gelato flavours.  I loved watching them play Guitar Hero while discussing family stories. I loved how they did the tea party at the bottom of the swimming pool. Why couldn't we just have had a full 97 minutes of that?

Portrayal of Women: Women mostly exist to cater to Johnny.  Wherever he goes, women throw themselves at him and he often takes advantage of this.

His daughter Cleo is smart and vivacious and she really brings a welcome refreshment of joy into Johnny's life. She's the one girl in the film that truly makes his life better instead of just adding to the ongoing misery he is always enduring.

The only reason this film passes the Bechdel is that there is short scene where one of Johnny's hookups has a brief conversation with Cleo over breakfast.  She manages to ask Cleo's age before launching right into a discussion about boys.  So it technically passes, but just barely.

Sisterhood Moment: I guess you could call the synchro pole dancing a sisterhood moment, the dancers were even real sisters - twins actually.  Like I said before, they probably should have practiced a little more before unveiling their big performance.

Rating: Negative 5 bowls of gelato and 1 black Ferrari

IMDb - Somewhere (6.4)
Wikipedia - Somewhere
Rotten Tomatoes - Somewhere (71%)