Tag Archive for "Film"

Posts Tagged Film

The Feministing Five: ManSee Kong

Just last week, family members joined community advocates to rename Elizabeth Street in New York’s Chinatown “Private Danny Chen Way.” As you’ll remember Danny Chen was so horribly hazed through racial epithets from his fellow soldiers that he took his own life in the fall of 2011. His hometown of NYC Chinatown continues to search for justice through traditional organizing as well through the arts.

Filmmaker, community advocate, and activist ManSee Kong uses her craft to document the stories and lives in Chinatown, New York and beyond. From documentaries exposing the rampant gentrification in Chinatown to fictionalized accounts of everyday mother-daughter life, ManSee’s work aspires to “document and tell stories that inspire social change.” Her project ...

By Lori Adelman • 9 years ago

Get free tickets to an advance screening of the abortion-themed indie rom-com Obvious Child!

I’ve been excited about Obvious Child since way back when it was just a short. And I couldn’t be more thrilled that it’s been turned into a full-length feature and is receiving critical acclaim.

As we’ve mentioned on the blog previously, Obvious Child is a huge breath of fresh air. Cultural depictions of abortion are not generally the greatest, often feeding into stigma or myths. Obvious Child provides an honest look of the choices available to women when facing an unplanned pregnancy. That’s why I’m so pumped to hang out with you all IRL and watch it together!

While the movie doesn’t open in select theaters until June 6, you can attend an advance screening of the film ...

I’ve been excited about Obvious Child since way back when it was just a short. And I couldn’t be more thrilled that it’s been turned into a full-length feature and is receiving critical ...

By Syreeta McFadden • 9 years ago

Belle navigates blurred lines of race, gender and class in 18th Century Britain

One might as well begin with this painting.

In this image, we see two women of status, Dido Elizabeth Belle alongside her cousin, white Lady Elizabeth Murray. It is an oil portrait from 1779. I’m no art historian, but I can tell you that the image communicated an intimacy and nod towards an equality in social status that I hadn’t seen in European paintings of dark skinned peoples from the medieval through to the Victorian period. A great Tumblr, People of Color in European Art History has collected a host of images and in most of them, the darker body is subordinate to the lighter body. While Murray assumes considerable real estate in the foreground ...

One might as well begin with this painting.

In this image, we see two women of status, Dido Elizabeth Belle alongside her cousin, white Lady Elizabeth Murray. It is an oil portrait from 1779. I’m no ...

By Juliana Britto Schwartz • 10 years ago

Film: How to Lose Your Virginity

I have a little sister and, like any good feminist, I spend a lot of time making sure that she knows that her worth extends beyond her beauty, her body, and her sexuality. As she is still a teenager, a big topic in her life and that of her peers lately has been virginity. Personally, I don’t think that my sexuality or “virginity” is an object to lose, or give away, and I don’t want her to think that either. That’s why I was so excited to watch How to Lose Your Virginity with her.

In this documentary, filmmaker Therese Shechter uses her own path out of virginity to explore why our sex-crazed society cherishes this so-called precious gift. Along the way, ...

I have a little sister and, like any good feminist, I spend a lot of time making sure that she knows that her worth extends beyond her beauty, her body, and her sexuality. As she is still a ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 10 years ago

Charts: Movies that pass the Bechdel test have a better return on investment

The evidence that movies featuring women being people actually make money keeps rolling in. Here’s the latest data-dive from FiveThirtyEight — they ran the numbers on over 1,500 films released between 1990 and 2013 and found that movies that pass the Bechdel test see a great return on investment at the box office.

By Executive Directors • 10 years ago

Feministing Chat: Why Her is the most feminist film of the year

Ed. note: On paper, a love story between a man and his operating system would seem to have the potential to be a feminist nightmare. Instead, many of the Feministing crew found Spike Jonze’s Her to be the most feminist film of the year. It gets our pick for best picture at the Oscars this weekend.

By Lori Adelman • 10 years ago

Athena Film Festival ticket giveaway: Farah Goes Bang

Update: Congratulations to community member Katie (@tempestoflily) who was first to submit the correct answer! Katie, I’ll be in touch shortly with info on how to claim your free tickets.

Looking for a new favorite filmmaker? For the past two years we’ve been proud to partner with the Athena Film Festival, a four-day festival held annually in New York City at Columbia University featuring films, documentaries, and shorts that highlight women’s leadership in real life and the fictional world.

Update: Congratulations to community member Katie (@tempestoflily) who was first to submit the correct answer! Katie, I’ll be in touch shortly with info on how to claim your free tickets.

Looking for a new favorite filmmaker? ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 10 years ago

A rom com about a woman who gets an abortion is going to Sundance

Regular readers of the blog probably know that the dearth of pop culture depictions of abortion is big cause of mine. Though in recent years there have been some realistic and complex abortion storylines on Friday Night Lights and Grey’s Anatomy, it’s still pretty rare to see a character get an abortion in Hollywood–and often those who do will “pay for [the] choice in some negative way.”

That’s why the short film Obvious Child released in 2009 was such a breath of fresh air. Starring the hilarious Jenny Slate, the rom com set in Brooklyn told the story of a lady who has a one-night stand, discovers she’s pregnant, and gets an abortion. And–shocker of shockers!–she ...