Category: Ms. Magazine
-
Gender Flipping in Hollywood
Originally posted at Ms. It’s no secret that this summer’s movies suck for women. It’s been mentioned on Vulture. NPR did a story about it. The New York Times covered it. Even Fox News ran a piece about it. Yet Jodie Foster has a leading role in the new action movie Elysium. How’d she score…
-
Comic Con 2013: The Women’s Geekiverse
Originally posted at Ms. I grew up in a time and place where it was all well and good for me to be obsessed with The Chronicles of Narnia, but I was not encouraged to read a comic book. I loved watching Batman (yes, the campy one), Superman (in black and white), The Electric Company…
-
Ellen Page and Toni Collette Are Feminists, But Susan Sarandon Is Not?
Originally posted at Ms. This month has been a mixed one for the F word in Hollywood. Just as Ellen Page and Toni Collette showed us what feminists look like, Susan Sarandon baffled many of her women fans by refusing to claim the term. In an interview with The Guardian, Page put it succinctly: How…
-
Where Have you Gone, Sarah Connor?
Originally posted at Ms. and Bitch Flicks. Remember Linda Hamilton (playing Sarah Connor) and her guns in “Terminator 2″? Summer always makes me a bit nostalgic for childhood. I remember fondly the excitement of being out of school, the long days with nothing to do but read and the cool refuge from the hot Texas…
-
The Girl’s Guide to the Hollywood Fringe
Originally posted at Ms. It’s summer, which means elite theater professionals all over America are headed to the country for summer stock. If you can’t make it up into the mountains this summer (or if you can’t afford the expensive tickets to these high-society productions), fear not: Our cities are full of all variety of…
-
Miss Julie and the Timeless Art of Slut-Shaming
Cross posted at Ms. Apparently, some things never get old. Neil LaBute, screenwriter of such movies as a remake of the 1973 film The Wicker Man, about crazy, man-killing witches, has adapted the misogynist classic Miss Julie, written in 1888 by August Strindberg. (If you haven’t heard of Strindberg, think Rush Limbaugh as a 19th-century…
-
The New Evil Dead: A New Lesson in Masculinity. And Oh Yeah, Tree Rape.
Cross posted at Ms. SPOILER ALERT: This post contains major spoilers. Also, TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE. I am not really into gore for gore’s sake: When I go to horror movies, I want to be held in suspense and suddenly surprised, not just grossed out. Luckily for Sam Raimi fans, the new version of the 1981…
-
The Little-Told Story of Elizabeth Keckley and Mary Todd Lincoln
Cross posted at Ms. As the DVD of Spielberg’s latest epic, Lincoln, hit shelves last week, the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. was telling a different Lincoln story: that of Mary Todd Lincoln and her dressmaker, former slave Elizabeth Keckley. Keckley, author of Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty years a Slave, and Four Years in…
-
Dammit Mamet
Warning: This post contains language which may be considered profane, sexist, ironic, feminist and/or totally quotidian. Oh Mamet. Mamet Mamet Mamet Mamet Mamet. Fuuuuucking Mamet.”Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting. In his tail? In his tongue.” Ask almost any theater practitioner what they like about David Mamet and they’ll tell you:…
-
Feminist Face-Off: Beautiful Creatures vs. Twilight
It’s hard not to make the comparison: two supernatural teen romances, both adapted from Young Adult novels, both involving a Romeo and Juliet-like attraction between a human and a superhuman. For feminist spectators, the popularity of such genre films warrants an investigation of their depiction of gender roles. So how do the two films stack…
Holly L. Derr 