Genre: Documentary
Director: Jennifer Siebel Newsom
Rating: 8.5/10
Running Time: 89 minutes
Miss Representation is a documentary about women and their role in the media. It's about how the media portrays powerful women, young girls, and how it changes the way that people treat each other. I really liked how it was put together. The film consists of a lot of interviews, different tv/film clips and small sections that give different statistics/facts.
As you can see from the trailer this film had a really impressive line up of women (and men) who spoke. But ultimately this film worked for me because they obviously wanted young girls to see it.
1. They had teenage girls speak in the film. This broke down the stereotype that young girls don't have any idea what's happening in the world. It really allowed for the audience to see the effects of the ways women are portrayed.
In general I think there needs to be more opportunities for people to see women of all ages working together. I find it really cool that we saw the young girls speak about different issues and then we saw the film back them up with facts.
2. They had music that seemed to be targeted for a younger demographic
When watching things about women's rights/feminism I have just accepted the fact that black women and women of other races are going to be excluded. I expect rap music to linked as root of all evil. And I've stop looking for lesbian inclusion.
So what I loved about this film was that the director really tried to subvert expectations. They had interviews and clips that involved women/girls of a wide range of races. At the end of the film there was a timeline of different events and they included women's of color. While I feel they could have talked about race and sexual orientation more I at least got the feeling that they were trying to be inclusive.
And what really made me love this film was when the narrator said "rap and rock videos."
That alone showed me that this film was aiming to create an entirely new discussion of female representation. And that this discussion wanted to change large forces. I learned the amount of women that were on the board of directors for different media corporations. If I remember correctly Fox has 16 members and only 1 is female.
If you notice. I didn't give this documentary a 10 so I did find some faults.
1. One of the men who spoke said that he thought that female representation in film was almost better when in tv was in black and white. I said it's because it allowed women to be many things. I felt that that was completely wrong. Female representation should mean that all females are represented. That alone nearly erased the films attempt to include women of all races into the mix.
2. There were a few things I wish had been fleshed out. They talked about ways to help change things. One of their suggestions was to talk to your children about what they are watching. I felt like that section when a tiny bit too fast. I tried my hardest to write everything down. There was also a section about men and how sexism effects men/boys. I really felt like this would have been a great chance to talk about men of color. It didn't have to be a huge section but I would have liked a sentence. I feel like men of color are more at risk of being "emotionally constipated" like the film discusses.
3. After talking about the media the film talked about rape and domestic violence statistics. The most shocking for me was that 15% of rape survivors were under 12 years old. I felt that the film should have made a stronger connection between rape and the media. I understood it but I think were was room for people to miss the connection.One more thing, I should probably mention that the woman who directed the first Twilight film spoke in the film. I noticed when exiting the theatre that her inclusion was something that really bothered them about the film. She spoke about how no matter how much money a film by a female director gets someone else will be picked for the sequel. Now, I've never seen Twilight and I've heard awful things about it's effect of women. I felt that she made a good point. In general there were times in this film where the audience was shown clips of "positive" or "good" female representation and I completely disagreed with the clip.
All in all I felt like this was a great film and a wonderful way to start a conversation about the way women should be represented. I think I may make a list of the things I learned from this film in a separate post because I could go forever. I hope that they sell this film on dvd at a price that a college student like me can afford or just so more young women have a chance to see it.
More About The Film
http://www.missrepresentation.org/welcome.html
http://twitter.com/#!/RepresentPledge
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From V for Vendetta: http://youtu.be/z1ikQQk8cJQ
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