Catégorie : Feminism

Aveuglée par le temps

The Problem with Everything

I felt confused a lot of the time, dazed by the speed at which the world was moving, simultaneously befuddled by and bored with the digital universe. I felt an ambient intellectual exhaustion pretty much constantly. I woke up feeling hungover even if I’d had no alcohol for days. I felt dizzy while sitting perfectly still. I was often certain that it was one p.m. even it it was six p.m. I felt blindsided by time itself.

Extrait de The Problem with Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars, par Meghan Daum.

À classer dans la catégorie « j’aurais pu l’écrire ». Et pas juste en temps de pandémie.

Femmes, cinéma et critique

La AWFJ – Alliance of Women Film Journalists – décerne chaque année des prix aux meilleurs films de l’année précédente. Comme le rapporte The Hollywood Reporter, cette association a un humour particulier qui se reflète dans le choix de certaines catégories :

-Movie You Wanted To Love But Just Couldn‘t
-Actress Defying Age and Ageism
-Sexist Pig Award
-Most Egregious Age Difference Between The Leading Man and The Love Interest Award
-Best Depiction Of Nudity, Sexuality, or Seduction
-Unforgettable Moment Award

La liste des gens et des films en nomination est ici et les gagnants sont ici.

Le site Web de la AWFJ rapporte aussi les résultats d’une étude démontrant que plus de 70% des critiques de films sont faites par des hommes. L’article se conclut ainsi:

In summary, women are under-employed as reviewers of film in the nation’s 100 largest circulation newspapers. Not only are women outnumbered as film critics, staff writers, other types of critics, and freelancers, women also review fewer films on average than men. In addition, larger proportions of the films reviewed by women are for films with romantic themes, and those with women filmmakers and women protagonists or ensemble casts. However, the actual reviews written by men and women do not differ significantly in their length or nature. Women and men write equally positive and negative reviews and do not become significantly more positive when writing about films with same-sex protagonists or filmmakers.

Overall, these findings suggest that film criticism in this country’s newspapers is largely a male enterprise, echoing the predominance of men working on screen and behind the scenes in the film industry.

Dans la foulée cette semaine de l’annonce faite par le regroupement des Réalisatrices Équitables concernant la publication de l’étude «Encore pionnières – Parcours des réalisatrices québécoises en long métrage fiction», il pourrait être intéressant de faire le même exercice au Québec concernant la critique!

The Women Behind « Mad Men »

Behind the smooth-talking, chain-smoking, misogynist advertising executives on “Mad Men” is a group of women writers, a rarity in Hollywood television. Seven of the nine members of the writing team are women. Women directed five of the 13 episodes in the third season. The writers, led by the show’s creator Matthew Weiner, are drawing on their experiences and perspectives to create the show’s heady mix: a world where the men are in control and the women are more complex than they seem, or than the male characters realize.

According to the Directors Guild of America, the labor union that represents film and television directors, about 13% of its 8,000 directors are female. Women comprised 23% of television writers during the 2007 to 2008 prime-time season, a 12 percentage point decrease from the same period a year earlier. Nearly 80% of TV programs in the 2007 to 2008 prime-time season had no women writers, according to a study by Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University.

From The Wall Street Journal